[CIMC-working] Re: vampires and corps - POSTED: TABD update feature

[Ian Bicking]

On Sat, 2002-11-09 at 03:41, Doug Morris wrote:
> Dick,
> 
> First: Corporate vampires is very descriptive in a metaphorical sense and 
> accurate in that way.  I've argued that 3 xs now.  It may seem silly on one 
> level.  On another level it is powerful.  We need to have the willing to 
> take that step
> 
> Second: It's a difference of editorial vision.  And that is ok.
> 
> I detect in Ian's idea the philosopy of a computer programer with the 
> radical decentralist approach of the free software tradition.  Which is 
> really great.

Really that's not what I'm concerned about.  It's not really for
philosophical reasons that I'm of this opinion, it's for functional
reasons.  I feel that a more neutral title makes the site more useful to
the reader, and I feel usefulness to the reader should be one of our
highest concerns.

In fact, I feel strongly that the most important goal of the center
column is to direct readers to interesting and informative content.  I'm
not opposed to partisan content being pointed to at all -- and I'm not
even hugely concerned with the impression of bias.  But I just don't
think there's *room* for flourish or opinion in the center column.


That said, I don't want to stand in the way of any changes.  I'm of the
opinion that a more boring title is better, but I don't really object to
a different title.  I certainly don't want this debate to stand in the
way of any updates.  You've done good work, and I think over all our
TABD coverage is excellent.  This is just an editorial issue I've noted
to myself in the past, and it happened to come up now.  I think the
original edit was mostly just because "Vampirism" in particular was a
weird word.


> Global does have a process where a feature is proposed, up for 6 hours on 
> working group list, then it gets posted.  It can be objected to.  I think 
> that is a good free flow of info idea.   It does allow a lot of diff. ideas 
> and diff. approaches to get to center column.

I would support that, though we'd have to think it through some. 
Certainly we could have features more often than we currently do, and we
should consider whatever barriers people see in making features.  I
think 6 hours is too short for our group (for a new feature, certainly
not for edits), though perhaps if it was for a time-sensitive matter
that delay would be shortened.  We could also use a quorum instead of
consensus, where if X people agreed (with no dissent) the feature would
go forward.  Since center-panel membership is not even clear, this might
make sense.

I usually would prefer the notion that we put something up, and fix it
later if people have issues with it.  But we also have to be careful
about the perceived stability of CIMC editing -- if features go up and
come down a little later, people will notice and be confused.  I don't
know what to do about that... I'm reluctant to be more conservative to
avoid changes, or to muck up the site with too many addendums, but at
some point we have to find a balance.

I do feel we should have some editorial guides -- not strict standards
necessarily, but suggestions that can lead to a more consistent feel. 
Many of these need not effect the substance, but only the form of the
features.  Even a single page of guidelines would cover a great deal of
ground -- things like expanding most acronyms at least once, or what
kinds of lists to use, or if there should be any distinction between on-
and off-site content...

Anyway, the next meeting is coming up soon, and we should probably put
off this debate until then -- it's only a distraction at the moment. 
I'm comfortable with you making whatever changes you decide on for the
TABD coverage.

  Ian