Nerd Bacon News: October 2015 (1)

October is finally here! For the third year running, Nerd Bacon aims to celebrate all things creepy, cooky, ooky, and spooky when it comes to video games! Most of you know exactly what we're about in October, but just in case you missed it, all month long we're looking for reviews of games that center on the supernatural, occult, or anything remotely reminiscent of the horror genre. You are still welcome to submit reviews of any and all games during the month, though we do ask that everyone try to contribute an article or two to the cause. So far we've pulled in a lot of great Halloween-ish pieces, but there's still several of you that haven't popped up at all yet. Don't miss this year's chance to earn your Pumpkin Badge if you don't have one already.

You can also get in the Halloween spirit in other ways. Maybe you've got an idea for a clever Top 10 list? Top 10 Jump Scares (in video games)? Top 10 Video Game Monsters? 10 Best Vampires (or Wereworlves, or Zombies, or Ghosts, or Demons, etc.) in Video Games? Get creative!

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Something You May Not Know About Us

We've been asking for a lot of help lately; we know that most of your are bouncing along at a perfectly acceptable pace, but it would really help us if more of you would step up to the plate. While of course we're asking for help in the areas we need it the most, that doesn't mean you can't come to us with a novel idea that suits your availability and talents. That also doesn't mean that we'll automatically say "yes," but we will listen. I'm not sure how many of you out there realize this, but this here thing that we're doing called "Nerd Bacon" is highly unique. You have 2 types of websites out there: dictatorships, and dictatorships disguised as oligarchies. Many sites with a similar structure to NB are run by a single individual. When that individual gets sick, or switches jobs, or has to move, the site can suffer irreparably. Then you have your big corporate sites with their chain of command where allegedly several "worker bees" are contributing to the content, but in reality, this is a highly expendable workforce who have virtually zero voice when it comes to how the site is run, how their work is used, and even what work they're able to do. Believe it or not, NB's approach is largely unprecedented. Sure, David and I can effectively squash whatever we want whenever we want without explanation, but we don't. We give you guys and girls a huge amount of control over what you contribute and what role(s) you choose to take within the site.

Every now and then, something goes totally wonky with WordPress and I'm forced to endure a ride through their support forums. When I finally catch someone's ear, they often want to know a little about the site, and I give them the quick rundown. "Wait, you have over 1,000 individual posts?" "Oh, so you're saying that instead of screening material and posting it yourselves, you have a base of 20+ users with login privileges who go in and create content at will?" These are just a few of the shocked remarks I've received. Seriously, there is nobody out there doing what we're doing! And whether you love or hate the site design, you'll have to admit that it really doesn't look like a WordPress site. We've created our own infrastructure outside of the often useless categorical divisions that are responsible for the organization of most WordPress sites (even with an extensive system of categories, posts are sorted by date; for a casual blog site this is ok, but for an archival/database site like ours, an alternate form of organization is a must).

In short, if we're asking for your help, it's because we need it. It's because we're playing this whole thing by ear. There's no reference manual for this "collective approach" that we're attempting. Now we don't want you all to offer to help and then not be able to, but whenever we do reach out, maybe give a little bit of though to how much you are able to do. And if you ever have any ideas about how to do something better, come to us with it, no matter how crazy it sounds. Lastly, take some pride in what you're a part of here, 'cuz you won't find anything else quite like NB out there....

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Greased Has Secrets...

As of the previous issue of Greased (1.11-S), we've been dropping little clues here and there about upcoming events at The Bacon. I know a couple of you have sniffed them out, but it seems that they've largely gone unnoticed! Well listen up, because this might just be the only time we're upfront about these secrets! The more overt puzzles may be readily apparent, but the clues on how to solve them are more subtle. Have you checked the page's source code? Dropped by the members area? Read over every inch of Greased? The clues will get harder and smaller, so get used to sniffing them out while you can! Does something look out of place? Is that thing clickable? Have you ever opened an image file up in Notepad? Start thinking creatively and let the clues give way to other clues. And once you've unraveled a mystery or two of your own, get in touch with us and share your crazy suggestions about how to keep members on their toes!

The previous issue of Greased contains 2 separate clues. One alludes to a secret badge that several of you have already stumbled upon, while the other references a future event. It won't spill all the beans about this future event, but now maybe there are some new clues that could shed some light on it...

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Using Nerd Bacon for Your Professional Development
by NerdBerry

Did you know that you can use Nerd Bacon as a platform for your professional development? The video game industry doesn't need to be your career focus, but many of the positions available within Nerd Bacon could be a tremendous resume booster, not to mention a diverse addition to your professional experience. If there's one thing any of your supervisors will tell you, it's that experience speaks volumes over education. You're much more likely to get a job with 4 years of experience in the field than with just a bachelor's degree and no related experience. ZB and Steroid Gamer will be able to add Social Media Coordination and Direction to their resumes, Doc Croc will be able to add Editorial Oversight to her resume, and all of you will be able to add journalism to your resumes.

All of our open positions come with a title, training and direction when applicable, a full support system from Nerd Bacon's various admins, and a letter of recommendation for future jobs after a period of time and if you are successful. We are dedicated to making The Bacon a better place for everyone, and that means you. Help us help you! For inquiries into positions available, please email Patrick at TheCubist@NerdBacon.com. Or if you see any areas for improvement, and you think you could be of assistance, feel free to ask about creating a brand new position! Oh, and did we mention you can earn various badges by becoming a Nerd Bacon staff member / admin?!

Reporter	Editor	Dept. Head/ Specialist	Asst. Admin.

So what are you waiting for??

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Advance Game Copies, Part Deux
(Click here to go to Greased 1.11-S, see "Get Advance Copies of Games")
by NerdBerry

Recently we made note of how you can get free and advance copies of games! After some inquiries from you, I thought I would elaborate a little more. We would like for you to submit to us a copy of your game/materials request form prior to reaching out. It is easiest to create a template for yourself (or have us create one for you) with blanks for game names, developers, game system, dates, and more. (The Cubist adds: Don't get discouraged if you get a polite "no" or no answer at all. Be persistent. (But not annoying.) If you're making the effort to appeal to one company, go ahead and reach out to a few others while you're at it!) Just like a review, having someone look over your work ensures that your request letters are of the highest quality. In addition to free games, you can also request free press materials, such as being added to a publisher's press email list for the hottest news and photos that they have to offer. These press materials will help with writing gaming news that is accurate, timely, and relevant. As always, Nerd Bacon's admins are always an email away! Can you say post count badges?? (The Cubist says: we really want to see more of you earn these post count badges! Get to work!)

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Attention Authors: Use Your Privileges!

Pretty much everyone knows that 20 posts equals authorship, and several of you are probably aware that by the time you hit 25 posts you have a whole suite of options available so that you can really hunker down and make NB your home. As an author with 25 posts or more you have:

• Your very own blog space to use. Spruce it up however you want! Go wild with colors, add images, and if you really want to take it to the next level, contact me (The Cubist) and we'll start exploring HTML and CSS tricks that'll take your blog to new heights. Hell, if your blog is big enough and unique enough, we might start talking custom sidebars. Use these to express yourself freely. Need to vent about the asshole in front of you at the Walmart check out? Or maybe you saw a triple rainbow? Maybe you just need to totally geek out over your latest collectible or tech toy! Show us and the world who you are as a person. Who knows? You could even gain a following of your own! Regular blogging will earn you the Green Leaf Badge!
• An "about me" page. Most of you who are authors have already set these up. (If you haven't, it's not too late, just let me know!) As of a few weeks ago though, those of you with 25 or more posts are now able to go in and edit your "about me" pages at will. Be sure to keep them up to date! Make one and earn the Poison Mushroom Badge!
• The opportunity to start and maintain your own column on whatever subject you want. Ok seriously, how come more of you aren't taking us up on the offer!? This is your chance to use Nerd Bacon as an outlet for anything you want to professionally write about! Whether you want to talk about the great composers of the video gaming industry or flex your knowledge of antique furniture, this is the place! Why start a separate blog off-site? Use ours! The more content that builds up in this manner, the more we'll actively promote it. If you've got the accompanying vision, you can easily turn your column into its own mini-website; it doesn't necessarily have to function like a series of articles with a hub page linking to them all. Check this out: if you work hard enough on it and make it awesome enough, we might even set up a cool redirect like http://your-column-name.nerdbacon.com/ ! And don't feel limited - if you feel your series on antique furniture has run its course, let us know, and we'll get you started on a brand new column for your discussion of individual Pokemon or tips on home gardening. Seriously, you can do whatever you want with this area, and the time and effort you pour into it is completely up to you. We only have one simple rule: content for your column should make up no more than roughly 50% of your total output. We're not here to strictly monitor it on an article by article basis, just be sure to keep the scales balanced and we'll be happy enough! Create and maintain a column to earn the Screwattack Badge!
• Your very own domain email address (YourAlias@NerdBacon.com)! Many of you use these already, but as a reminder, this is a great way to identify yourself as part of an organization. The domain email alone won't automatically open doors for you, but it will help you get your foot inside. Use 'em!!

Once you've got an active blog, don't forget to edit your authorbox and advertise yourself! This is an easy way to say, "hey, read this other stuff I've written!" simply and automatically each time you publish a post. Check out the below pic with a graphic I made to go in my authorbox. For those of you with a bio and an active blog, I can put that very same graphic (linked to your respective pages of course) right there in your authorbox in just a few seconds - just let me know! When and if you have an active column(s), we can also create and insert custom graphics and link to these as well. We're here to help, so if you ever need anything, just ask!

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Donate: Part 2
(Click here to go to Greased 1.11-S, see "Donate")
by Nerdberry

In the last newsletter we mentioned donating money. As previously noted, NB's owners will not be pocketing even a penny for themselves. Your donations will go towards site development, growth, marketing, and improvement. All of these would benefit you directly, hopefully making your job easier and making life easier for our audience (which again, benefits you directly). Nerd Bacon's owners would also be contributing to the pot as well as at least one other confirmed Baconeer. As a donor, you will receive a coin badge and other benefits! Add to your resume that you have hands on experience in the website's collective growth and development.

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Review Spotlight

• Alien Crush - TG-16 - Doc Croc
• by NerdBerry
  Another awesome review from our editor and author the Doc. This one ties into her previous TurboGrafx-16 pinball review. Again, this is awesome because this is Nerd Bacon's 2nd TG16 review, and she was responsible for the 1st. Oh, and did we mention that aliens are part of the horror genre?? If you don't believe me, watch Alien or Aliens! (The Cubist says: or Event Horizon!)

• Ogre Battle 64 - N64 - Rhutsczar
• by NerdBerry
  A big and awesome thanks to Rhuts for being the FIRST person to submit a halloween review to the pending queue! Perfect timing. The review is well written, strong, and a good piece to continue his string of the Ogre Battle series! One thing that I appreciate is his recommendation of other RPGs at the end of the review, drawing readers deeper into inner trappings of Nerd Bacon's lair.

• Onechanbara Z2: Chaos - PS4 - ChronoSloth
• by The Cubist
  Leave it to ChronoSloth to bring us more of the supremely weird when it comes to gaming - and this might be one of the weirdest yet. After the first couple of sentences you may find yourself feeling a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Even if you don't own or ever plan on owning a PS4, the sheer strangeness herein deserves a read.

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Reaching Administration
by Nerdberry

Here at NB, we've always maintained an open-door policy. We always mention that we're open to new ideas and that all you have to do is send us an email. And we still maintain that concept. It's part of what makes us a special group. Just about everyone has come to The Cubist and myself (Nerdberry) at least once before. But occasionally your emails slip through the cracks. I'm just as guilty as anyone. Trust us when we say that it's not something we ever wanted to see happen, and we apologize. We're human too, and we drop the ball from time to time. But that doesn't mean we're not interested in your thoughts. We will never intentionally ignore anyone. It doesn't mean we don't want to hear your ideas!

So, If you've ever sent us an email that you never got a reply to, LET US KNOW. One thing to keep in mind, the best way to get a quick reply is by sending a short email. If you have a lot to say, preface that email with a short one to initiate the conversation. It might be best to schedule some actual time to go back and forth in real time rather than writing a loooong email and waiting a week for one of us to get around to it. It's not ideal, I know. But Nerd Bacon is growing. And operations aren't as easy as they seem. But anyway, you get the idea. Let's chat. Let's talk. Let us hear your thoughts. Even if you want to say that you're a better video gamer than Infinite Knife. That's cool. Let us know, and we'll set up a LAN party at Knife's house for you to prove yourself.

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Get Greasy!

Help us fill Greased with the things that you want to know about the site! What do you want us to talk about regularly? What kind of updates are you hoping for? What sort of information would inspire you to be even more productive? Let us know how we can make Greased yours and we will do our best. Don't hesitate to share any tips or tricks you may wish to share as well. We'd love to have more of you guys' and girls' input. We'd also love to field any questions that you guys and girls may have: questions about grammar, spelling, or punctuation? Maybe an ambiguous piece of policy you want clarification on? Or maybe there's a technical aspect that you've seen in another article or on another site that you're interested in using? Chances are that if you have a question so does someone else, so please, speak up and ask us! If you submit something that we use in a future issue of Greased, you'll earn yourself a Lightning Bolt Badge!

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We Need Managers for Flickr, Tumblr, and Google+!

Ok, so we've already spent some serious time during this issue of Greased talking about how taking Nerd Bacon seriously can seriously help you out. If you want to get in on the action, here's a good place to start. Even if you've never worked much (or any) with these platforms but would like to help, take a couple of minutes and read thought it anyway. It's probably easier than you think!

FLICKR: Flickr has been a great website to show off pictures of our stuff, but besides being a fancy repository for a bunch of pictures, we could be using it to connect to people! As a manager of Nerd Bacon @ Flickr, you won't be directly responsible for content; instead, you'll be in charge of how that content gets used. It'll be your job to 1) share our pictures with relevant groups, 2) find and follow relevant groups and individuals, 3) entice other users of Flickr to follow us, 4) and to generally network and connect using our pictures and Flickr's resources to spread the word about the site - the people who own this stuff are all over at this site called NerdBacon.com and they're all writing about video games! This also includes responding to people who may have their first contact with us via Flickr on our behalf.

TUMBLR: Tumblr is such a cool place. I still can't get over the wealth of features and customization available. What we need is a steady presence on Tumblr continually pumping our articles and possibly contributing unique blog posts (on behalf of the site) to draw people into visiting. It's nothing too complicated, but for instance you could create a blog post that talks a little about Mario and how far he's come over the years and then hit the reader with a big ol' list of all of our Mario reviews. In general, our Tumblr manager will be responsible for 1) keeping our Tumblr page active with links to full articles on The Bacon, 2) making connections with other Tumblr blogs - both following blogs and gaining followers, 3) customizing the appearance/layout of our Tumblr page, 4) responding directly to comments and inquiries made via Tumblr on our behalf. Proportionately our articles have achieved moderate success, and I feel strongly about exploiting this resource to its fullest.

GOOGLE+: Does anyone actually use Google+ or does everyone simply have an account on G+ due to things like Gmail and the merger between Google and YouTube? I don't know, but with something like 1 billion accounts floating around on this network, it at least deserves a spirited effort from us. Functionally it'll be a lot like managing a Facebook page. We'd expect you to 1) keep a steady stream of links to our articles posted throughout the day, 2) connect with and follow others as well as gain followers, and 3) speak on our behalf to users using Google+ to contact us. Google+ has lots of other little ins and outs that I'm not aware of. We don't expect you to know how to do it all when you first start, but we do want you to learn more about what G+ is capable of and use these features accordingly

If you haven't done so or it's been a while, check out presence on Flickr, Tumblr, and Google+ as well as other social networks by clicking on the respective icons in the box to the left.

Yes, managing a social network will take some work. Ideally we would like you to be active on these networks each and every day (Flickr may not warrant the same amount of direct attention) but with features such as scheduling (composing several posts in the present and setting them to "go live" at a predetermined points in the future), you can probably do an adequate job if you're willing to devote some time to it 3 or 4 days out of the week. In addition to the duties listed above, we also expect you to provide us (Nerdberry and The Cubist) with periodic updates - how many followers do we have? Any wildly popular posts or photos? Some awesome comments you'd like to share? Of course we'll do our best to check in from time to time, but it'd be great if you could check in with us and give us the "Reader's Digest" version a couple of times a month. We also want you to be familiar with tagging. Posts on Tumblr and Google+ can be tagged as well as photos on Flickr; this is how interested people will find our stuff!

If you're interested but concerned about the workload and/or your technical experience with these platforms, don't worry! We don't expect you to come out of the gate full throttle. In fact, you don't even have to be all that familiar with any of these services to apply for a position, you just need to be willing (and able) to learn. If you're not making progress in leaps and bounds to begin with that's ok. What we're most concerned with is improvement, and any sort of management over these networks is better than nothing. So please give some thought to tackling one of these arenas for us. These are all valuable avenues of exposure for us, and on top of our other obligations, David and I just can't keep up with them with the regularity necessary to make a lasting impact. Not only will you be on your way to making a huge difference, but you'll also earn yourself the very cool Sledgehammer Mario badge and the title of Social Media Manager!

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FRESH MEAT Needed

Recruitment has been pitifully low lately. Even though a lot of new members fizzle out before they ever get started, it's always nice to have that fresh flow of enthusiasm at any given time. We do our best to push for new members every now and then, but it wouldn't hurt if you guys and girls could jump in as well. Reach out to your friends and acquaintances - both online and in real life - and pass on our Contributor Application URL (http://nerdbacon.com/apply/ . Use your personal Facebook and Twitter accounts to help us even more or go all out and blanket Craigslist! Adding even 4 or 5 moderately productive individuals to the team could make a profound difference!

If you've got a knack for reaching out to people, you could consider helping us recruit "full-time" as our official Recruiting Officer. In addition to the "usual spots," perhaps you could open up some entirely new doors for us by finding brand new resources for us to pull potential members from. By fine tuning who we approach, we can hopefully draw the interest of both talented and committed writers without having to sort through so many deadbeats in the meantime.

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Site Developments

I hope that you're all enjoying our recurring October theme! So far, this is the only time of the year where we switch up something site-wide like this, though we might toy with the idea in the future. Apart from the color change though, Nerdberry are slowly exchanging ideas about how to optimally present everyone's badges. The "badge boxes" work well enough, but we'd like to show them off in other ways as well. The idea is for the badges to feel like certain accomplishments/items/achievements/trophies/whatever present in a video game. Some are easy to get and you'll earn just by "playing the game" (or writing reviews, in this case). Others will require some serious effort. And still others may be completely hidden. With that concept in mind, we were hoping that some of you might have some suggestions on how to best present and display each members' badges; not necessarily as a replacement for the "badge box" system, but perhaps something a little cleaner and easier to understand at a glance. I know, I'm speaking in very vague terms, and that's because this possible "badge reform" is a bit vague itself. Honestly, if you have any thoughts or suggests regarding the badges in general, we'd be glad to hear them.

Finally I want to again touch on the issue of Member Evaluations that we brought up a few months back. I'm sure none of you have been on pins and needles waiting for these progress reports, but regardless, we do like handing out some cold hard facts to you all concerning your individual performance. Originally we had planned to issue these quarterly, though it became readily apparent that 3 months was going to come and go way too quickly to keep up with crunching numbers for every single member. Then a bi-yearly approach seemed feasible. Truthfully I had a lot of site-wide stats on production ready to go back in June or July, but then as time passes, those numbers become less and less relevant. Besides just gathering the site data, then each individual's data, and writing it all down, David and I do collaborate to an extent on every single evaluation to ensure that we're both more or less on the same page when it comes to the efforts of a single member. So yeah, it takes some time to get these done, and the worst part is that if the process itself takes too long, the results then become outdated. Anyway, barring any other matters that need my attention, I'm going to work really hard on getting these done in the near future - probably in batches of 5 - and I'm going to try to make Nerdberry's job of reviewing them as easy as possible so that you guys and gals can get a definitive look at the progress you've made.

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Until Next Time...

Well that does it for October's first issue of Greased! I hope everyone is having a fine time enjoying their creepy games and this first noticable shift towards the holiday season. We've got an exciting 2nd challenge lined up for everyone once October is behind us, but if you've been busy sniffing out our "secrets" then you should have a bit of a jump on the rest of the Baconeers! Stay tuned for more clues in the next newsletter!

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