editorblog

Redesign Preview

2008-06-27T18:21:19Z

In our ongoing effort to make Topix better and easier to use, we're introducing a few updates to the site. Below I'll outline some of the major visual and structural changes that you, as regular users, will notice. The "hat" Overall, we've compressed and simplified the hat (the top part of every page that includes search, navigation, logo, etc). We also made a concentrated effort to improve the navigation, which is no small task considering we've got over 450,000 topics. 1. Promo bubble We'll use this area to introduce and promote new features, as well as provide links to helpful information for Topix newbies. 2. Change city button An easy-to-find widget that allows users to change the location for their local news. 3. Navigation The top layer (in dark blue) is the general site-wide navigation, and the lower level (in light blue) shows the sections within that topic. So, for example, in this illustration, our top-level topic is "Palo Alto" and the sub-sections for it are Forums, News, NewsWire, Yellow Pages, Jobs, etc. 4. Editor button A new position for the Editor button. 5. Other Topics In addition to the general site-wide navigation, we're adding a drop-menu to called "Other Topics." We're going to use this menu to showcase more popular topics, as well as a dynamic list of the last 10 topics you visit on the site. 6. Browse/Search A more prominent display and position for our Spotlight (browse)/search widget. 7. Sign In/Sign Out/User Info New position for User info

The body While most of our pages (Forums, Detail pages, NewsWire, etc.) have not changed in this redesign, we have upgraded the news pages to take advantage of a three equal column layout. Below are the highlights. 1. Section Title Centered and with a little more white-space around it to make it easier for users to know what topic they're on. 2. More news We've upped the count from 10 to 20 news stories on the News page. 3. New ad position We gotta keep paying the bills... 4. Upgraded Forum Widget A more prominent placement for the forum widget. Top-center, and now with double (10 instead of 5) threads showing. 5. Photo widget If you're on a local news topic (Palo Alto, CA, for example) we're highlighting our new user uploaded photos. On other non-local topics, we're showcasing a nifty new photo slideshow widget that dynamically pulls in related photos. The rest of the page widgets (polls, weather, etc.) are still on the page.

NEW! Also on Topix We're adding a new feature to all our topic pages, the "Also on Topics" block. The idea is that from any news page, you can get a glimpse of what's going on across the entire site in a quick, easy-to-browse view. Below are the highlights. 1. Site mini-navigation Quick links to the most popular topics on the site. 2. The Skybox We love this feature. And so do a lot of you. So, as we were working on compressing the "hat," we realized that we just couldn't remove the Skybox. Instead, we're keeping it alive in the "Also on Topix" block, to show you the biggest stories in the news right now. 3. Recent Forum Discussions The top ten most popular discussions across the entire site. 4. Video Video news is becoming one of our more popular topics, so we're adding a new widget with links to our latest video clips. 5. Topix Extras Not necessarily the news, but more about Topix, including our blog and our growing community of users and editors. Look for a link to the new Topix store coming soon. 6. News Trends The topics getting the most attention by our users at that moment. 7. Most Popular The 20 most popular stories on Topics.

That covers the majority of the upgrades in this redesign. As always, your input is a huge factor in helping us determine the changes we make here at Topix ... so keep those suggestions coming.

Adding Some Local Color...

2008-05-30T20:31:55Z

You might have seen something new on the news and forum pages in the last couple days.

That's right, Topix has added photo albums to our local news pages. Users can now fill the albums for their town with all the sights that make your hometown feel like home. Of course, the judge it feature is right there with new choices customized just for photos. Go check it out! Look for the widget below on your local pages.

Now that you have the means, we want to see you! Show us where the news happens.

Do You Twitter?

2008-04-18T21:25:59Z

You may already be familiar with Twitter, a site for what may best be described as microblogging, sending out snippets of information or conversation in 140 characters or less. We've got some big fans of Twitter in our office, myself included. You can use it to keep up with friends or colleagues, but what's really cool is that there are news outlets on Twitter that you can follow to receive breaking news as well. I follow several of them, and use them to keep me up to date on what might be missing from some of our headlines on Topix. Starting now, however, you can follow Topix on Twitter. Eureka! All of our top news nodes, including Sports, Video, World News, US News, Offbeat, Science /Tech, 2008 Election, Popular News, Top Stories and Entertainment now have Twitter feeds. In Addition, you can follow the MLB, NHL, NBA and NFL. Wait...you can ALSO follow news from Austin, San Francisco, San Jose, New York City, Raleigh, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville or Boston. If you happen to root for the Orlando Magic or San Jose Sharks, those news feeds are on Twitter too. This is a great way to keep track of breaking news for your edited page or for others of interest. If there are news nodes you would like to see on Twitter, leave them here in the comments and we can hook you up. In the meantime, check these out and give us a follow!

Topix Editor Spotlight: TrilbyKat

2008-04-11T17:51:17Z

It has been a while since we've done a spotlight on one of our editors, so we've got a truly exemplary editor to spotlight today. What do you get when you combine a very active forum poster with cats and plop them down into a tiny town in Oregon? You get TrilbyKat. We've been watching TrilbyKat for a while. She edits up a storm and is a great (and prolific!) presence in the Topix community. Let's see what she has to say. Why did you want to become a Topix editor? I was enjoying the interaction on my favorite forums and wanted to become more involved. I first applied to be the editor for my (very) small town and then The Cat News. It’s really satisfying, so I’m glad that I did it. Where else do you find articles, outside of Topix? I peruse local news outlets, as well as county and state websites to find stories that are pertinent to my town. I also check recreation, visitor information and local agency’s websites (such as Fire & Rescue) for news. Sometimes I will write a story myself. For the Cat News, I have a newsreader and a long list of cat’s sites that I check in with. (editor's note: This is a great idea. If you don't use an rss reader, it is definitely worth checking out. We'll talk about the basics of rss feeds and feed readers on an upcoming post.) What are some editing pitfalls you've learned to avoid? Having to re-edit a story because of a bad headline, summary or other error. The Preview window is invaluable. What is your prior editing and writing experience? I’ve done some writing for various projects including plays, songwriting, puppet shows, press releases, newsletters and children’s stories. I am currently working on curriculum for preschoolers. Topix has provided my first editing experience. What question would you like to ask other Topix editors? Do you think that the new judging option will make your job easier, since users now have a way to vent their frustrations at posters they disagree with? Are there any newspages not currently on Topix that you'd like to see? We absolutely need a page on Antidisestablishmentarianism, don’t you think? Okay, I was just kidding. What other user-edited pages on Topix would you recommend? My hands down favorite page is Science/Technology. Offbeat is fun, too. You never know what you’ll find there. What is your most memorable editing experience on Topix? Big story? Reader response? This is it, no doubt! What an honor. Thank you. Are there any other user editors you'd like to promote? Cash and Iria both make all their pages outstanding. Their personal blogs are also immensely entertaining. In addition, Topix Ed is doing a great job on the Topix Editor News page and throughout Topix. What other internet sites do you visit regularly? I post a monthly blog on Blogger, and check in on BlogCatalog, MySpace and Yahoo! Answers occasionally. What advice would you give to other editors in making a great page? Pictures really make a page pop. What question do you wish we'd asked you? Would you buy stock in Topix? The answer is, “Yes. It’s the greatest thing since cheese was invented.” I’m a big fan of cheese. We're big fans of cheese too. :)

Here Comes the Judge

2008-04-03T22:59:51Z

We've talked for a long time around the office about ways to make the forums more interactive, and last week we launched a new feature that does just that. More fun than a barrel of monkeys, more addicting than mom's mac and cheese, I bring you "Judge it!". Clicking on the Judge it! link in the header of any post will give you a list of adjectives to choose from, each with their own fancy icon. You can select up to three descriptors for each post, but be warned, the robots are savvy. You can not click two contradicting adjectives for one post. In other words, you can't judge something "brilliant" and "clueless" at the same time. We've had over 250,000 posts judged in just the first few days and we're showing no signs of slowing. One side effect you might notice in more heated discussions is that the addition of these fun little icons on a post can have quite a disarming effect to the reader. This isn't to say that posters shouldn't treat each other with respect and mind their manners, but it is hard to let even very controversial posts get under your skin when you see a cartoon peanut at the top of them, don't you think? Technically, the forums don't fall under editorship at this stage, but many of our editors are very active in the forums, so I'm sure you guys have something to say about this. P.S. Feel free to mark all my posts as Brilliant.

10 Commandments of Photos

2008-03-19T23:12:44Z

One of the easiest and best ways to format your news stories to stun is to include photos. I know this can sometimes make editors nervous because they are worried about legal restrictions with regard to use of photos or to taking photos at public events. Someone on our team pointed me to this awesome guide to Photography and the Law at Photojojo.com. There is some GREAT information here. I know I learned a few things. Let's see some photos!

Look Who's Talking!

2008-03-14T17:20:30Z

There was a little treat for you editors in the site update that went out yesterday. Those of you who are active in the forums are probably already familiar with the reply tracker in the header of your Topix page. It looks a little something like this: Starting now, that reply tracker will show you not only the new activity on threads where you have posted a comment, but also the comments on any news stories that you have posted to your news page. Let's say that again. You can now keep track of all the comments that your news stories generate. How cool is that? And with that, a whole new level of competition unfolds and new questions arise. How can you choose stories that engage my audience? Keeping track of the activity on different types of articles you post will give you a pretty good idea of what your readers are interested in. How many comments do your stories generate?

The "Title Search" Trick

2008-03-05T17:50:47Z

If you edit a small town's news page, you are probably no stranger to the issue of having to scour the web for news about your town. For smaller locations, there are not always a lot of sources covering your area, and finding current news can be a bit challenging. The Topix wire is there to help, of course, but as smart as our systems are, they don't catch everything. There is a handy trick you can use when your wire just isn't cutting it. Below, is a snap of the wire for a tiny town called Willow Glen that was incorporated into San Jose, CA about a million years ago, give or take. At this moment, the wire for Willow Glen looks like this: As you can see, there is some content in the wire, but not much. We're showing about 60 results in the Willow Glen wire. There MUST be more happening in this tiny burg, right? There is! By doing a title search on any Topix page like this: You get significantly more results, almost twice as many in this case. This search will show you all of the content that has the phrase you searched for in the title of the article. Not all of these articles will end up in your wire, but many probably should. (Mental note: Humans ARE better than robots.) If you are having a tough time finding the content you need in the wire, try this search on Topix and see what else turns up. The results may surprise you.

Vote for Topix

2008-02-27T05:33:24Z

We interrupt this blog for an unabashed solicitation from our Editors. We realize that this is primary season. You may have already had your day at the polls, or maybe your day is coming, but this is America. Any chance to vote is a GOOD chance to vote. As it happens, Topix is a finalist for CNET's Webware 100 Awards. How about throwing one of those spare votes you have laying around our way? We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog.

Before and After

2008-02-22T21:02:04Z

Who doesn't love a good makeover? There is a reason that television shows centering around makeovers and transformations are so popular. We love to see the ugly duckling bloom into the beautiful swan. Editing Topix pages is like your own internet mini makeover. A page without an Editor is pretty cool, but as savvy and hardworking as Roboblogger might be, he's no replacement for the magic touch of a human Editor. You guys are the ones that turn a ho-hum page into something to be proud of.

I present to you, a post by our own Roboblogger. This one happens to be on our Beekeeping page, but it could be anywhere.

Case study #1: Before As you can see, the story is kind of a fun one, but looks pretty dry. There is nothing fancy here to grab your eye at all. If only we could edit it. WAIT! WE CAN! Case study #2: After With a little makeover magic, we get a very different look and feel for the post, and one that adds much more interest to the page. The change took all of five minutes. The title has been jazzed up a little to add some zest and shorten it for the sake of the page layout. A quote from the article has been pulled out and placed in the summary using the quote editor tool. Finally, a search on Flickr for a photo of a bee covered in pollen yields this little beauty, which is used under Creative Commons license and attributed to the original photographer with a link at the end of the summary. Nice, huh? Now, you may not have been aware that you can edit Roboblogger posts, but you sure can. Have you ever gone to your page to post a story and didn't because Roboblogger had already been there? Chances are, even if he posted the story, it looks more like a "before" picture. You can do better, so feel free to give him a hand and edit his post. Many editors go this extra mile already, but if you haven't delved deeper into the editing tools yet, there is no time like the present.

Something New in the Wire

2008-02-20T19:14:18Z

At the end of last week, we launched a nifty new addition to your wire results. Some of you have probably already noticed, but in case you haven't, allow me to be the first to tell you. There are now video results in your news wire. That's right, I said VIDEO. Depending on how much is available for the page you are editing, you will see less or more of this in the wire, but there is a handy way to refine your results to show only video. In the wire search box, type: cat:/news/video-feeds This search will come in really handy for those of you with fast moving wire pages. At the moment, we are not equipped for editors to upload their own video, but we'd love to explore that a little more down the line. For now, let's see some news pages pop with this new toy. When you use it, link us up in the comments to give other Editors some examples...and competition.

New News at Your Request

2008-02-12T22:25:36Z

We're rolling out even more Newspages as we speak. Thanks to the hard work and toil of our engineer tasked with news node creation, we are flush with new possibilities. These nodes are brand spanking new and have no editors, so if they strike your fancy, apply to edit! On the health news front, we have a new node devoted to fibromyalgia at the request of a fellow Topix user, though our feedback form. One of our extremely prolific forum users suggested a page for Dario Franchitti. Along with that, we've added a bunch of new Nascar driver newspages, like Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Carpentier. If YOU have a news page you think we are missing or (even better) you want to edit, fire off an email to our team at topixadmin (at) topix.com OR use this feedback link.

Topix Editor Spotlight: Stargazer1

2008-02-11T21:31:00Z

Today we spotlight Stargazer1, editor for three Chicago suburbs, Plainfield, IL, Romeoville, IL and Lockport, IL. She's a great example of a Topix Editor that is also active in the forums associated with her pages. She's got some great tips, guys. Enjoy! Why did you want to become a Topix editor? I have been active with online forums and message boards since the mid 90’s when I got my first “Internet capable” computer. I was on a bulletin board that was sponsored by a local newspaper and was the moderator of a forum, and also participated in a forum for and about poetry and poets. I am a news buff and have been writing since I was in high school. Where else do you find articles, outside of Topix? I subscribe to several electronic versions of technical publications, professional publications and local newspapers that don’t always show up in the Wire. The local news channels also have web sites that I utilize for news stories and information that I think would be interesting to discuss. What are some editing pitfalls you've learned to avoid? Well, the new feature that dims out the stories that have already been posted to the news helps prevent duplicates. Another tip I picked up from one of the other editors that was featured is to post the most important story of the day last so that it appears at the top. One thing I discovered on my own was that when posting a story from the web, it is helpful to edit the title to take out any excess information about the location it was from, such as the web address. This is redundant information since it usually appears in the body of the article or at the end. The title should be the main focus of attention. What is your prior editing and writing experience? I was a moderator for a local bbs forum that was sponsored by a local newspaper, for other users of the bbs to submit recipes and cooking tips to for publication. I wrote my first poem in 6th grade, and when I got to high school, I took Journalism. I was bitten by the writing bug! I became a contributor to my high school newspaper, and had several articles and short stories published. I have had 3 poems published already, and participate in an online poet’s community where you submit your writing, whether poetry, short story, haiku, etc, and others can comment and give criticism. I didn’t get started on the blogging scene until about 2 years ago and don’t really do too much in that area. But I do have a few stories started, mostly fiction, and a few non-fiction. I have been encouraged by writing instructors to submit my stories for publication, and I’m considering that option but haven’t followed through yet. What question would you like to ask other Topix editors? How do you get your readers interested in posting comments to a new story if you don’t understand or have a great interest in it yourself? I try to stimulate exchange, but if it’s a subject that I am not familiar with or don’t have an opinion on, I have a hard time getting it going. What do you do when you are not on Topix? I work full-time, take care of my home, and dabble in the online auction scene. I just completed school in December, receiving my Associates Degree in Microcomputers for Business and I am considering returning to school in the Spring to complete my Accounting studies. In the summer I have my garden to tend to and of course the birds that frequent my backyard feeders. My husband and I got started with Ebay about 4 years ago and in the warm seasons we frequent yard sales and flea markets, and also attend many auctions in the area looking for treasures. What is your editing environment like? Do you post from work or home? Snacks, routine, etc? I usually post from home, sometimes in the morning, but usually in the evening. My environment consists of my office, that I share with my husband and son; and my cat, who likes to lay on the desk right next to my hand. I always have my coffee, no matter where I am posting from. When they make a waterproof laptop computer, I will probably start posting from the hottub! What other internet sites do you visit regularly? I regularly check out the local newspapers online and also local news programs. I also go to Urbis.com, a writers’ community, and communicate with distant family on myspace. What advice would you give to other editors in making a great page? Read the forums and learn what the readers are talking about. Then try to tailor the articles you post to their interests. One of the things we like the most about your participation is you seem really able to focus on keeping local news pages truly local. What advice do you have for other local editors? I use Google to find stories for my towns, by searching on the city and state, followed by the word “news”. It usually brings up quite a few sites that have news about my towns, and many times they are publications that are not local and have a different perspective on things. Makes it interesting to see how people looking in from the outside view our towns. You are also a prolific forum user. How does that affect your editing? How have you used that to your advantage? I see what news items get reactions. Then I try to find similar types of articles on the web, sometimes locating a news story about someone local that has been in the news in other areas, such as a college student or a former resident that has moved to a new area. Many times when an article is written about someone, especially a student or a professional person, their hometown or former residence is mentioned. When I post a news story, I try to find something to add in the form of a comment to get the ball rolling. What question do you wish we'd asked you? “How much should an Editor be expected to contribute to the forums in the way of time and participation?” I think that if someone is an Editor, they should at least spend some time reviewing the stories on the Wire and putting the ones that show the most potential for interest at the top of the News page. I have been to many, many forum pages that have editors, some as many as 20, and all the news stories were posted by Roboblogger. It makes me wonder if there aren’t forum users that only want that “badge” on their profile without actually doing what that honor enables them to do. An Editor can do more than post the stories that the crawl finds. An Editor can also take tips from other users, post stories that are found on the web from other sources, and can also write their own stories and post them just as if they were from one of the many sources that the other news comes from. It’s a great opportunity for someone who is creative and likes to write.

Calling All Cars

2008-02-07T21:40:18Z

We've got a major publication writing a piece about Topix, and guess who they want to talk to. YOU. We're looking for a couple Editors that work on local pages (as opposed to topic-driven pages) that might be interested in speaking with some journalists about their experiences editing on Topix. If you fit the bill, give us a shout. Fire off an email to editor (at) topix.com and include your name, page(s) you edit, contact information and the best times to reach you. Let the deluge begin!

By Popular Demand...

2008-02-07T19:33:53Z

Topix Editors asked repeatedly for a discussion space and it has arrived. We have created a new playground for editors. Your cruise director, Topix Ed, is there waiting to chat about any questions you have or any suggestions you would like to make about the editing platform. He's all ears. Actually, he's no ears, but he's got a clipboard and a pencil.

Feel free to jump into the existing threads and start threads of your own. I like to think of this new news page and forum as a kind of "Editor University" where we can all learn from each other. Many of our seasoned editors have some spiffy ideas on editing and we've got brand new Editors coming on board every day. Our hope is that by putting you all together in this virtual mosh pit, you can gain a sense of community among yourselves and build upon your already overflowing pool of talent. Let's face it, this is a news community. We like to talk here. We live to talk here. Let's have at it.