The Mystery Box Winner, and Response to All the Great Feedback

All right. That was a good discussion. Having gone through all of your suggestions for new features, I have a lot of thoughts, and rather than list honorable mentions and such, I want to respond to some of the more recurring themes. Please consider this an ongoing conversation rather than the last word.

Some of the suggestions that were made were good but would not work weekly, or on any completely controllable schedule. Review a great new Kickstarter every week, or a new nerdy cocktail every week, new Lego machine, etc….I’m certainly not opposed, but there’s no guarantee one will come out every week. As it stands all those things do get mentioned here as part of the general course of things.

Suggestions for new comprehensive features, like a guide to every nerdy show on TV, or every great online deal, simply require more time to do than I have. I’d love to cover everything comprehensively, but without the ability to stop time, I have to filter some of it out. Blu-rays – and specifically, Blu-rays of interest to us – are still a small enough quantity each week that they’re manageable in a way many other forms of media aren’t

Tabletop/RPG gamers – I can see you are a passionate bunch, and you are the reason I brought David N. Scott and Christian Lindke aboard to do more articles targeted your way. However, realistically…your passion does not cross over to the casual reader as much as movies, toys, weird science, etc. So we’re not likely to expand the percentage significantly more.

More comics coverage – I know. Looking for a way to do so that can be achieved within my budget. They’re not free to me like movies and TV are.

Have commenters write articles for free – sorry, but NEVER going to happen. Rival companies would make hay with a headline like “Voice Media doesn’t pay writers!” and I am not going to give them that reason. If you want to submit a story and be credited, the closest you can do is send me a detailed tip and I’ll name you as the source at the end.

Art contests – I hear you. Will do.

Retro reviews – This was the biggest surprise to me as a recurring theme: in various different ways, many of you pitched some kind of take on reviewing something older or more obscure. It was impossible to credit any one of you with this idea since so many came at it from different ways, but yeah, I’ll definitely incorporate some version of this idea.

Live-blogging a TV show – tricky since I’m in the Pacific time zone and so many of you are not. We’ll do it probably for the Oscars, which are live – but I’m not sure if a belated live-blog of something has the same appeal?

As for the winner: even though I just gave him a prize in another contest, I have to give it to y2Jbrak, because even if you’re not into the specific topic he mentions, he’s right that passionate writing reads best (which is why I keep writing those fast food pieces he doesn’t like!) and even some of you who aren’t this particular type of fan brought that up:

LYT, it’s pretty damned obvious you are a big wrestling fan so why not a column every week with your thoughts or comments on the state of the wresting union? I’m not saying you should cover all the shows but maybe a topic of your choosing like why in the hell Matt Bloom(Sweet Tensi Prince A-Train) keeps coming back to WWE for more shitty gimmicks that destroy the rep he built up in Japan? The thing that I miss about Rob is how he got worked up about things he cared about. Besides your best writing is when you enjoy your topic. So you + wrestling talk + us commenting = awesome new feature + me getting the mystery box full of Stan Lee’s Stripperella merch

There’s also the chance that this will bring in new readers, which is important, and if anybody doesn’t like it, well, it’ll only be one column a week.

ALL of the feedback was appreciated, and we’ll probably revisit this contest concept again. In the meantime, y2jbrak, enjoy the mystery box that’s on its way.