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2 years ago ::
Aug 05, 2011 - 2:19PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 07, 2011 - 9:30PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2011
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First off, CONGRATULATIONS!!! 500 articles is an incredible portfolio to have, and I must say that your column is one of the two on this site I read each and every week. You give us readers and players access to the inner workings of the game, and the company behind it's thoughts on it, to a level unmatched by pretty much any other business I know.
As for the article itself, though, you once again overgraded. This isn't to say your columns are bad; far from it! If anything this grading problem is only relevant because I and others WANT to read your best work. The trouble lies in the fact that you give such good cores to almost all of your articles that even just reading the 4-star and up installments is a massive ammount.
Doing a quick number crunch (and if I miscounted I apologize, I'm sure someone below will correct me), we have 95 weeks that weren't repeats for holidays. Of these 95 new articles:
2 two-star reviews
42 three-star reviews
33 four-star reviews
18 five-star reviews.
Over half of your articles were self-rated as above average, leading one to wonder what the average is. The average star rating was 3.7, and ultimately these weeks seem to function akin to Guitar Hero ratings where a supposed five pnt. scale is really limited to three, making distinctions more difficult.
Again, part of the problem is that your articles are usually quite informative, but some slightly harsher self-critiques might make it easier for those of us who enjoy your work but don't always have the time for an archive trawl to look at Six Hundred and Counting and more easily grasp what you feel your strongest works are.
Still, congratulations again, and may we see five hundred more!
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2 years ago ::
Aug 07, 2011 - 9:30PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Feb 19, 2005
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I always wonder, why make a 1/5 rating when you do not use it. You assign a few 5/5, but are hesitant to give the 1/5.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 07, 2011 - 9:54PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2007
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He still didn't mention how he forgot about imprint.
blah blah metal lyrics
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2 years ago ::
Aug 07, 2011 - 9:57PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2009
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well so i wish he would have said something about the lost of jms (Jma is so much cooler now tho)
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2 years ago ::
Aug 07, 2011 - 10:55PM
#6
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He still didn't mention how he forgot about imprint.
He did it over Twitter, but since not everyone follows him there you're right, he probably should have mentioned it here too.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 07, 2011 - 11:47PM
#7
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First off, CONGRATULATIONS!!! 500 articles is an incredible portfolio to have, and I must say that your column is one of the two on this site I read each and every week. You give us readers and players access to the inner workings of the game, and the company behind it's thoughts on it, to a level unmatched by pretty much any other business I know.
Actually, he really hasn't hit 500 yet, as many of them were repeats. To get an accurate counts of actual articles you'll have to figure out how many Xmas, New Years, and Memorial Days are there.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 08, 2011 - 12:16AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Mar 21, 2005
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Hey everyone,
The rating issue comes up every time I do one of these columns. 3 is not the average. 3 is the minimum I find acceptable each week. I try very hard to do better than 3 but I know writing a weekly column that it's impossible to excel each and every week.
Note that if I know a column is 1 or 2, I rewrite it. That's why there are so few of them. Why bother with the 1 & 2 ratings then? Because despite my best intentions, in the last 500 weeks I have written articles of 1 and 2 quality. My rating system is me honestly trying to reflect what I think of my own columns (which, by the way, is very subjective). Also remember that my rating system is static meaning that a 3 now means the same thing a 3 meant when I rated my first hundred columns.
Why is my average going up over time? To quote Malcolm Gladwell (well, paraphrase actually) - the number one thing that determines quality is experience. I feel weeks 401-500 are better than weeks 1-100 because I've had seven and a half more years of doing it.
All that said, I may have overrated (or underrated) some columns. That's what this thread is for. Chime in where I oversold or undersold my own work. I'm trying to constantly improve and to do that I need the feedback (Malcolm Gladwell again).
As far as imprint goes, I just forgot last week. I knew it was the reprint because I had to have one, but I just mind blanked while writing last week's column. The reason I didn't mention it this week is that this column is a bear already (this series of articles are the longest columns I write by word count) and I just didn't have space to say anything off topic.
I'm very excited to have hit the 500 week mark (I'll hit the 500th column in a few months if my math is correct) and I thank you all for joining me every week.
Sincerely,
Mark
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2 years ago ::
Aug 08, 2011 - 12:37AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Feb 18, 2011
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grats maro, keep it up, u write some of the best articles on this site
cant wait for next week, i know i sent u some twitter questions, maybe theyll get answered lol- good lookin out
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2 years ago ::
Aug 08, 2011 - 1:43AM
#10
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Incidentally, what are your top 5 article titles? 
And so people say to me, "How do I know if a word is real?" You know, anyone who's read a children's book knows that love makes things real. If you love a word, use it! That makes it real. Being in the dictionary is an artificial distinction; it doesn't make the word any more real than any other word. If you love a word, it becomes real.
--Erin McKean, Redefining the Dictionary
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