T-Nation Articles

Off Topic
41

Here’s the deal.

We’ve been putting up five, sometimes six, articles a week for a long, long time.

We sometimes end up running articles that I’m not crazy about, simply because we’re expected to run an article every day.

In fact, when someone asks me what I do for a living, my impulse is to say that I’m an overpaid assembly line worker.

So, we’re going to transition. We’re adopting a new mindset.

First of all, we’ve decided we don’t have to put up an article every day.

As a result, that gives us the freedom (and time) to spend more time in the future on QUALITY.

Future articles will provide a “richer” experience in that they’ll be more comprehensive, better researched, and perhaps accompanied by high-quality, high-def videos that support the stuff presented in the article.

Ideally, we’d like every article to be a “keeper,” one that you print out and pass on to your son when you croak. Okay, that’s an exaggeration–a slight one–but you get the idea.

The current plan is to also run a high-quality video every other Friday, one that will take the place of an article. Case in point, the "I, Bodybuilder videos that we’ve run over the last few week–there’s no way an article could have done that training program justice.

Anyhow, rest assured that you won’t really be losing anything. You’ll still get the stuff you like, only it’ll be presumably much, much better.

–TC

42

[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
yes, the latest figure athlete pics have been stellar[/quote]

Thanks.

It’s nice to get some recognition for something that you pour your heart and soul into (stifling back tears).

43

[quote]TC wrote:
Here’s the deal.

We’ve been putting up five, sometimes six, articles a week for a long, long time.

We sometimes end up running articles that I’m not crazy about, simply because we’re expected to run an article every day.

In fact, when someone asks me what I do for a living, my impulse is to say that I’m an overpaid assembly line worker.

So, we’re going to transition. We’re adopting a new mindset.

First of all, we’ve decided we don’t have to put up an article every day.

As a result, that gives us the freedom (and time) to spend more time in the future on QUALITY.

Future articles will provide a “richer” experience in that they’ll be more comprehensive, better researched, and perhaps accompanied by high-quality, high-def videos that support the stuff presented in the article.

Ideally, we’d like every article to be a “keeper,” one that you print out and pass on to your son when you croak. Okay, that’s an exaggeration–a slight one–but you get the idea.

The current plan is to also run a high-quality video every other Friday, one that will take the place of an article. Case in point, the "I, Bodybuilder videos that we’ve run over the last few week–there’s no way an article could have done that training program justice.

Anyhow, rest assured that you won’t really be losing anything. You’ll still get the stuff you like, only it’ll be presumably much, much better.

–TC
[/quote]

Fantastic. There have been some weak articles in the recent past, but that is bound to happen with the volume you were putting out. I am 100% in favor of sacrificing quantity for quality (which has been improved of late).

And yes, the half naked chicks are awesome. I send them in in email to my buddies every week. You have a keen eye for talent.

44

what? theres pictures? I just come on here for the articles…

Thanks TC, that scroll to teh bottom of the HOME page has been giving me a morning lift.

45

Since TC is here, I wanted to add my two cents regarding future articles and quality. It seemed that, maybe in the ballpark of five years ago, you guys wrote many articles that focused on the science behind the theories being espoused.

I know there are quite a few of us on here with a science degree and those old articles were like a godsend, at least to me. All of the biology textbooks that I read with one eye open to possible lifting implications were a chore and did not really tie it all together from the perspective I was after. But when T-Nation was able to outline everything from a cellular level all the way up to real world lifting practices, well, that was a breath of fresh air and very helpful to the learning process.

Don’t be afraid to get a little ‘textbook’ on us every once in a while.

46

I think I speak for a large amount of us when I say the frequency isn’t an issue, it’s consistency and quality that matter. As long as I can plan on a new article/video every XXday, I’m a happy camper. TC just assured us that the quality will improve, so I’m excited for that. I’m still curious how often we’ll get a new article/video though. He said the plan is every other Friday for videos, but what about articles?

In case I’m coming off as demanding (this is the internet, and it is hard to determine emotion through text) I’d like to say that I’m simply curious.

47

[quote]TC wrote:
Here’s the deal.

We’ve been putting up five, sometimes six, articles a week for a long, long time.

We sometimes end up running articles that I’m not crazy about, simply because we’re expected to run an article every day.

In fact, when someone asks me what I do for a living, my impulse is to say that I’m an overpaid assembly line worker.

So, we’re going to transition. We’re adopting a new mindset.

First of all, we’ve decided we don’t have to put up an article every day.

As a result, that gives us the freedom (and time) to spend more time in the future on QUALITY.

Future articles will provide a “richer” experience in that they’ll be more comprehensive, better researched, and perhaps accompanied by high-quality, high-def videos that support the stuff presented in the article.

Ideally, we’d like every article to be a “keeper,” one that you print out and pass on to your son when you croak. Okay, that’s an exaggeration–a slight one–but you get the idea.

The current plan is to also run a high-quality video every other Friday, one that will take the place of an article. Case in point, the "I, Bodybuilder videos that we’ve run over the last few week–there’s no way an article could have done that training program justice.

Anyhow, rest assured that you won’t really be losing anything. You’ll still get the stuff you like, only it’ll be presumably much, much better.

–TC
[/quote]

This clears everything up for us, thanks TC. I’m glad to hear its because of a changing direction the website is heading and not just being scaled back for other reasons. I look forward to the new videos you guys are producing, I’m just curious if it would be possible to have the videos available in a portable format for downloading purposes such as MPEG-4. Sometimes its nice to be able to take these with me on my IPod instead of breaking out a computer every time.

48

[quote]andrew_live wrote:
what? theres pictures? I just come on here for the articles…

Thanks TC, that scroll to teh bottom of the HOME page has been giving me a morning lift.[/quote]

Literally…

49

TC,

Thanks for taking your time out to put a word in on this. I definitely agree with you regarding the quality over quantity issue. Looking forward to what you guys have in store for us!

50

Good decision TC. For the past few months honestly I’ve just been losing interest in reading the articles, and it’s for the reasons you mentioned. I think this will do everyone some good.

51

Reducing the frequency of articles in favor of quality is a good call.

I had noticed the quality of articles dropping. I don’t know whether its the fact that I’ve read extensively on the subject, or whether the quality of articles has actually dropped. The first articles I read on this site were amazing, but is that because I was unfamiliar with training in general or because they were better articles?

Who knows, but I think focusing on quality keep beginners on the right path and veterans satisfied.