Note from Editors, Roys & Snowchief
Six years finally got us some results …. and what do we do?
It’s vacation time, baby! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Ha! Beginning Week 2524, the Black Type Bugler goes on its annual summertime vacation. Recharge the batteries? You bet! Build up our stables again? Look out! Sip a drink or two in Sim Tahiti? Woohoo!
For six years, a paper has always returned from its summertime break and we will do so again in Week 2580. Full stakes race coverage is suspended during vacation, but we’ll be back on August 10th.
However, in the meantime, we wanted to “float the boat” out there with the new website, checking out any errors (there’ll be some!) and getting familiar with the new digs ourselves. Feature writers are welcome to post over break and there may be a few articles here and there during vacation. 🙂
What are the new BTB’s improvements?
It’s a neverending quest for………
1) Readers
Headlines, easier navigation, faster page loading, article links to race pages, and more aid the reader visiting the BTB. We hope you’ll have an easier time finding articles and that you stop by and read more stuff!
2) Writers
The new site hopes to “show off” writers’ work better and avoid getting their article “lost” in the weekly BTB shuffle. Our new publishing program enables *all* writers to submit via an online editing page, thus offering more timely posting. We can also credit writers’ Sim pay week-to-week instead of monthly. New writers can also “jump on in” and join the BTB faster without emailing the editors. Occasional writers can also submit “on the fly.”
3) Editors
The jury’s still out, but we’re crossing our fingers that the new program shall cutdown on the editors’ workload. This will give us better incentive to develop more storylines for the paper, better manage its assignments, and keep in touch with writers more too. The site also presents us with a level of organized capacity that we’ve never had — different sections of former “Feature” articles can appear confidently in Horses, Breeding, and General article sections. In other words, for the first time, we have a website that can attractively present a wide array of content besides the track articles.
What will the new BTB continue to do?
1) Collect weekly writing for the Sim
2) Cover stakes races including Graded events, Sim Eclipses, and Special Racedays
3) Continue to be an established staff centered around the game’s “Black Type Bugler Forum”
4) Maintain an archive
But what about its future goals?
1) In 2005, the BTB has been moving towards “Graded Stakes First” in coverage priority. We will continue to move in this direction.
2) Since our capacity to diversify content has been increased, we will explore a range of articles to populate the new Horses, General, and Breeding sections.
3) We will do all of this, even at the expense of regular “listed” stakes coverage. With 88 tracks in the Sim, the time has long since past when winning “a” stakes race was a worthy prize in the game. It still is for some, but we feel the majority appreciates the graded stakes more and our readership, on the whole, greatly improves when we offer special topics, contests, and articles geared towards as wide an audience as possible. Note: The BTB will always cover some regular stakes though.
4) To make up for declining “listed” stakes coverage, we will tackle a lofty goal that has always been on our backburner: we will attempt to foster storylines amongst the major and upcoming race stars and starlets. Most storylines are out there week-to-week in message boards posts around the Sim as well as couched in BTB stakes race articles. We will attempt to pick up on and develop them through various methods in the paper.
5) Down the road, we’d like to add reader-to-writer feedback.
Most of all?
Billgulch’s publication ensures that a paper will always be a continuous part of the Sim — no matter who is editor or writer. The Sim needs some kind of “paper” or storytelling element in the game, breathing life to the numbers and names. And, believe it or not, it is this promise and reality that brings the most satisfaction and peace of mind to the current editors.
There is no question now — a paper will always be here and the BTB Staff salutes Mike Wallace (Billgulch) and Smartacre.com for taking up the helm as publisher.
Thanks for reading — good luck and go, GO, Bugler!
Roys, Editor
Snowchief, Editor-in-Chief