[Stellar]

I thought it would be a good idea for CKA to have its own reporters. I believe we tried this before but I haven’t heard much about it since. I think it would be great if we have a handful of members who do an in-depth analysis of current events. This is how it would work: Once a week everyone who wants to be a news reporter will create their own article (story) about whatever they want and it would be shown on CKA font page.

For example, the fifth estate and the Passionate Eye is what I would call an in-depth story. A member would have a week to do something along those lines about a story of their choice. I think that this would be popular amongst CKA because it is clearly evident that many members here aren’t afraid to show articles/info/stories of current or major events.

Regards,
Stellar.

moved to public forum by Canadaka

[Canadaka]

I really would love for peoplg to particpate in doing this. I would definatly put it on the front-page.

The big reason is that if we have unique news content on the site it can be submitting to like Google News or MSN News, and they might post it and that would drive a lot of traffic to the site.

CKA's friend site www.canadiancontent.net does this and thats how they get a lot of traffic. CC is has much less overall content than CKA, but they get more traffic because there news articles get syndicated on popular news sites like google news.

Kind of like the Columnists that write for the site www.canadafreepress.com. But that site is so horride.. so ugly, so old-school and riddled with ads and popups! I don't know how they got so many writters to write for them. I would like to get articles like that on Canadaka.net though, and I would provide a much more user friendly way to format and submit the articles to the site. Other more policital sites like www.vivelacanada.com get people writting articles as well, and I see it as a logical next step in Canada Kicks Ass's growth. Its best to keep visitors on the site rather than link to another site.

I have converted the old CKA news system to be the "Editorial" article system. I'm adding more topic categories and soon as the first new good article is submitted will free up space on the front-page to promote it. The front-page will display the newest article. I also added 2 links to the main horizontal menu under "news"

You can submit an Editorial Article here:
www.canadaka.net/submit_news

I'm not really in a situation to pay people for writting right now, but they would get CKA points and recognition. ANd possible the CKA Contributor medal. Also its a good place to be heard and seen, the author would get full credit and a link to there homepage if they have one.

If this starts to catch on, which I really hope it does, I would like at least a new article per week, more the better. I will select the best article, probably beased on the amount of reads it has had and give the author a free CKA T-shirt!


Here are 3 examples of editorial articles from other sites.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/lawrence031506.htm
http://www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/article_804.html
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/ ... 7210131450

[Stellar]

I will join. I may not be consistent with submitting and article every week but I will try

[Canadaka]

im a bit disapointed, not a single submission yet. Going to be hard to get people to write news articles.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to attract people let me know.

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To hopefully start off the new editorials I will give a free t-shirt to the article that gets the most reads/rating in the next 2 weeks.

So hopefully this might motivate some to write and submit some articles, so in the case there is a number of articles posted in the next week, the one that gets the most views and ratings will get the free shirt.

Also if someone wants to be a regular writer/contributor I will give them free gold membership.

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note a column or editorial that is just say a paragraph long will not be accepted, I am looking for proper newspaper or large news site type material. You certainly don't have to be a profesional, but should look somewhat professional.

[Andem]

It's a good idea, but is a lot of work to keep up, even if there are 10 regular contributors.

Be careful about expecting a lot of results from Google News now, though... traffic from their site has been dying for a lot of news site that I know of including CC.

One tip is to keep news articles on a VERY clean page with no javascript extras or flashy images.

(BTW, I wouldn't really say that CC has less overall content. There's hundreds of past articles, and over 1 million pages.. also we cover over 6000 software programs).

[Canadaka]

Hmm even if the amount of traffic google news sends out is less, right now CKA gets none from it. But i know will need to build up a base before they would even accept a submission.

Hmm i guess I can tidy up the article page a bit more.

No point getting in a pissing match but what I mean the range of content on CKA is broader, with jokes, history, maps, picture galleries, famous canadians, reviews, ext ext there is something like 27,161 items.

Thanks for your comments as always.

[danikyvor]

Trev, I know I've been in touch with you about contributing, it's just a matter of finding the time!

I've also wanted to...well...is it okay to do editorials on things that are close to us? I'm hard of hearing, and I'm running up against some walls here in the UK in regards to Audiologists, and I thought it would be a good piece to point out the differences between Canadian and UK services....not that anyone would care, unless they come to lose their hearing some day, but I thought it would be an eye opener and raise a bit of awareness!

[crystalsm]

This is a great idea. As much as I love to write, I don't think I know enough about any of the major current events to write an article that will make much sense.

What if you gave article authors x number of points per article they sumbit? (I think I read somewhere you've started using the point sytem for something now) That, or maybe introduce a new medal for people to strive for?

[karra]

$1:

...not that anyone would care...

Don't be too sure - anyone with aging parents or walking the streets with buds in their ears might/should be interested. . . .

[danikyvor]

karra karra:

$1:

...not that anyone would care...

Don't be too sure - anyone with aging parents or walking the streets with buds in their ears might/should be interested. . . .

I hope so!! I attended a conference in Edinburgh today on audiology in Scotland and it was such an eye opener. They're at least 20 years behind us in North America. It's made me realise how lucky I am to have the services I have back in Canada compared to here. :/

Off topic though, so I think I'll type up a draft tomorrow and see how it goes Thanks for the prod Karra

[Wullu]

Yes indeed dimoreien go for it. I work in a world that most of the guys with more than 20 years service have some hearing loss and have a cousin who is profoundly deaf, so I would love to hear what you have to say.

Trev, I will try and think of something that strikes home enough for me to write on. My problem is that by para 3 or 4 I don't even seem to be making sense to myself let alone anyone else.

[danikyvor]

Wullu, if I'm writing something, you have to write something too, deal?

Do a piece on something you know! Like military, or history or...find a piece of a news story and write about your views on it...I'm sure there's loads, and all of us would love to read it too!

[crystalsm]

I just finished an essay for my history class about the Indian Act and the effects it had on the Natives. Of couse I'd have to heavily revise it... my teacher only wanted 1000-1500 words, so I had to cut out a lot of information.

Not sure if it's something that'd be of interest to anyone else. I find it quite intriguing because it's a part of my background.

[danikyvor]

Go ahead and post it Crystalsm!

[crystalsm]

Alrighty, I will as soon as I give it a makeover. It has to be made so anyone who's not a big history fan will be interested in it.