God Kills Kittens Poll

[tikay]

A great thread, full of interesting feedback, which we need, & we listen to.

blonde Updates are designed to be entertaining, quirky, & informative. Trying to get the balance right between those criteria is a neat trick, though. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.

The Kittens. I love 'em. others hate 'em, each to their own. The debate is not about Kitten Pics really, that was just the "hook".

Video Footage. Rich & I approved the finance to purchase the kit a good few months back, but when we came to implement, we realised - or were made aware - that an extra person was needed to do the Video work, & that in turn added a significant % to the Updating Costs, already our largest cost, & not by a long chalk covered by Sponsorship.

In the next week or so, fingers crossed, the means to fund these extra costs will be available. Whether we will implement them is another matter though - feedback on this thread will be taken into account, but we'll also be reviewing the whole cost-effectiveness of them. If their costs get too far out of step with our income, we'll be faced with a very tricky decision.

Update & Forum Traffic on blonde has grown significantly recently, but we want to keep the spirit & mood, too. The Updaters, Rich & myself wll discuss this thread collectively.

Many thanks to everyone for their input.

OK, you can get back to having fun now, Mr Grumpy Old Man has go to go fight some fires. Or, on second thoughts, go to the Diaries & see whats happening. Then fight the fires. You never know, they might have gone out by then. Slow Firemen rarely have much to do.

[LLevan]

An interesting thread and plenty of good points have been bought up. Personally I don't care either way for the kitten pics and just scroll down to the next entry on the thread, but like some people have said its a great opportunity to try and get new clients to join the card room although I'm not sure if William Hill as sponsors would allow relentless spamming of the Blonde card room on an update thread that they are sponsoring.

Back to the updates as a founder member of the NAS the more norkage pics the better IMO and if Blonde do go down the video route interviews would definetely enhance the updates, obviously money is tight and as TJ has stated it becomes a lot more expensive to finance an update with video content.

I'm sure Blonde are looking to better their updates regularly and the actual content I believe is improving each time and like many others have stated if you want just the facts visit the At A Glance thread if you want the interaction then Blonde is the place to watch updates and take part in.

[Pelham Boy]

Norkage on video! Sounds good to me.

[LLevan]

Norkage on video! Sounds good to me.

 

[I KNOW IT]

They can kill as many cats as they like as I hate the pesky things lol.
Some photoshops I like but a lot are tacky.
Instead of spending time on those spend a bit more on the seat draw and chip count posts i.e space it out so the are easier to distinguish and read.
I would also concentrate on more local festivals too rather than some of these obscure EPT locations which only have a handful of british players in. There were only about 10 viewers of one of these EPT events so I think the interest insnt there for all of them anyway
TBH since the EPT started doing their webcast I tend to watch that instead.

[Woodsey]

God doesn't kill them, them try to do it themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Ilq3kFxek&feature=related

[dino1980]

can't belive that 'in a thread about cats' no one has posted the will the cat make it pic! So i will.

[danafish]

IN DEFENCE OF THE KITTENS -

Sorry, don't really have time to reply to this properly as I'm in a motel in Ohio and have about 25 minutes to get out of here, but just wanted to say that I post the kittens once per update, at a point when it looks like we have a lot of guests viewing the thread, in a bid to get some of them to sign up to blonde. Recent updates such as Monte Carlo, when I think we got 30 or 40 newbies signing up, show that my kitten-y tactics work - a good number of them during the week wrote on the thread or in PMs to me that my gentle, kitten-based encouragement was the catalyst for them signing up to blonde. In recent updates I've also made an effort to mention the blonde cardroom and all it can do for everyone in terms of loyalty bonus etc. The kitten picture/Floppy picture are just sort of a shorthand for me, and more eye-catching for the casual update reader than a couple lines of text.

As far as photoshops are concerned, we like them and think they add to the updates. Sometimes we go a little bit crazy with them, but generally we construct the more complicated ones the night before so we have them ready to go for the start of the thread or when there's a slow point in the play, and during breaks in play etc. I don't think we ever spend time photoshopping at the expense of serious reporting - they tend to come out in force when there's not a great deal to report on - eg an incredibly slow bubble or some such. Video would definitely imo require an extra person if we're going to do it well - I've messed about with the video editing software on my laptop and it's shockingly time-consuming if you're going to make something good a la Siktilt etc - doing video with only two updaters or three at a larger event would mean that we'd go long periods of time without anyone watching the action. We're not against video in principle, but I do believe that the quality and particularly the quantity of hands reported etc will suffer if we attempt to do video with our current manpower in a way that it doesn't with a bit of photoshopping.

Regarding the at-a-glance thread, I can say right now that I make an effort to include every bit of actual information that goes into the interactive thread on the at-a-glance thread too, as well as occasionally a few of the better photos, but barring the First Photoshop Of The Day that we sometimes start the thread with, I try to keep the at-a-glance thread a photoshop-free zone. Presumably everyone who is not keen on the photoshopping will not be keen on the random chat that the interactive thread becomes filled with either, so I think we have have something for everyone there...

[GreekStein]

lol this whole thread is ridiculous.

[taximan007]

Final Days of last 2 live update tournaments:

GUKPT Manchester:

Kitten Picture posted ONCE.

Photoshop Pictures: NONE

Total Posts: 165

Monte Carlo

Kitten Picture: NONE

Original Photoshop pics TEN

Reproduced Photoshop (used again by interactive posts) TWELVE

Total Posts. 280

Only a small sample but it doesn't appear over excessive IMO

[AlrightJack]

Here's a suggestion. Record some interviews but edit them overnight. That way it only eats into photoshopping time not reporting time. The vids will keep to be posted the following day. Most take very little time to edit once ur familiar with the software. Most are a single clip with no fancy edits.

[RobS]

They can kill as many cats as they like as I hate the pesky things lol.

I agree with this. Dogs FTW.

To be constructive for once, I think that it would be good if the blind level was actually reported in the live update thread (as it always used to be), as the way it is now you only know the blind level if you read the update in real time. If someone reads the updates the next day, there is no indication throughout the thread what the blinds are at any time.

[boldie]

Final Days of last 2 live update tournaments:

GUKPT Manchester:

Kitten Picture posted ONCE.

Photoshop Pictures: NONE

Total Posts: 165

Monte Carlo

Kitten Picture: NONE

Original Photoshop pics TEN

Reproduced Photoshop (used again by interactive posts) TWELVE

Total Posts. 280

Only a small sample but it doesn't appear over excessive IMO

Ah, thanks..I was going to do this as I didn't think the nr of photoshoppies was very high. Case closed, no?

[portfolio]

not often i agree  with aj,   but feel he is spot on here.

a few years ago, i criticised the updates in a   pm, which was politely  but strongly  defended.

from that came the  at-a-glance thread         so problem resolved.

by listening to blonde members, the forum evolves strongly            .

well done blonde.

[RED-DOG]

Photoshopping, 8 out of 10 cats (and me) prefer it.