While We’re Waiting… Trade you a Roger Dorn for a Pedro Cerrano
January 9, 2014Matthew Dellavedova is awesome, gives Luol Deng No. 9
January 9, 2014We’ve received your emails, read your comments and scanned your tweets. Things around these parts look a bit different lately and change can be a scary thing. As we have over the past five years, we here at WFNY strive to not only bring you as much quality content we can on a day-to-day basis, but do so in a manner which not only keeps in line with the ever-changing web-based landscape, but ensures that you, dear reader, are provided with the best in-game experience possible. While we can’t do much in the way of dollar drafts and new scoreboards, we can ensure you that our pages will never be covered in snow when you log in every morning.
So why the changes? What’s different? Who are you guys and what’d you do with my WFNY? Let’s start at the top, shall we?
So what gives?
While this isn’t breaking news in the least, discussing Cleveland sports has become a very depressing trade. Each week, the news seems to get more dire, the finger-pointing and in-fighting get louder. Writing (or talking—more on this in a bit) about Cleveland sports on a daily basis for any amount of time, let alone five years, can drain a man in the most defeating of ways. There were certain aspects of how we went about covering these teams we love that we simply were not enjoying.
The landscape of web-based writing has changed drastically over the course of the last few years. Venture capital money has been poured in to several big-named enterprises. Acquisitions are made, lots of money changes hands. Meanwhile, WFNY has remained independent in both ownership and in terms of distribution channels. While we may benefit from the occasional link at a larger site, we only flourish as you all continue to feel that what we do here is different; the close-knit community we have cultivated over the years is something that you can’t just buy overnight. Alas, as the bigger sites continue to dominate in terms of multimedia and post counts, we know who we are, but most importantly, we also know who we aren’t.
Over the course of the last five years, WFNY has gone from a place where we wrote for family and friends to a place where we are recognized as a member of local media coverage. We are credentialed by all three local teams and appear regularly on radio and television broadcasts. And while “media” can be a nebulous term, sometimes used as a pejorative, rather than attempting to replicate the beat, we know that we have to continue to provide material that is not only compelling and thought-provoking, but different from what anyone else in this giant landscape of local sports coverage will provide.
This is all a very long way of saying that WFNY will continue to be the best (and most-read) independent source of web-based coverage of all three local teams in addition to the Ohio State Buckeyes. How we go about things, however, will be slightly different.
Something is different, but I just can’t put my finger on it
Well, you’re correct. Things are a bit different. As we move away from the grind of what we referred to as headlines—you know, those voiceless, robotic items that simply shared a news item or press release—and back toward what made us who we are, we decided to make some changes to the front page. After several man-hours of discussion and implementation, the “Headline” section of our site is no more. Replacing this area are two separate categories that have been moved to the right sidebar. Look to your right. See all of this 70-pixel images? Yep, that’s them. Those are the new sections. You’ll grow to like them, I promise.
Rather than meshing videos and gifs with news items, we have separated news and noteworthy items (appropriately called “News and Notes”) from the more audio-video elements. The latter group, which will include our most excellent podcasts, can be found in the “Look and Listen” section. This move ensures that the front page always has at 10 items of this nature, rather than the five that were on the front page before. The News and Notes items will come equipped with front page bylines and comment counts so that you all can not only play favorites, but know when there is a deep discussion taking place.
Moving these items to the sidebar allow for our feature writing—original reporting, storytelling, columns or commentary—to be displayed closer to the top of the page. We know that you all love the quick-hit items at times, but we felt that were were doing ourselves a bit of a disservice to bury items that took considerable amounts of time to produce. We’ve also cleaned up the footer so that you can all access our social media snippets in addition to all of the legal goodies that often get overlooked.
In addition to the aesthetic items, we have made a more concerted effort to ensure that the quality of these items is as high as possible. Many of the posts you will read will have likely been through multiple layers of editorial processes. Sure, there will be some that slip through the cracks—such is the case when every member of this site has a job and responsibilities outside of these e-walls. But if we’re going to focus on ensuring that you, dear reader, are given the best we can offer, the least we can do is make sure that the quality of the words is as high as the message behind them. The cost to this? Some items may not be as instant; again, we are not trying to replicate the beat. Other items, such as columns which may have run on a weekend, may not be published until the next Monday or Tuesday. We hope you understand as we all feel that this is for the better.
So what’s next?
Honestly, we don’t know. The beauty of being independent is that we can make this process as fluid as we wish. We’ve heard from a lot of you already and have done our best to implement the recommended changes you have made. Rather than 10 or 15 posts on the feature waterfall, for instance, we now have 20. There’s also a “next page” link at the bottom so that you can easily get to older posts without having to drill into the archives.
As time moves along, and we become older and even more responsible, we will likely be looking to add to staff, not just in the way of writers or voices, but editorial areas as well. If you know of anyone who is energetic, passionate, has a decent grasp of the english language and is looking to do something beyond baseless spewing of opinion, please don’t hesitate to point them in our direction. There’s an “opportunities” link right below our header. Have a well-written story you want to tell but want to maximize readership? Don’t hesitate to send us a pitch. By now, you all know our style and what we stand for. Inquire within, would ya?
As we look toward our sixth birthday (crazy, isn’t it?), this will be our fourth major change. Needless to say, if you’re not moving forward in this world of ours, you disappear. We wish we had happier things to write about—we really do. But until that tide turns, we will continue providing you all with what know is the best independent coverage of the teams we love unabashedly. Craig will continue to produce podcasts that rival even the most listened to of local talk shows; Rick and Kirk will continue to crush their film analysis in addition to their daily published work; TD and Jon will continue providing the best Indians discussion you’ll find on this side of the web; Jacob will continue to churn out statistical measures that I never knew existed, blowing minds one Diff at a time; Andrew and Ben will still be pumping out high-quality Cavs material in addition to Rock’s infant project ‘Beyond the Box Score’; Ryan will continue his role as an elusive, roaming troubadour, providing his thoughts on whatever crosses his mind at that moment; Mitch will be here, dropping nuggets of knowledge on the Buckeyes, like it or not; and I’ll be doing everything in my power to make sure that the stories I tell and the pieces I pump out ensure that the access we’ve been so graciously provided is put to the best possible use. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll get to write a feel-good redemption story for one Anthony Bennett.
We appreciate you all being here as we take turn the page to another chapter of WFNY. If you have any feedback or recommendations as to how we can improve either the functionality or the quality, please don’t hesitate to shoot us an email. We’d love to hear from you.
On behalf of all of us at WFNY, Cheers.
50 Comments
i think you should have more buzzfeed style lists and upworthy style headlines.
“20 reaction gifs to that brandon weeden flipper pass”
and
“This kyrie irving pass was headed to tristen thompson, and what happens next will change your life forever”
“dropping nuggets of knowledge on the Buckeyes, like it or not”
Was that last part really necessary?
Good changes.
While I’m not the largest fan of longform internet pieces, I can certainly appreciate them.
When I started reading this I was worried that you were shutting down the site or something. Scared me for a second.
We don’t intend on going anywhere for a very long time.
Thanks, Ben. And yes, we realize that longform pieces aren’t for everyone and—to borrow a phrase—candidly, not every topic is worthy of several thousand words. Thus, we’ll keep rolling with the sidebar blog to provide those few-hundred word takes that are, hopefully, edited just as well.
Ha. We’ll look into that.
Yes.
Definitely.
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain, and, of all the big changes, this one seems to be more of a small makeover. Putting the suit and Gee bow tie on the site (take that JNeids!). WFNY cleans up well 🙂
Thanks, MG. We always try to keep you guys in the loop. This is a community, after all. Now if we could just figure out an HOA fee… 🙂
oh great, so everytime I want to make a post of more than 100 characters I’d have to get written approval from neighboring posters and submit the post in triplicate? I guess it might be worth the pain for the resale value though.
I rarely comment, but read daily. I thought this may be a good time to thank WFNY for being a great local, independent Cleveland sports new source for me to read.
The changes look good, I look forward to learning the new layout.
LIKE IT.
Thanks, CWS. Your reading and lurking is very appreciated.
Firstly, love the move (back) to the focus on your guys’ writings, though admittedly it’s taking me a couple of days to get used to the headlines/news and notes being moved to the right.
If I can make a few personal suggestions… I love WFNY, and basically as a CLE fan use it as my go-to sports site, both for the posts and also the news/notes/rumors etc. (And I’m surprised by how that hasn’t changed at all since moving back to CLE – I still find WFNY way better than any other CLE sports site with better coverage than the PD.)
Sooo… If that right sidebar could be cleaned up a bit and have (say) 7-8 news and notes it makes it easier to see what’s happening with CLE sports. For instance, perhaps the Facebook box could be just the F link at this point in WFNY’s history (especially with the links at the top); perhaps the Yardbarker stuff could be trimmer. Perhaps Contact Us and the Search bar could be on the same line and half the width each, or placed on the header bar. The SportsTweets section is empty for me, maybe that’s an ad or something, but it takes up a ton of space if it’s not earning you guys significant money. Perhaps the Authors should be a dropdown (perhaps not to show who is on the site), perhaps it should link to bios, perhaps it should be faces with scroll-over names so we can see who is who and personalize it. Perhaps the shirts link could be a smaller single line with all four squares instead of four big squares at this point (though again, if you guys think this contributes to purchases, by all means keep it). All of these may also give the site – which already looks good – an even cleaner look.
I’m just throwing out ideas, and perhaps you’ve already rejected most of them for various reasons, but those are the things that stick out to me as a user especially now. I used to basically not look at the right side since all the content was on the left; now I want to look at it for those news and notes, but am finding there’s a lot of “noise” there.
That all said, love the changes because I love the writings and discussions most of all. It’s what makes WFNY awesome.
WFNY completes me!
Well then hopefully I’m not wrong when I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it wasn’t a cheap shot. Every time I have commented on something Buckeye related, I have been nothing but civil about it, and always stated that I have zero problem with WFNY’s decision to cover OSU – it’s the apparently gray area of “OSU is a Cleveland team” that I touch on.
me: Was that a threat?
you: When it’s a threat, you’ll know it.
me: (pauses)…Was THAT a threat?
me: see here sass mouth, you’re not too big for me to tan your hide.
you: it’s not a threat if I don’t know what it means.
Love the site and the writing, read it all the time. NE OH born and raised my entire life but now a New York resident for the indefinite future. I feel compelled to express some gripes about the mobile version of the site because I think you guys need to be aware. I use a Samsung Galaxy S4 with currently the stock Android OS, browsing with Chrome, and I read your site all the time on the subway and in other places. I imagine there are many like me (I’m also a Linux guy for my home desktop).
The mobile version of the site seems to be often, perpetually, broken. I of course prefer the layout/design of the mobile version when reading on my phone, but I can rarely view it. The homepage always loads up with the desktop viewand doesn’t seem to remember any preference for mobile view. I always end up having to zoom in just the right amount to read articles on my phone in desktop view. When I click the “Switch to Mobile Version” button at the bottom, on the homepage or in most any given article, it just reloads the page as the desktop version and doesn’t work. Occasionally for older articles it has worked, and I think “Wow, cool! It finally worked!” But it normally does not. Also, I suspect your site has some kind of auto-refresh function, which I also find aggravating because if you don’t have WiFi or internet connection at times (like underground on the subway) you start to fear the inevitable of the cached page you’re reading trying to refresh… and then when it happens the content you’re reading is gone until you have signal again.
Finally, I think I speak for many that the “Share This” bar that automatically comes down every time you load the homepage and every single article needs to go, or at the very least give us an option to turn it off. I’m not a Facebook/Twitter/Share This guy, and it makes me mad when someone invades my screen real estate with social networking prompts. In the end, I just have to do more work to get a plugin or extension to my web browser to disable it.
…but in spite of all this I’m still reading your site every day because the writing and the comments trump all! Just wanted to give you some honest observations about the functionality.
Thank you much, sir.
I rarely comment but am a loyal reader and, dudesicles, I’m digging both the changes and the desire to change.
Don’t ever change, guys.
When I read this comment, my mind instantly flashed to Art Modell. I am a damaged Cleveland sports fan.
Thanks for all your hard work on the site – this a great resource, and part of a family of excellent local blogs that have grown organically over the past couple years. Has been fun to be a part of
Given Craig’s recently posted article, I propose a steel cage match: Scott vs JNeids. Loser gets Browns season tickets
Thanks for the feedback.
I can’t speak to the mobile issues as Andrew is expoentially more versed in this area.
I will say that we are looking to improve the sharing/social media buttons. It’s taken a bit of a back seat, but they are definitely on the list of items to address. Fact of the matter is that without a distribution channel, readers sharing our work to like-minded individuals is huge for us and we will have to have some sort of propagation/dissemination function with each post. The web is undoubtedly moving toward a sharing landscape. We realize that not everyone is a “sharer,” but we’re grateful for anyone who does. That said, I know that what we currently have is not the most optimal and know that we’re working on fixing this at some point down the road.
Thanks, Ezzie.
Unfortunately, a lot of what you mentioned is either beyond our control (ie Yardbarker) or would put a considerable dent in our already minimal revenue.
As you may have noticed, we took some steps to take things out of the sidebar as we also felt that there was too much going on. The podcast RSS and the WFNY logo have been moved to the footer, for instance. I do agree that the authors block takes up too much space—this is something I’ll look into.
As for now, we do plan to stick with five news items on the front page. This is typically a number that is refreshed daily and we have the “more” link right after the last one so that anyone who missed a day or so can go back and see what others are discussing.
Cheers.
Totally understood. We all want y’all to make as much as possible on this, that way you keep doing it! 🙂
Re: the Authors, perhaps since you already have the Podcasts up in the header bar that’s a good place to put the Authors and the Contact Us.
I don’t know if you meant to include the Facebook block that shows up in the sidebar as part of the revenue-driving items, but if not, that’s really the biggest “annoyance” there in terms of having to scroll if it’s not part of it.
Anyway, great work as always!
Just should add that I have many of the same issues on mobile, and since it loads the desktop version almost always, Disqus often has trouble loading (which means I miss the comments! the horror!).
It took some time to adjust to the new design, but I like how everything has been separated. Well done.
As long as WFNY doesn’t post pictures of tanks in a feeble attempt to “persuade” any Cleveland team to lose intentionally just to improve their draft position, I will definitely continue to access this site FIRST for all of my Cleveland sports info. Great job guys. 🙂
One suggestion. Whenever you post a rumor, can you please post a picture of a toilet to remind everyone where the rumor came from? You don’t want any broken hearts posting on this site if the rumor doesn’t become fact do you?
These changes are really welcome, Scott. There’s much more room for the writing, and I like that a lot. It feels more like the words live here now, especially on the front page.
keep on, keepin on, fellas. Thanks for all the work you do.
keep on, keepin on, fellas. Thanks for all the work you do.
I dig the site and how much it’s developed over the years. I’ve been out in Los Angeles (a transplant of Cleveland) for almost 9 years and this is the site I absolutely go to first to read about anything Cleveland. I feel any “bias” that is written is coming from a good place, but is also completely honest. Well done to all that have contributed, bloggers and posters.
Agreed, I have the same problem.
Props to you guys at WFNY. I lurk as well and appreciate the site. I agree with previous posters about the lackluster mobile/tablet experience. Hopefully you can get this figured out. If you need clicks you can do more buzzfeed/bleacher report type lists with pics for a much richer mobile experience. Your heavy analysis could even go into a weekly eMag or something. I’d pay the couple bucks a month for sure to get an easier form factor for large phone/tablet. Cheers to you guys… can’t wait for that day when you break a huge story!
“If you know of anyone who is energetic, passionate, has a decent grasp of the english language”
I have a decent enough grasp of it to know it’s referred to as the English language, with a capital ‘E’ — since I’m a nag about this, maybe I can help now and then?
Certainly.
Certainly.
Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge magazine nerd and would love to move into that direction. Given our resources, however, it would be a ways away before we could commit to something like that. As for now, I think we are moving into that daily e-mag arena where feature writing is heavily complimented by quick-hit items. I’d love to get into infographics and more design-type elements, but I want to make sure we nail down our bread and butter before we start talking about dessert. Thanks for the note.
Checking in from North of The Border……WFNY is like a letter from home everyday. Been a Cleveland sports fan since 1955, so I understand the frustration of remaining positive.
Thanks MUCH for ALL you do………just try to not let it drive you crazy :+)
Well I for one feel lied to. Wasn’t it just a year ago you made big changes and told us that the new format was what you really wanted all along? Now, you’re making a change AGAIN in less than a year? I thought things were progressing….I thought you were sending signals all year that you were trying to build for future years, and now you uproot everything and start from scratch?!?!?!
How do we know you’ll get it right this time? I have been reading for years, and he we go again, you expect me to once again sit back and buy the worn out line of have patience and keep the faith that things will get better???
I don’t see this erratic behavior from other sites who at least look like they know what they are doing! How do you expect to attract anyone new with this kind of knee-jerk reaction!!!
No…you just expect us readers to fall in every year like sheep and follow the herd.
Enough is enough! I quit being a reader!!!
P.S. In case you couldn’t tell this was my attempt at a well-timed joke. You guys are my connection to Cleveland sports, a.k.a. my bloodline for me as I spend my days in St. Louis. I’ll always be a reader….and I’ll always keep the faith!
Yikes!
Downtick.
It’s a part of the process. We have a rich history. Something about culture. Something about passion. Something about owing it to our readers. Something about accountability.
I’ll second the mobile issue as well. I know major site redesigns are difficult, controversial, and take a ton of effort (or money to hire a design firm), but if and when WFNY has another major facelift, I’d highly recommend looking into a responsive site. That would entirely eliminate the mobile version vs. desktop version issue as it would just be one site that scales automatically.
As for the social media/sharing piece, have you checked out AddThis (http://www.addthis.com)? They have some really simple, usable and elegant solutions that I believe can mostly just be dropped into wordpress fairly easily. I will also admit the grey sharing bar drives me mad.
All in all though, I’m excited for your change back to your original writing formulas. Now I just need to find a job where the site is not blocked by a web filter… 🙁
(edited to fix broken hyperlink)
These changes are great, but what about the wiener dog races and DJ?
I’ll look into Add This. Thanks for tip!