Phew! That was a tough two weeks. I hope everyone enjoyed the best of 2007 articles and likewise I hope everyone is relieved the strike is over. There’s no letter from Chris Newton this time around, just my ramblings about the whole event.

On a brighter note, at least this strike pushed me into writing more Words from the Streetz articles. Since I’ve posted more than three of them in the last month, I now have my own “Word from the Streetz” page on Magic Deck Vortex! Of course, being the owner and webmaster and all, I could have just given this to myself when I started the series. But even I have to work within the rules I’ve set up for the site…

So I’m writing this Sunday night after I received a brief email from Chris Newton stating they are ending the strike and that they will resume work. This is great news. Great news, indeed! Just forgive me, in advance, for any grammatical errors you see in this article since I don’t have the time to let the guild work on that for me. You see, within the Writers Guild is a system of members that review, edit and finalize all articles. We aren’t perfect, but we work hard to make things as perfect as possible.

Obviously because the strike just ended Sunday you are not going to see new articles on Monday (today). However, don’t be surprised if you see something new tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m writing this to fill the gap and let everyone know what's going on. I am so happy about this resolution that I can’t contain myself. While I’m sorry every visitor of the site had to deal with the strike, I am happy to know it is over and that we can continue providing quality articles for your review!

Thank you to everyone that chimed in during the event both via email and via forum discussion. In the original discussion thread for the strike, there were over 100 responses in just two days. I guess this sets a record for the number of posts in a thread ever on MDV. Never has an article had that many replies on Magic Deck Vortex. Some visitors even started posting comments in old article discussion threads, which is very cool. So with everything bad, there is something good. You guys and gals have voiced your opinions and I have worked things out with the Writers Guild to make everything alright.

So what is there left to discuss in this episode of Words from the Streetz? Lots! You may have noticed a new poll on the site which I posted this past Saturday. I hope to talk about that today. But first:

Resolving the Strike:

There were a lot of different issues that came up during the discussion of the strike: issues about the quality of the articles, the variety of topics, the lack of debatable topics and the lack of reader involvement (such as opportunities to discuss questions asked within the articles). These are all good topics and I think the writer’s guild has taken them into consideration. I know I have, personally. I just finished writing the first article of my new _______* series. Be excited - the new series will discuss a topic we haven’t seen since October 2007 and that is very relevant to what's going on in Magic now. Within this new article I posed some interesting scenarios/questions and it almost demands response. I think this makes the article very interactive and thus more interesting.

*The new series won't be revealed until it is published.

Which is what you guys seem to be looking for, right? You want something to instigate reply, not just something that is humdrum and boring. Talking about a deck is one thing, but asking for a new decklist or talking about something controversial is another. Talking controversial almost makes you want to reply to it. Whereas talking about a deck list and not doing much else makes you read and move on, never wanting to reply to or think about the article again.

So what did I do to end the strike? Simply put, I caved into demands.

I will be providing more detailed information on the view count for each article to each of the writers in a weekly post. While this will take me some time to do every week, it isn’t a major disability for me. I will still have time to make other updates for the site and hopefully write more articles, post more combo pages and do more deck database updates.  Below is a quick grid I put together for the Guild last week showing the top twenty articles in 2007:

On a side note, it's awesome to see I have five of the top ten spots. *grin*  Of course, perhaps I subconsciously give myself top spot more often than others.  Who knows...

Also, I will be making an effort to keep the hype and buzz going for the site. While this highly involves the Writers Guild, bloggers and contest administrators (Cashew), it will be done. I have no problem with having more polls, theme weeks and such as long as the members of MDV continue to support me.  And thus the Writers Guild has agreed to assist me to make this happen. Currently, I think they are planning another big contest, possible a card of the month features and more. So stay in touch and keep visiting the site, possibly more often than you currently do, to stay tuned in on what MDV will be offering.

So let’s cheers to the Strike being over. Within the next few days things will be back to normal and you will be seeing new article content (hopefully in full force). Thanks again to everyone for their input on the matter. I think you really made a difference in ending this strike as quickly as it ended.

Now if only the Writers Guild of America ended their strike – I miss Heroes. (I don’t even have cable or access to a TV in my home but Heroes is the one show on television that will make me truck on over to a relative’s house to watch it. It’s a great show. If you like sci-fi related TV series, this might be for you too!)

Time is not an infinite resource.

There’s a limited amount of money that goes around and likewise only a limited amount of time that each of us can spend each day doing what we do. If I didn’t work two jobs and had all day to work on Magic Deck Vortex everyday, you would see more being updated more often. Unfortunately, I can’t be like Star City Games or Magicthegathering.com who have several people dedicated to just working on their website every day. I’m one person that works on the main site every night before I pass out.

In fact, I was all excited this past Saturday. If you visited the site, you noticed several updates throughout the day including the Morningtide spoiler being finalized, the creature type all text list being updated and nine new creature types being added to the Visual Spoiler section. What you didn’t see (because I didn’t post a blurb on it yet) were several creature visual spoilers being updated at the same time including: Elemental, Elf, Faerie, Giant, Goblin, Merfolk, Shapeshifter, Treefolk, Troll, Vampire, Vedalken, Viashino, Warrior and Walls. How did I do all this? I took the day off from my Saturday job. Had I worked that day, none of this would have been updated.

While I’m not asking for a sympathy plea, I am asking for everyone’s understanding and direction. Until I update the site into something that more people can work on at once, this main site is still updated by just one person - me. And thus, there are only a few different things I can work on at a time.

The recent poll, posted on this past Saturday, is an effort on my part to find out what you all you would like to see me do first and/or put at the top of my priority list for MDV. In case you haven’t voted yet, I would strongly encourage you to vote. For your convenience, I have posted the poll below.

I spent a good twenty minutes deciding what I was going to put on the poll options. At one time, “more pauper content” and “less red” were options. I was trying to encapsulate all of the things I’ve wanted to do but haven’t been able to do thus far.  If only I could play Time Stretch in real life...

Obviously the biggest item on this list is “New Website Design”. If I make this my focus, a lot of other typical features such as deck of the day and articles will be put on hold. Magic Deck Vortex is ‘more than meets the eye’ and thus is larger than you think it is. There are over 3000 static HTML pages that would need to be updated should I make a “New Website Design”. Plus, it will involve a lot of research. Despite having used FrontPage for over five years, I still don’t know the tricks and programming know-how’s to do a lot of different things. If I am forced into a New Website Design this will all change and suddenly my time will be spent on researching and evolving the site.

Not that the site has been un-evolving since it started over five years ago. It has evolved significantly. It’s just that a website design update for over 3000 pages is very time consuming and involved.

Now should you vote for one of the other options, know they won’t take away from anything (except for maybe the new search engine). More articles, more tournament content, more art updates… these things are all easy to do and easy to schedule. It’s just a matter of finding the right people to provide this kind of content so I can post it on the main site.

One of the more interesting options on the poll, which seems to be scoring well thus far, is the Combo of the Day proposition. I came up with this idea back in December but I haven’t installed the feature because I was afraid people wouldn’t appreciate it. I still wonder if the Deck of the Day feature is worth it, but I digress. It’s not that a Combo of the Day is a completely original idea, but given MDV’s huge combo database, I think it would be as easy to do as the Deck of the Day feature. It only takes me about ten minutes to do the deck of the day, so I assume it would only take me about ten minutes to do the combo of the day feature.

Note that despite the poll results, I still might install the Combo of the Day. Although, I think the Combo of the Day will win over the voting poll anyway. I’m glad to see this idea is pretty popular thus far.

Other Site News:

There won’t be any Mailbox Mayhem during today’s Word from the Streetz article, but there will be some quick new bites.

For one, the Reference section of Magic Deck Vortex is no more. It has been replaced with Visual Spoilers. Visual Spoilers were in the reference section before but the other portions of the reference section were lacking updates or rarely viewed. The Mechanic features and Term Glossary hadn’t received updates in several years. Since the reference section was shrinking down over the years and the other portions of it were becoming obsolete, it seemed to make sense to let the Visual Spoilers have their own main section in place of Reference. Now I just need to update the navigational buttons. Give me some time on that…

NOTE: If you want to discuss this topic (no more reference section) specifically, please go to this forum thread.

Second, we are discussing a new Card of the Month feature which will be advertised on the main page. Currently, there is a box on the home page with the Planeswalker Contest Winner. Think along these lines and you will know what to expect. There may not be article content to back it up, but there will be forum threads for submissions and discussions. We are still sorting out some of the details for this so be looking out for it. It may start as early as 2/1/08!

Lastly, the creature visual spoilers need your help. As Cashew has suggested in the forum, I want to add more to the creature visual spoilers. To quote Cashew:

More tidbits, more cross-referencing and more information are needed. If you are willing to help in this, please let me know in the forum. Another thing I would like to do is break down all 215 creature types into categories such as:

Possible Creature Type Categories:
Sea Creatures (Shark, Fish, Kraken, etc.)
Undead Creatures (Wraith, Skeleton, Spirit, etc.)
Humanoid Creatures (Human, Vedalken, Kithkin, Elf, etc.)
Mythological Creatures (Gorgon, Chimera, etc.)
Animal Creatures (Elk, Antelope, Beast, etc.)
Alternate States (Zombie, Mutant, Monger?, etc.)
Fighter Classes (Soldier, Warrior, etc.)
Mage Classes (Wizard, Shaman, Cleric, etc.)
Thief Classes (Rogue, Assassin, etc.)
Basic Classes (Citizen, Serf, etc.)
Token Only Classes (Pest, Camarid, etc.)
...

This is just a quick list, but you can see where I want to take this. Once we finalize the lists, I can post a new page with the breakdowns that link to each appropriate page. I can even add a little section on each creature visual spoiler page that links to ‘similar tribes’.

I think this would be a cool feature. Do you? Let me know what you think in the forum.

In fact, let me know your thoughts on any of these topics in the forum. This article has come to an end and I look forward to waking up tomorrow with a plethora of feedback and comments from you. Over the last week you have all been good on feedback and I ask you don’t stop the momentum.

Until next time, stay Streetz-smart.

Streetz
www.magicdeckvortex.com

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
Find other articles from this series here.

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Articles Spotlights from 2008:
How to Win with Milling: A Guide to a Slow Painful Death
Memories of an Old Magic Player 10: The Outsiders Journal #3.
The Apprentice Magician, Part Three.
Class-Wars Deckbuilding Contest Results!
Tribal Coffee: The Smaller Tribes.
[Mini-Article] Controlling the Game: Without Blue.
Raiding the Dollar Bins: Return of the Vault Ninja.
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
More Evil Than Evil.
Memories of a Jarhead.