Looking for Additional Writers
Whether you realize it or not, Cache Up NB tries it’s very hardest to bring you at least one new article a week. Sometimes we go over that, but it’s extremely rare we miss our once week deadline. However, with only a few folks around here contributing on a regular basis, sometimes it gets a little thin here for material. I’ll be the first one to admit that not every article I write is the cream of the crop. I’ve had the occasional stinker here and there but no one writes good stuff all the time.
So with that said, I’m putting it back to our readers to see if any of you are interested in writing for us on a semi-regular basis. You may not even realize that along that top menu we have here is a “Submit News” where you can in fact write your own article and have it approved by us and it shows up in our main news feed. We’re always looking for new and interesting material.
Here’s what we go by for general guidelines of posting to our news reel:
- Your story must be related to geocaching in some way
- It cannot be simply a copy and paste of something else you read online. Quoting other articles is fine but submitting someone else’s material as your own is not permitted.
- Anything under 100 words must be submitted as a “Quickie” and will not be published in the main feed
- Articles that are an attack on fellow cachers will not be permitted. Our rule tends to be that if an article is criticizing someone, we will tend to leave specific names out. However, if it is praise of another cacher, we have no issues using their name.
- This does not mean you cannot write about a controversial subject. We welcome topics that spur healthy debate and discussion without attacking other users.
- Is something of interest to geocachers in New Brunswick. If you think the locals would be interested, write about it.
For anyone who wants to submit their own stories, please use the submit link and write your articles. If you choose to submit on a regular basis, and your material is decent enough, you can become a regular writer. So come on, tell us your stories and send them along to be published.
It is natural to have lulls in stories and comments at most sites. Many of the regular discussions have been brought up and hashed over a few times and there are only so many things to talk about with such a specific website. It is nice to have stuff to read and comment on but it is just a slow period both here and on the facebook pages as well. It will pick up again I am sure, maybe this weeks podcast will spark some discussion, I will try to say something controversial to get people riled up 😉
REV said
It is natural to have lulls in stories and comments at most sites. Many of the regular discussions have been brought up and hashed over a few times and there are only so many things to talk about with such a specific website. It is nice to have stuff to read and comment on but it is just a slow period both here and on the facebook pages as well. It will pick up again I am sure, maybe this weeks podcast will spark some discussion, I will try to say something controversial to get people riled up 😉
And PA said
So it is business as usual
For me, it’s a bit more complicated than just saying there are low periods.
From the day I started Cache Up NB, I made a clear commitment to insuring that we had new content on here at least once a week. Regardless of “low” periods of any website, the best way to keep folks engaged and wanting to participate is to provide new content.
Yes, there are a lot of topics that get rehashed from time to time, but if we had more people willing to contribute to the main reel of news, we’d have more points of view, and other stories to tell.
Whether it’s an opinion piece on a particular aspect of geocaching, or simply a really cool story about a caching adventure, it’s nice to have a variety of material.
I don’t think that its only news that is missing. There are very few comments to the items that are posted. If you agree or disagree or have an opinion about something that is posted, why not place a comment.
Also when you go to forums, you can see how many people have read a thread and you see how interested people are in an item, even if there are few replies. Here there is no count of hits on an article so writers would not know if they are writing things of interest. No comments on a item would perhaps give a negative impression
PAul
Depends on the forum. Not all forums have read count but you do make an interesting point.
The problem is that anything we would use to analyze how many times an article has been read would likely be subject to inaccurate numbers because of bots/spiders that read pages.
Your idea however has got me looking into a way to incorporate the count into what we have now.
I may be up for submitting an article or two once I move out west.