News / NE News Autumn/Fall 2016 - Changes are coming!

New Element News - Autumn/Fall 2016

Hello all! We have a lot of things we wish to discuss and inform. Big news, small news, and news that kinda falls inbetween.

Staff Changes

Life doesn't always go as expected. Sometimes things work out in your favour, sometimes they don't. You all may have noticed that the staff as a whole had been struggling to keep up with the site during the past year, for which life is reponsible. While for Liampie things have been relatively quiet and according to plan, inthemanual and myself have been quite inactive in our responsibilities. Luckily for me things have turned around, I have more time and have my passion for NE back, and despite almost quitting the staff earlier this year, I've found the motivation that makes me want to be fully on board with the admin team again, as opposed to sitting on the sidelines and leaving the others to do the work. On the other hand, the situation for inthemanual is sadly not going to change anytime soon, and it is with regret that we have to say goodbye to him. We thank him for all he has done for the site during the last two years, and we hope to keep seeing him around the site.

 

 

Staff Additions

With the loss of inthemanual from the admin team, Liam and I both feel that we could do with having an extra hand, especially for when situations in life leave just 1 functioning admin. In this case, we are not recruiting a fully fledged admin, we are just looking for someone to help us manage the site, an Admin Assistant if you like. The main responsibilities would be to be active on the forums, approve parks, complete maps, manage tags, deleting double posts, social media posting, regularly communicating with us and sharing feedback and having discussions as we develop the site into being more open and community driven. The position is open to anyone, new or old, we just need someone with passion for the site that is willing to help out. Eventually the job may lead to a full Admin position, but no guarentees. Get in contact with us if you are willing to help!

 

 

The Accolade Panel

The current group of panelists are not 100% active anymore, so we're looking to recruit a few more new panelists while we figure out who we are kicking out from the current group. Sign up here. Aside from voting on new submissions, you are also expected to review parks with text every now and then. Being able to open LL is always a big plus, and willingness to judge pre-panel parks is also appreciated.

 

 

Olympics wrap-up

Let us, fashionable late, formally end the NE Olympics 2016 by celebrating and evaluating the contest. Vote on your favourite contest entries, rounds and teams, and also please share your thoughts on the experimental contest format.

 

 

#flashbackfriday

It has been a consistent feature on the site for a while now and it is time to develop the idea a little further and make it a bit more open to the community. The official #flashbackfriday account has been managed by Liampie alone, and while he did his best to cater to different audiences, it is still a one-sided view of the history of the site. Therefore, from now on, anyone can submit screenshots to be posted by the #flashbackfriday account. Simply send your screenshots to the #flashbackfriday account, with a description/personal reflection if you like. There are a few rules:

- Screenshots should be at least 800x600, and 1280x1024 at most.
- RCT interface (buttons, cursor, in game windows) shouldn't be visible
- Screenshots must be of good quality; no JPEG quality or reduced colours
- (Main) Creator of a screenshot must have been inactive for a while, unlikely to post the screenshots himself
- Because the screenshots will end up as gallery screens for the released parks, a number of four screenshots per park is preferable. For smaller parks and designs this is not feasible, so the minimum is set at 2. The maximum is 4.

The submitted screenshots will not be posted on the next Friday immediately, but will go in a pool of screenshots that Liampie will draw from. Once a screenshot goes in the pool, it is guaranteed to be posted at some point. What screenshots will be selected each week depends on supply, demand, how the screens possibly tie in to events occuring in the community or the world, variety on the front page, and factors like that.

 

 

That's all!

NE6 anyone? Seriously though, these are some nice changes.

Thanks for everything, Manual! It's been a pleasure to work with you.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop. Too bad about itm, but his work on the site has been greatly appreciated! I'm sure you'll choose an assistant that will be of great use to the admins.

Thank you guys for all that you do. Your dedication to the site and community is extremely commendable. Trevin, best of luck with wherever life takes you!

#gforceforadmin #adnin

You guys are doing a fantastic job with the site. Many thanks from Sweden.

It is finally time for the Rise of the Adnin?

 

edit: Is there a time from you're looking for with #fbf? Like "prior to 2014" or something? Assuming a screenshot from a park released in late 2015 or something similar wouldn't be/shouldn't be qualified.

I'd say a throwback is eligible as long as it is a year prior. So any from before October 2015.

edit: Is there a time from you're looking for with #fbf? Like "prior to 2014" or something? Assuming a screenshot from a park released in late 2015 or something similar wouldn't be/shouldn't be qualified.

Good that you ask, I forgot to mention that. Screenshots are supposed to be pre-NE5.

I think it'd be cool if the new AA (Admin Ass.) would write little introductions to parks like Kumba used to do. I thought that was always a nice intro to a new park or design. Just a short paragraph or something like that. Just an idea to complicate life...

Admins don't have to be the only ones who write those intro's. As long as the writer is qualified enough I think it's fine.

Do you mean the old write-ups bigshootergill, or something Kumba did on this version of NE?

The old write-ups when a new park was released.

Park writeups were dropped for NE5 because there's nowhere to put them in the new framework. 
Here's the NE5 feedback thread where some of the options got discussed:

 

http://www.nedesigns...eup#entry647644

 

I find it deeply ironic that Kumba is noted for his writing, by the way.

actually now that I think about it it. The write up is in the hand of the builder in the form of the description or even the occasional readme.

The writeups are a bit tough with the current system because accolades are awarded AFTER the park's release.  Unlike in the past, it worked perfectly because a park was released, you saw the shiny logo, read the write up and dove into the park.

 

It would be a bit difficult to do write ups with the current system, as doing one for every single release would simply be impossible, and doing them after the accolade is awarded would be kind of pointless as everyone would have looked at the park.  It would be a nice thing to look back and read but not much else.

 

I'd love to re-introduce write ups to NE, I think it would be great for the release system to put more emphasis on parks and projects rather than screenshots like we have now.  But we would need to completely change the voting/accolade system for it to make sense.

^ You need to think outside the box G.

^ You need to think outside the box G.

 

Yea, not possible for me.

 

Though, I would like to see dedicated Parkmaker pages and dedicated pages for Spotlights and Golds etc... like NE3 had.  Would put more emphasis on each release and might bring back logos.  Even though the problem with logo's is that no one does them not that people don't care for them.

iris was the one who started the release write-ups probably going back to the first NE park. Later Mantis, Ed and Cork carried it on and I mostly continued it. Having them back would be nice, at least for major releases.