As Kevin noted there is more info on the News main page than what you are going to see in a forum title. And I know this sounds a bit non-intuitive, but news headlines are actually suppose to grab your attention to make you read a story, not tell you everything that is IN the story.

Cheers,
Jim

Here are some examples from just the last 3 days....

Example of good thread title:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204655

Note, it also includes a picture of the boxart at the first link. Vickers crew pretty much nails down WWII British use.

An example of what I find to be less optimal thread title:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204586

Note I can't even tell which nationality we're talking about until I go to the this thread, and then click again to see the actual item.

And here's one that's even worse.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/13832

This one is 'bad' because from the thread title, I will decide if I'm interested or not interested in T-55 Enigma's. But if you actually go to the thread, now it starts talking about 'a few new barrels'. Another click and now I find out that they've released a barrel for the M24 Chaffee, German Hetzer, and the Hungarian SPG thing, vehicles completely different from a rare version of a T-55, from 50 years before the Enigma. You've basically hidden those items to anyone who isn't interested in T-55 Enigmas.

Quoted Text

---

Here are some examples from just the last 3 days....

Example of good thread title:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204655

Note, it also includes a picture of the boxart at the first link. Vickers crew pretty much nails down WWII British use.

An example of what I find to be less optimal thread title:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204586

Note I can't even tell which nationality we're talking about until I go to the this thread, and then click again to see the actual item.

And here's one that's even worse.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/13832

This one is 'bad' because from the thread title, I will decide if I'm interested or not interested in T-55 Enigma's. But if you actually go to the thread, now it starts talking about 'a few new barrels'. Another click and now I find out that they've released a barrel for the M24 Chaffee, German Hetzer, and the Hungarian SPG thing, vehicles completely different from a rare version of a T-55, from 50 years before the Enigma. You've basically hidden those items to anyone who isn't interested in T-55 Enigmas.

---

Jess the one you have noted as bad is a problem Kevin and I always come up against as we cannot cover everything the manufacturer has released. Kevin has written a catchy title that does cover the main release and in the text signifies that other items have also been released. In order to provide all of the information on releases in the title we would have to write a news story for each item rather than the manufacturer. I have started to split news releases up by type but that still cannot cover everything in the title.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204586

Note I can't even tell which nationality we're talking about until I go to the this thread, and then click again to see the actual item.

Some of the criticisms do not, IMO, hold much water.

Putting it from my own perspective (more than 5 years in charge of News and having published more than 3000 News Reports) I feel that i've got a reasonable perspective on the dificulties and pitfalls of the News Section.

Technical The system only allows the use of a limited number of characters in forming the Headline. Conveying everything isn't exactly easy...

Editorial Versus 'Straight' Reporting. The former, combined with the latter can, if it's carfully applied, be a lot of fun. A lot of it, from a commercial perspective is about Site Traffic. A News Report and an accompanying controversial thread in the Forums can really help bring people onto the Site. It's also useful to point out (part of Editorial) that a sleekly-packaged all-singing, all-dancing release could in fact be elegible for a Senior Citizen's buspass. Personally, I think there's too much reporting and not enough editorial in the News Section. Again PERSONAL view only.

Difficulty. News isn't easy. Sometimes it comes from the manuacturers. A lot of the time it's got to be searched for. Some of the manufacturers don't make life easy either. A couple of low-Res images and a reference number isn't all that helpful in creating an interesting presentation. If they want their products publicized, then THEY should make more of an effort.

Despite my criticism above, I hold that the News Section of Armorama, is easily the best on the 'Net. More products are covered covering Dioramas, AM, Figures and everything else in-between than ANY other site on the 'Net. Even today, there are still those (who know little and are blinkered by prejudice) who still see this Site as a kind of 'upstart' and and if a Report doesn't originate from 1 or 2 of the 'Long-established' faces it has little credibility. The reality is that Armorama is still the best - Site Traffic being a pretty good indicator....

Quoted Text

---

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204586

Note I can't even tell which nationality we're talking about until I go to the this thread, and then click again to see the actual item.

---

For me, that's an excellent Headline... Different horses or different courses?

Using site traffic as an indicator? That's like saying Tamiya Shermans are better than Tasca Shermans, because they sell more. Quality vs. Quantity and all that.

Here are some examples from just the last 3 days....

Example of good thread title:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204655

Note, it also includes a picture of the boxart at the first link. Vickers crew pretty much nails down WWII British use.

An example of what I find to be less optimal thread title:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/204586

Note I can't even tell which nationality we're talking about until I go to the this thread, and then click again to see the actual item.

And here's one that's even worse.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/13832

This one is 'bad' because from the thread title, I will decide if I'm interested or not interested in T-55 Enigma's. But if you actually go to the thread, now it starts talking about 'a few new barrels'. Another click and now I find out that they've released a barrel for the M24 Chaffee, German Hetzer, and the Hungarian SPG thing, vehicles completely different from a rare version of a T-55, from 50 years before the Enigma. You've basically hidden those items to anyone who isn't interested in T-55 Enigmas.

...PMMS ranks much higher than Armorama for site traffic, as does Cybermodeller...

So it got you to read the news story?

Again, you ended up reading the news story.

I agree with Jesse. I started a thread on this last September The tabloid style guessing game titles to News stories don't do it for me.

Quoted Text

---

So it got you to read the news story?

---

Quoted Text

---

Again, you ended up reading the news story.

---

A news story he might have had no interest in and that's good for the site because it shows more hits on the news stories and builds the site profile but it is very frustrating to click through to a news story only to find you have no interest in it.

Dean,
Obviously a bit off-topic, but I would be very curious as to what you are basing that on. I would highly doubt that PMMS has more traffic than we do. Mostly because Terry is one guy and his output a bit less over the past few years. Secondly because he doesn't even track his site using something like Google Analytics, he wouldn't likely have any trust-worthy stats to publish or quote (not a criticism just a noteworthy fact). As for Cybermodeler... well it was down just now when I went to look at it. I sort of doubt he has any hard stats to justify that claim either. In my experience, there is only once scale modeling site that likely has more traffic than us; Hyperscale. But again no way to know that because their forums are on a third-party site and it might be hard for Brett to quantify his traffic as well.

Pat after your complaint and othermembers input we looked at the titles and I had not understood Jim's instruction correctly and so changes were made to the methodology, if you still do not like the titles I am sorry but as indicated by Jim's post here we are following his request. Now I know we do not always get it right but I feel we have for the most part a good mix of factual information in the title while at the same time making them eye catching. I am fully aware that some do not like the current format but we have had very few complaints.

Quoted Text

---

Dean,
Obviously a bit off-topic, but I would be very curious as to what you are basing that on. I would highly doubt that PMMS has more traffic than we do. Mostly because Terry is one guy and his output a bit less over the past few years. Secondly because he doesn't even track his site using something like Google Analytics, he wouldn't likely have any trust-worthy stats to publish or quote (not a criticism just a noteworthy fact). As for Cybermodeler... well it was down just now when I went to look at it. I sort of doubt he has any hard stats to justify that claim either. In my experience, there is only once scale modeling site that likely has more traffic than us; Hyperscale. But again no way to know that because their forums are on a third-party site and it might be hard for Brett to quantify his traffic as well.

---

Hi Jim. That's based on Alexa which puts Armorama at 232,000 in global rankings with 0.000016% of internet traffic, PMMS at 195,000 and 0.000025%, Cybermodeler at 106,000 and 0.000049%

Their figures are usually a pretty fair representation. Admittedly it's hard to get a true figure for all the sites here as everything other than Armorama comes up as Kitmaker.net and anyway pageviews are really only a small percentage of the actual figures ( Anexa does give a full break down including top search terms ) as pageviews can be easily manipulated.

At the end of the day though unless you're Ebay or Facebook we're all just a drop in the ocean so we just do what we do for the love of the game.