PROPOSAL Re: [Seattle-editorial] Re: how to make the seattle website work

[Joseph Eisenschmidt]

Walt,

I would like to learn to create and format features. If your 
offering to do the posting for sheelanagig, then I can't imagine a 
lot of objection to the content you or I or most folks I can think 
of would put up. I commit to a twenty four hour turn-around on 
approvals or rejections, faster if I'm called. I'll feel 
comfortable saying no, so folks can know my yes has some meaning.

The passive aggressive stuff has to stop, and I'll just work on my 
part of that problem, and call other members on it when I see them 
doing it.

I think the perception that there are good folks at Editorial who 
are lazy, or are keeping folks from posting is just plain wrong. JL 
and Gentry have both taught feature creation more than once, and 
both have provided me with technical help when I've asked. We are 
not the best of buddies, JL, Gentry and I, but we work together. 

The newswire is the place where articles go, I am convinced, and 
the ones who decide if they are to be made features is up to the 
eds. I've posted many great articles to the newswire, and have 
asked that two or three get added to the center column. I'd like to 
have any request I make to the eds that an article I've created be 
formatted and posted as a feature be considered. And then the 
answer may be:

1) Yes I approve of it becoming a feature, and I'm willing to do 
the work of creating the feature you asked me to create.

2) Yes I approve of the feature, but cannot help you with doing the 
hard work of formatting. It takes time, and I can't assist you 
right now. 

or 

3) No, I object.
   A) Please work some more on this because of ...

   B) I disapprove entirely to posting this story as written.

A non-response obviously equals a rejection, and if the reason is 
one of a lack of commitment from conributors/volunteers to donate 
time, please don't waste time on 20 rejection notices while at the 
same time not getting to the one or two approvals. 

I will commit to reading and respnding to soft rejections(A 
rejection that could be turned around), but will not be able to 
give an open ended commitment to responding to every request. If I 
know that I will not spend another moment on an article (Hate 
speech, not my cup of tea, whatever) I'll contine to work 
positively on productive work.

Notice there is no "WE" in the above process. there are about 5 or 
6 folks creating features, and they work independently. 

The folks  are:

1 & 2)Employed in Olympia or Bainbridge Island while living in 
seattle.
3) Unemployed/underemployed and looking for work quite often.
4) WOrking full time and raising an infant.
5) Getting a masters at UW.
6) Working full time and aggressively helping to elect better 
poiticians

So, thanks eds, keep working, going to school, looking for work, 
procreating and commuting. And then thanks double for doing the 
great volunteer work of feature creation and spam removal etc. 

Do I want more feature creation? You bet! And as I point to you 
five folks, I see fifteen fingers pointed right back at me! Now if 
I shake your hands, I seem to be able to point all five digets your 
way-I gotcha! 

I wholehartedly agree with handing the keys to most anyone willing 
to work hard at what we do. At the same time, there are positions 
and groups and folks I'll not spend a moment assisting. In fact 
there are folks in the network I'll not talk to. That makes dealing 
with interpersonal problems between members difficult, but without 
enforcement mechanisms and dispute resolution systems that work 
well, we have to control ourselves. If people find that 
frustrating, at least they are paying attention. 

Thanks again Walt. I really like sheelanagig's writing, and your 
offer to work with her is in fact living up to our higher purpose. 
She is correct when she says writing and editing are different 
jobs. We would all like to edit our own stuff, and conversely, see 
our stuff written just as we would do it. If we can bring more 
equality to the writing/editing relationship we will. but a great 
writer, technical genious, and hard hitting editor need not be the 
same person.

Joseph