Magic Deck Vortex: Words from the Streetz: Negotiations and Questions.

As this strike unfolds, you as a visitor of Magic Deck Vortex are waiting for new article content. In the meantime, I have received a letter from Chris Newton, head of the Writer’s Guild Wednesday evening. This article will show you the letter and include a very short response from myself.

I will also pose some questions to you about the articles you see on Magic Deck Vortex. I ask that you respond in the forum or via email. These questions may or may not have anything to do with this strike – but they definitely have everything to do with the articles on Magic Deck Vortex. With that said, here is the letter I received Wednesday evening:

Quoting: Chris (Tynion), 1/16/08 @ 8:37pm

John,

I appreciate your efforts in negotiations so far. You have won over most of us, and we really do want to get back to work.

Let's go over what we want, and what you have conceded to:

1.) We wanted a way to gauge the number of readers that we really have reading the articles we produce.

You have decided to apply a hit count to the articles that we can see.

I would like to add to this; we want to have the hit count meter read better. It should be quick and easy to read. Not just reading, "Article57 - 92", but "Raiding the Dollar Bins - 92". This should not be a hard thing to do. Also, does the counter continually update, or does it only show the hits when you place the counter on the screen? It should update each time someone opens the page. Does it take into consideration that one person might open a certain page four times? Or would that be four different hits?

2.) We wanted to know how you would get your readers to continue the buzz.

You (and your readers) laughed in our faces.

How can you and your reader-base say it is on us to generate the excitement and write our own articles? We continue to write quality articles and yet we don't know if anyone is reading them; furthermore, we don't know if we are writing articles that entertain, educate, or even peak the readers' interest.

Is it too much to ask to add some type of rating poll or something to an article that would make the readers' lives easier? I mean, I know that they can only spare four seconds of their life to comment after reading for 20 minutes, but if we have a single-click poll, then having them take two of those four seconds to use it would be a victory in our eyes.

To the Readers of MDV: Stepping aside from the Writer's Guild head for a second, I'd like to address you personally, from my perspective. I have read the latest batch of responses - which I might point out I find it humorous that we have to quit writing to get responses from the readers - and I must say that you guys really are backwards in your thoughts. Our stance was completely spelled by one of the responses we received. Forgive me for not knowing who said it, as there were 97 responses to the initial letter. The person stated that my Shifting Lineaments article regarding multiplayer Stasis was one of the most amazing articles he had ever read.

That is very humbling, as I don't think my writing is worthy of that description, however the point to be made is: How on earth would I know that? If I knew that, I would have hammered away on that topic until you guys told me, "Enough! Move on!"

The big point I am driving home is that I never knew that. I wrote that article many a month ago. Yet here I am still trying to figure out what you guys like.

The next point is that we writers seem to have been put on a pedestal. How can I be compared to Steven Spielberg? It is almost laughable, yet again humbling to me, that you guys would think so highly of me that you feel you cannot critique a veteran writer's work. If my work is junk, it is junk; regardless of who I am. I expect my fellow writers to call me on my poor content. I expect my editors to rip my articles apart for bad grammar. It's the same as any other writer in the Guild; if the work is bad, toss it back at them and tell them to try again.

I feel the same way about you guys. If I am not producing top-of-the-line articles, tell me. If I did not knock your socks off, let me know. All I have ever tried to do while writing for MDV is be THE best writer, not only for this website, but on the web (period). If I have not accomplished that, then I need to improve. You are my barometer. You need to tell me that I slacked off. Tell me that I can do better. Or tell me, "Man, that article you wrote the other day about Stasis, that was masterful. Can you try to do something a little different? I think if you could do a version of Aggro-Stasis, that would be awesome."

Remember, you are not alone in your thoughts. If you think something would be cool or interesting, then a lot of other people will too. Let me know.

Now, don't mistake that for, "Tynion just wants me to pat him on the back." I don't want a pat on the back. I get that from the other writers, and it drives me nuts. I want you to think of me as your friend who is standing up in the card store telling a story. Nothing more, nothing less.

Is that too much to ask? Wouldn't you tell your buddy if his story was boring, or awesome, or too long winded, or say "Dude, I have heard that story nine times now, and it sucked this time as much as it sucked the first time?"

I will end my letter with that. I await Streetz' considerations and the reader's responses.

Providing information on the articles and the number of hits they received is fine. I do not want them to be visible to the general viewing public and thus I re-propose to provide this to the writers in the private guild forum. Or, I can give you access to my AwStats stats generator which updates every morning (around 3 or 4 am). I have reconsidered my stance on the hit counters on each page, I feel they will be awkward and unsightly on the pages. I think you can agree to this.

Whichever way we do this, ultimately it will result in the same thing: the number of times each article is viewed will be visible to the Guild members.

We can keep the buzz going as long as there is new content every week including at least one official contest a month (deck building contests and the like) and continued article content. These Best Of weeks are fine and all, but I think readers and visitors want to see new articles more often. Given the great writing staff we currently have, I have faith that we will continue to provide quality work to the visitors and comment worthy articles for all to read. This means at least three new articles a week with possible new content on Saturdays too!

As long as the main site stays active, the buzz with keep going. Contests and First Impression articles are great means to keep the momentum going. As long as we can get the First Impressions articles done and posted in time for Morningtide, we can have this buzz you refer to. I also think Cashew and other members of the site are working on some contests which I can make note of on the main site. Getting people into the forum if the first step, and the contests are great for that.

To the Guild: I am sorry you guys had to go on strike to bring this out into the open. However, I think this strike has opened the eyes of the visitors of the site and I think these problems will dissipate once new articles begin to flow. You can see on the articles I have reposted over the last week have received more comments than we are normally use to seeing. This is a good sign.

As the owner of Magic Deck Vortex, I continually try to find ways to improve the site. From articles, to the deck database, to combos, to visual spoilers to the forums and blogs, I try to update everything as often as possible to keep everyone happy with a variety of items to view, read and dissect.

Quick Note: A deck database update is in progress. I am about a third done and once the decks are all posted and propagated through the database, I will post an official blurb on the main page. In the meantime, you can check the “NEW DECKS” section of the database to see what will be posted soon. Well, you’ll see the deck names and short descriptions.

Do you want to see more Single-Card-Strategy articles? (Like One Card to Rule Them All)

Is the Article Archive helpful for finding articles? Note: I have a few series/author pages to add.

Do you want me to sort the articles by type? And if so, what should be the types? When I was brainstorming this idea a while back, I came up with too many categories and thus I cancelled the idea at the time.

Do you like this Word from the Streetz series? It’s like a general column for me to talk about site related information, such as this strike (which will hopefully end soon), reader comments and other issues in Magic: the Gathering.

Some of the writers that used to write for the site no longer do and thus the series they started aren’t getting new articles. Or, the author decided not to continue them. Below is a list of some of these:

Are these topics you would like to see continued in article form? If so, are you up for writing on them? Or, would you like to see an existing writer on MDV take one of these topics over?

With all of that said and asked, let me know your thoughts on any of this in the forum. Thanks for visiting Magic Deck Vortex! By visiting and reading and posting and commenting, you are a part of the MDV Community.

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