Im wondering how many applications have looked at , just out of curiosity . To me its seams like there arent many as the job hasnt been filled
Lately, we have had very, very few applications. You'll notice that many worlds are still empty. The blogging job is only appealing to a select few it seems. You'll notice that of all the posters in this forum, only Blue has expressed an interest in actually taking the job himself.
But if they get paid with TW-money (PP), surely there's a 'duty' involved? Fact is that there are a lot of people willing to put out blogs (or temporary blogs), but these resources are barely utilised. Lots of people willing to blog, very little turnover.
We are paid every month, but only for the work we do. A blogger only gets his/her premium if they post blogs, and one who posts four blogs will get paid more than one who only posts one. If someone doesn't blog, they don't get paid. Simple as that. And I see very few people willing to blog.
Truthfully, most of the time the blog-staff seems like this tight-knit and closed community. Like a walled sub-urb in Latin America. There is almost zero transparency, there seem to be very few guidelines for bloggers (leading to the belief that if you're part of the clique, anything can be excused) or blog staff, and recruitment seems to be completely random. I've seen 14 year olds being accepted with less writing talent than some members of this community have in their tiny toe, in a manner of speaking.
It doesn't help that blog and moderator staff tend to come out in force when bloggers are questioned, either. :icon_wink:
We abide by the same rules as any other TribalWars player, and in fact, we abide by them more strictly, as our positions on the staff put us in the spotlight. We've fired bloggers immediately for breaching those rules, so the fact that you accuse us of letting our members get away with things is downright insulting.
And like I said before, when hiring, all we have to go on is initial impression. Remember those kids in school who never did any homework yet managed to perform very well on the tests and pass anyways? When forced to focus, some people can do very well but slack off when they don't feel the pressure.
Ex-blogger here.
There's a problem on this site with bloggers, moderators etc. becoming unreliable, as they are all essentially volunteer roles. It is rarely their fault. People prioritise this game below other things in life (exams, love, work, health), and who can blame them?
Furthermore, this isn't a problem that is going to go away. It seems to me a different approach to taking people onto the blog team is required.
I'd like to suggest:
- Taking on multiple bloggers for new worlds, to give it better coverage.
- A better system for applications (reviewing applications faster, or in some cases, at all*), and less rigorous entry requirements - why not let anyone have a go?
- Allowing people to write skewed blogs (favouring tribes). Appealing for journalistic honesty would be less important with multiple bloggers from different tribal backgrounds. Nothing will attract more readers and writers like some controversy!
- Greater delegation within the blogging team, if it didn't happen already. Consider a tribe with only one duke - when s/he goes off for a month, everything is going to fail and fail hard.
* - I have read further up that all applications are replied to. I can confirm that unless things changed within the past few months that this is not the case. ^^;
Again, like I said, if people fill out a proper application, they will get a response. If you post a message saying "I'd like to blog World X" it's going to be deleted and you won't get a response.
Scrappy is there a reason you're being argumentative besides the fact that you just enjoy being argumentative?:icon_confused:
In such cases, wouldn't you deem is reasonable to fill their spot temporarily with a "temp blogger" per say? Then if that person does not return they can be fired and the temp blogger can then be promoted to full time world blogger. If that person does return then the temp blogger could either bow out and be much appreciated for the hard work or the temp blogger and the official blogger could then work side by side as it would make both of their jobs easier as they'd only have to handle half the workload. Or someone could be an interviewer and someone could be the map generator/updater, etc, etc... The ideas and possibilities are really endless.
I guess then the complication is the PP(if it is true for that matter). Guess if they both agree upon the idea they can split the PP and work together. But then again all that would have to be done in private.
What I'm getting it is there should be some kind of contingency plan for if a blogger just ups and disappears, no?
There is, and what you suggest has actually been done. Multiple times. We've had temporary bloggers before. Some are bloggers who post a few blogs for a second world. Others are normal players who submit a few blogs to Jehosophat and get them posted through her. In this case though, no one has contacted has tried contacting the staff about this issue. A friend of mine had to message me to let me know people were posting here with complaints. If you don't come to the people who can fix the problems, they won't get resolved. In regards to all the forum posts, there's only a bare handful of us bloggers. We simply can not keep up with everything on our own, so if you want things fixed, you need to work with us.
Bloggers should blog because they enjoy blogging. In my opinion I don't think a blogger should be told they get PP however, an added bonus once they do such a good job as a "reward" or "extra incentive", PP should be given.
I think every last blogger on the team blogs because they enjoy doing it and the fact that they are paid PP is an extra incentive. I believe that what bloggers get paid relative to the amount of work that goes into a quality blog is very low.
@Blue - I'm still waiting for you to tell me who you originally contacted about the blog. If you truly did and the person didn't make the issue known, I can't fix the problem if I don't know the source of the issue.
