Board 8 > I need to complain about something very specific.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Jenni Lada is the editor in chief for Siliconera. Her writing is confusing, stilted, and generally bad.

It pisses me off, to an irrational degree, whenever I stumble upon one of her articles.

Gaming articles dont need to be literature, but they need to read better than mildly edited Google Translate results.

https://www.siliconera.com/street-fighter-chun-li-bust-is-a-4000-statue/

The edition size for this piece is 50. What?

https://www.siliconera.com/dynasty-warriors-8-xtreme-legends-patch-fixes-a-ps5-issue/

It would be one thing if she was some random person doing her thing but shes EIC of a relatively big gaming news site. It boggles my mind and irritates me in a way that even I recognize is juvenile and petty.

That is all.

I stopped using Siliconera precisely because Jenni was like, the entire feed and her writing and reporting are truly unfortunately bad. Most of her article topics at the time were annoyingly pointless to boot, just really bugged me as a former journalist.

i encounter articles like that a lot when i google stuff like "which is better to visit, milan or italy" or "has dragon prince season 4 gotten a start date" - have to assume it's the result of either construction an article in like 5 minutes without editing or just using AI to generate it

SeabassDebeste posted...

have to assume it's the result of either construction an article in like 5 minutes without editing or just using AI to generate it

these things totally read as AI generated to me. plug one fact in and let ai write the article

Xiahou_Shake posted...

I stopped using Siliconera precisely because Jenni was like, the entire feed and her writing and reporting are truly unfortunately bad. Most of her article topics at the time were annoyingly pointless to boot, just really bugged me as a former journalist.

THANK YOU.

I even went as far as Googling her name in different ways to see if anybody else had ever complained about her writing, just to validate my rage. Never found anything.

<img src="//:0"><img src="//:0">https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/8/2/AAe3nCAAEzWC.jpg

SeabassDebeste posted...

i encounter articles like that a lot when i google stuff like "which is better to visit, milan or italy" or "has dragon prince season 4 gotten a start date" - have to assume it's the result of either construction an article in like 5 minutes without editing or just using AI to generate it

I would not have my name and face at the end of every article I put out if I were doing this. Thats part of it too; Siliconera has the name of the author on each headline and then proudly displays the authors profile within each article, too.

She knows this but still has no problem churning out such lazy work. That only adds to my infuriation.

It is written very badly, I see what you mean immediately. You do see it sometimes, people who write only using basic and repeated sentence structures even though they would immediately identify it as unnatural sounding when spoken.

I mean this doesn't look like just "basic sentence structure" it looks like it's either AI-written or it has literally zero proofreading.

i clicked on a random article to see for myself and this is the first paragraph

HoYoVerse released the 1.3 Honkai: Star Rail patch notes, which go over the new characters, multiple events, and maintenance compensation. The three new characters are the five-stars Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae and Fu Xuan, while Lynx Landau. Well also get access to the new Aurum Alley location, complete with a Aurum Alleys Hustle and Bustle event to introduce it.

while Lynx Landau...? Literally just doesn't finish the sentence.

but this isn't the only site like this, i've seen others. my phone's news feed aggressively shows these gaming sites to me and i click them sometimes and they're total nonsense half the time.

Yeah this is 100% AI generated with minimal to no proofreading.

RikkuAlmighty posted...

The edition size for this piece is 50. What?

I see what you mean in general but this sentence is fine. They're only making 50 of this edition of these statues, so the edition size is 50. If you were to buy one it would be numbered 37/50 or whatever.

No, thats poorly phrased and unclear. I was able to discern what it meant from context, but there are much more natural ways to write that sentence without unnecessarily causing the reader to pause to process its meaning.

Dels posted...

while Lynx Landau...? Literally just doesn't finish the sentence.

this could definitely be due to poor proofreading - i've written posts on B8, emails, etc where i jump around and then eventually leave a sentence unfinished

Yeah, that kind of abrupt ending makes me less likely to think that article is AI.

RikkuAlmighty posted...

No, thats poorly phrased and unclear. I was able to discern what it meant from context, but there are much more natural ways to write that sentence without unnecessarily causing the reader to pause to process its meaning.

yeah, i agree with you - this is type of sentence structure feels like it comes from an anime subtitle, so i do find your google translate comment to be pretty on-point. it just sounds like shit in english.

Thank you all for indulging me in my time of need.

I think "edition size" is standard terminology in the world of collector items. So that sentence would be perfectly clear for people who are aware of this. But, it is awkward to parse for those who don't.

Kenri posted...

I see what you mean in general but this sentence is fine. They're only making 50 of this edition of these statues, so the edition size is 50. If you were to buy one it would be numbered 37/50 or whatever.

I had no earthly clue what the sentence meant, so thanks for explaining lol

Its because shes writing this off a press release and trying not to repeat what it says verbatim.

This is infinitely better than that guy from Kotaku that wrote articles pulled straight from tvtropes

I read AVclub (even now!) and they seem to have sworn an oath against proofreading.

RikkuAlmighty posted...

THANK YOU.

I even went as far as Googling her name in different ways to see if anybody else had ever complained about her writing, just to validate my rage. Never found anything.

I legitimately laughed out loud when I opened this topic last night and saw what you were complaining about because it really was so incredibly specific and wildly niche and yet I've also felt like I was literally the only person on the planet with this complaint. Glad we could validate each other!

While we're complaining about niche gaming site frustrations, shoutout to Nintendo Everything's extremely archaic gallery viewer. You wanna scroll through all the pictures in an article? Clicking to the next image sends you to a new webpage where you gotta scroll down past the article to get back to the gallery section. Every time. It is so stupid.

Sounds like we need to cause a rise of Glorbo.

I gave up reading Siliconera before AI-written stuff started to be a thing - it felt like 90% of the articles weren't even about video games at that point and the writing quality was already pretty bad

if I wanted anime news I would go to an anime news site

https://www.siliconera.com/death-note-20th-anniversary-volume-1-is-a-subtle-tribute/

a new article that doesnt seem AI generated but is still very poorly written and unnecessarily drawn out

why do i keep navigating to siliconera?