News section should be more focused on fixing games

[Antrad 37]

In my opinion the news section should be more focused on what this Wiki is like fixing games, compatibility issues and that kind of stuff.

For example in the past few weeks new versions of nGlide, dgVoodoo and DosBox has been released, I think stuff like that deserves some attention, since these and other tools are very important for many games and you wont see mainstream media cover this stuff.

Another example is Microsoft shutting down their games servers that were used on Windows 7 which is now causing serious issues for W7 users like some random games not starting and rundll.exe stressing their CPU. Here is a discussion about it on GOG. I think stuff like that are perfect for website like this to cover.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/old_games_not_launching_and_eating_100_of_the_cpu_on_windows_7/page1

These are some recent examples that I can think of.

[Aemony 141]

The news section is mostly community-driven, with no direct guidelines on content other than what is required to get featured.

While "should be more focused on what this Wiki is like fixing games, compatibility issues and that kind of stuff" is a nice idea to have, it doesn't mean much if the community contributors aren't aware of the subject matters you speak of.

I am fine with the current way the news section is handled as it ensures PCGW's news contributors cover current ongoing events within the PC gaming space, which always gets a nice exposure on social media which further expands the reach of PCGW. While we shouldn't dismiss posts about fixes or compatibility issues, I don't think making it the sole subjects of news submissions on PCGW is healthy, as it wouldn't ensure a steady flow of news contributions and most of it wouldn't be very engaging to readers.

I do think though that we could add a provision in the "required to get featured" guidelines to allow for some sort of preferential treatment to submissions about fixes or compatibility issues. This might result in more submissions of the sorts you speak of, and allow those submissions to be more easily featured on the front page of the wiki and whatnot.

[DSeyka 1]

10 hours ago, Antrad said:

new versions of nGlide, dgVoodoo and DosBox has been released

Thanks! And I tend to agree, stuff like this should be getting more coverage on here.

[Antrad 37]

Widescreen Gaming Forums is one step close to being shut down thanks to idiots at Google, this is another example what this site should report about.

[Andytizer 269]

5 hours ago, Antrad said:

Widescreen Gaming Forums is one step close to being shut down thanks to idiots at Google, this is another example what this site should report about.

This is something we are aware of and we are working with Skip to help resolve - we will be ready to write a news article soon once our plans are in place.

In the meantime please feel free to make submissions of your own on our News section.

We are opent o writing up things like dgVoodoo update which was a couple of weeks ago - but there doesn't seem to be a changelog, what's changed exactly?

[Antrad 37]

On 7/18/2019 at 11:10 AM, Andytizer said:

This is something we are aware of and we are working with Skip to help resolve - we will be ready to write a news article soon once our plans are in place.

In the meantime please feel free to make submissions of your own on our News section.

We are opent o writing up things like dgVoodoo update which was a couple of weeks ago - but there doesn't seem to be a changelog, what's changed exactly?

Yeah, there is no changelog for the final release. He posts changelogs for "WIP" versions on Vogons forums, so you would have to go back one year and look at dozens of changelogs. In short, the big update is DirectX 9 suppport that has been in the works for the past year, before it was DirectX 1-8.

BTW, what is stopping Google from flagging PCGW as malware too, people also upload various fixes, hacks, dlls and exes here too ?

[Aemony 141]

15 hours ago, Antrad said:

BTW, what is stopping Google from flagging PCGW as malware too, people also upload various fixes, hacks, dlls and exes here too ?

In an attempt to minimize the chance of this happening, PCGW now recommends users who create archives containing such files to password-protect the archives using a standardized password. This should prevent browser-based automated filters from triggering on the archives as they will be unable to scan their contents.

Post-download it is expected that regular AVs will scan and flag relevant files accordingly during or after the extraction of the archive.

As part of this change, a relevant disclaimer about PCGW not guaranteeing the safety of any files hosted on the site have been added below the download button as well, to better reflect the proper community-contributed nature of files hosted here.

[Mars icecream 57]

Is posting news available to all users or only to the accounts with higher rights?

[Aemony 141]

59 minutes ago, Mars icecream said:

Is posting news available to all users or only to the accounts with higher rights?

It's available to all users since we don't have a specific "News" category any more. The general PC gaming category doubles as the news category.

The only thing limited to accounts with higher rights is the ability to "feature" a thread, which means it'll also show up in sidebars etc. This typically isn't an issue as Andy usually goes through and features posted threads if they look fine, and even if he didn't they'll still get featured on the front page of PCGW as part of the "Forum" section.