Honestly a "Mentor" realtionship would be great as well as a more vague "Family" relationship, that could be anything from an uncle to Grandchildren or what-not.

It should not be something you have to ask for though. They put work into it and they deserve at least a kind of response about it, if you want to keep the frustration-rate low. 

But maybe this could be somethign for a quest like the Unicorn-Quest, just over a longer time-periode and for more than one Players. Sort of a group-mission? (just a quick idea i had, when i was reading this)

That would be especially great for theose, who know they can't be online enough in the future, to care for their own pets, so they can just gift them away instead of letting them starve. 

Ich am not sure about the names or the markings, but i feel like a View-Counter on the topics would be really awesome too. Totally support that idea! I think to see that a few people actually read in, ecourages some of the lazy repliers to answer a little more ambitious. It is fun to see, that people are interestet in your nonsense after all! *thumbs up*

ich feel like this isn't working the same way everywhere. For one not everyone gets paid (in our case), and for two we are not asking our HoH to be allowed to post something, but instead we do it weekly with a set schedule , like each other Newspaper, overwatched and supported by our HoH and on his behalf. but he can only do so much to support.

In the end the House-Newspaper is a powerful tool to keep the interactions and Events in our own House going and helps new Players to get into the game, it is not something we do just for fun or to kill time. It supports the site and therefore deserves the same acknowledgment as other newspapers, for gaining the power to attract new autors to take this job instead of one of the bigger newspapers JUST to get a red colord name (honestly thats the crucial reason  most of the times). 

As for crowded job sections, the teachers-assistants-area is so much worse croweded than the Journalists-area.....so this really should not be the killing factor.

Maybe at least the HoH should get the ability to assign actual Journalists for the house - so it dosn't have to be the whole team, but only the Organizer, or however the HoH want's to handle the situation in his house.