If you voted anything other than Yes or No, here's a chance to make your voice heard.

After the recent Faegly comic debacle, I already have my doubts that the e-zine staff will even want to continue to publish it, but just in case, I'd like to know if anyone still wants it to continue.

Yes. Not sure why the ezine is being questioned to tell you the truth. As a community, we seem to generally try to suppress arguing, bitching, name calling, etc. for the well being of the site. We should just simply use that same judgement on our printed material as well. Faegly can stay, its just the tone of the comic that may need redirected.

PLEASE KEEP THE EZINE!

Hell yeah, keep the ezine! Maybe we just need some content guidelines as langenfeld mentioned to keep personal attacks (and other offensive things) at bay.

Absolutely keep the ezine, but apply the same ideas as the forum. Controversial topics are fine when it's discussion, not insults. Mods lock threads and take down personal attacks in the forums so don't allow them into the ezine either. That is the job of whoever is in charge of the final article approval, not anyone else.

I think we should keep it. I look forward to every issue.

That said, if it would be less burdensome for the staff, I think you should do fewer issues with more content.
I think this would relieve a considerable amount of pressure on the staff, and would likely increase the quality of articles, and would allow for potentially offensive material to be edited and resubmitted.

I'm also thinking that perhaps a quarterly or bi-monthly release would be much easier on us all.

This is one of the problems. There are 3 people who work on the actual release of the e-zine:

1. Dan - he edits the submitted articles and sends them to Kevin
2. Kevin - he puts the e-zine together and sends it to me
3. Dain - I upload the file and send out an email

Now, most of the time, Dan doesn't get the articles until a day or two before the release, which in turn means he's by default behind in editing them, which in turn means Kevin is scrambling to put it all together, which in turn means I get it an hour before release, allowing me enough time to skim the first sentence or two of each article and attempt to write a home page intro about it. You'll notice this month I didn't, and the only excuse for that is me being exhausted. Now if Dan and Kevin are in the same boat as me, not one of us actually "read" the content.

To get back to the original quote, I'm in charge of the final approval. And because it's always crunch time, and I seldom have time to do anything more than "skim" it before that time, it gets released as-is.

I love the ezine and do think we should keep it...but the recent events keep making it more difficult. We already have enough trouble rounding up writers and then when the content of the few we have comes into question it makes it even harder. If you guys want to keep the ezine going, you all have to help and contribute. Everyone is quick to judge and complain but the line to contribute doesn't seem to get much longer....
~~NGD

I'm not sure that would change anything with respect to article quantity or quality. If everything is already being done at or past the deadline every month, then it will just be done the same every quarter. There is already the option to simply not publish something that may need to be edited and wait for the next month. It just may take more work to pester authors into getting things done regularly and earlier. As far as I know the email list has never been used, PM to possible new authors hasn't been done, and only one or two posts asking for articles has been made. That chat room thing would be a great place for it too

I hope Dan is reading them if he is doing editing!  

The eZine is released too often and it seems like there is TONS of filler info that is written just for the sake of filling the pages. Maybe I'm wrong but this is my belief, and personally, I think "contributing" to the eZine is stupid when an entire Nintendo database still needs to be done.
Stop concentrating on the eZine and concentrate on the game database.

Well, I for one, am only likely to be able to contribute quarterly.  I doubt I'm alone.

Also, the people who do contribute monthly would be able to come up with better content given more time.  Obviously, some people will always procrastinate, but I think given more time to brainstorm the overall quality would go up, and the amount of filler would go down.

You could still have various "submission cycles" that would break up the submitted content into small chunks for review.  It all comes down to what the editors are willing to deal with, and how well the enforce quality controls and deadlines with the writers.

Also, I'm sure there are some people interested in contributing that don't feel like they can keep up monthly, but don't want to look like a one hit wonder that disappeared after a single article.

Anyway, I think it would help, and I think it would improve the long-term strength of the publication if the timeline were revised.

I voted yes because I enjoy reading it, but the people who work on it should be the ones who decide whether or not to continue.

But most people do not have the items to contribute to the database, while they can write something like a game review. Looking at the systems in the top bar, other than NES I only have ~30 games for all those systems, so my database contribution would be an hour of info that many others have. If I can do one article a month then its much more significant.

If the ezine is discontinued, it would take a lot away from the site in my opinion. I feel the e-zine provides an interesting contrast beside the oft mix of silliness and random sidetracks in the forums... the forums are great for interaction and conversation, but not so great in terms of organized, useful information. It's obviously a hit and miss type of thing, depending on who is posting. With the zine as a compliment, NA offers the best of both worlds... an edited, organized, informational zine as a relevant digest of what is happening in the NES world and a liberally moderated forum to discuss it.

Maybe you should only publish 'zines when you have enough quality material to fill them without having to constantly remind people to submit. I think that's the true measure of whether or not people REALLY want the 'zine to survive.

Everyone says they love the zine, but how many people care enough to submit an article to keep it alive?

I for one get a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of the eZine. I like seeing the various write ups from members of the site, and it's a great resource for someone like me who is new to the Nintendo collecting game and looking to gain knowledge in the various facets of collecting.

I hope we continue to put it out.

Also, while I'm laying out the articles, I read every single one. If only for the fact that I edit behind Dan's back. I don't read the comic though, because it's all pixelated in my layout program. I usually wait to read that after it's already downloadable from the NA site.

I love the zines but I'd love 'em just as much bi-monthly.

I just think bi-monthly would be useless. People wouldn't get as excited about it, and all the writers would be even lazier.

I don't think we need any changes. Once a month isn't that long, but if you want to move to quaterly, that's fine with me. I feel like there's a ton of great info in there, though I might not like all of it. I'm actually happy it lasted this long, since the NES is dead I was curious as to how much we'd have to talk about, but there are always things even I have learned in the magazine. For example, I may not agree or care about sealed collecting and I may have strong opinions about it, but Bronty's article was highly informative and very well researched. I'm for once a month, but I understand the difficulty. I stopped writing articles initially because I just didn't have any more ideas, so more time could lead to more quality, but we know how it is. I know how it is from teaching, you do it all like the last day anyway, regardless of time. I have an article idea for October, by the way, so I may do one soon. Depends if the invididual agrees to do an article (found them at least).

I love the eZine as well. I applaud all the authors for takign the time to write those articles. I do think Stan's cartoon is very DP'ish. However, the eZine itself is great and I do not wish to see it go away. Monthly, Bi-Monthly, Quarterly is fine by me. Great job overall.

I look forward to the eZine every month. If the editors decide that it would be easier for them to do it bi monthly or even less, I would still look forward to it.

I don't think a little bit of controversy should stop it though. No matter what you do in life there are going to be people that have something negative to say about it

I think the ezine should be kept monthly and strong! The ezine was the reason i joined the site and began to post. Im honored to have an article printed in this month, and im excited to write another one for next month! The gripes about time concerns are all legit, but the ONLY thing that has raised a stink is the comic, which would take the LEAST time to edit/read over. The rest of the content shouldnt have to suffer over one comic that was done in bad taste. Writers should know if their content is a personal attack or not, and should practice self control in these matters.

If its a crunch to get it out on time, be more strict on deadlines maybe? I was told it had to be in by the 23'd to be included and i made sure to have it in by the 22nd.

Ive only been a member for a few weeks, but i have already made some great friends and enjoy logging on each day to hear peoples thoughts. I've never gave a shit enough about a message board to join and post until i found this one! This is a wonderful community here (look how many people donated games to kev) and one little issue shouldnt be the catalyst to tear it apart.