Laurence, aside from the discourtesy of making me feel like all the time I
invest in putting Bree together is wasted, all I can say is that - unlike some -
I put my time where my mouth is and said I'd produce a newsletter. I'd be happy
to produce some sort of weekly newsletter, but a) it would cost Harlequin extra
to distribute it and b) I have serious doubts as to whether there would be
enough material.
No discourtesy was intended, but I'm sorry if you felt hurt. Please look again carefully at what I wrote, you'll find I was clearly criticising Bree as a _format_ for news and discussion. The editing is very good, I just feel that this type of publication has been superceded by the enhanced communication and publishing opportunities of the Internet.
By all means go ahead and offer to do a website for Harlequin. You'll find it
takes a hell of a lot of time (what you propose would be a full time job I
reckon). Getting any contributions will be like dragging blood out of a stone
...
Depends on what was required. An on-line Bree is not what I have in mind. The constant pleading for contributions for Bree actually gets a bit wearing. It becomes negative publicity, and makes me think that when Bree comes out its going to be full of all sorts of naff stuff screwed out of reluctant writers. The very fact that getting material for it is an effort, should stand as an argument for scrapping it.
To my utter exasperation, someone just made a "poll" asking about preferences for news letter forum, group etc. This was possibly provoked by my words, but shows a total and utter misunderstanding of my main point - it even allows multiple choices. These Yahoo group polls are always a waste of space, because a poll is only ever useful if it is VERY carefully worded, and comes at the end of a proper period of debate.
How can you vote for an interactive web site, when no-one has described what one might look like? How can you value a Yahoo group poll when less than half the players are subscribed, fewer reading, and several discussing in another forum? It'll get 2 votes for a web site, 12 for a Y group, 20 for a newsletter, and Harlequin can say, "there you are then" and we'll keep them all. What's needed is a single inclusive debating chamber, and that needs a proactive decision. Not very democratic you say? Sometimes a democratic structure has to be imposed in order for a democratic system to have a chance at getting off the ground.
> We have 302 people subscribed to this group, and no
> more than a score of we who are "chatty" enough to actually write to it
> regularly.
Clearly you have more time than I! It's not a question of not having anything to
say, but not always having the time to say it - and besides, having subscribed
to the daily digest subjects are often talked out by the time I read them. Yes,
if I had nothing better to do than sit on line all day answering messages as
they come at me, that would be great, but ...
Time is relative to interest. When the interest is high enough, people find the time. If you're getting say 1 article a week for Bree, then 1 article a week could be stuck up on a web site. It would take about 5 minutes to upload it, and would be far more interesting than having a Bree with 8 articles every 2 months. You could print a digest on paper every 8 weeks IF there were enough postal players still out there to warrant it.
Downloading the digest is bound to put you out of discussions. A thread based discussion group on a web site, or a link to a Usenet newsgroup, would tidy out the anarchy of stuff which turns off busy folk like yourself and causes you to resort to the digest. Who wants to read "Harad would like to contact all players in game 666" if you're not in that game? BUT FIRST you have to get everyone talking in the same place.
Note that Bree goes out to ALL players. Unlike this mailing list or the message
board. I note also that you have never written an artyicle for Bree discussing
the proposed Player Rating System.
I said that I really don't like Bree as a format, and you point the finger at me for not writing for it? I could certainly have written about the PRS for Bree, but that would have given two basic problems:
1) It would be my ideas, not a "discussion" except in the academic sense "'Napoleon Bonapart was a fairly good general' Discuss. 1 hour 20 marks". When what was really needed was an open debate and a free flow of ideas, followed by a resolution, testing and review. That's not the stuff of newsletters.
2) It would have been anything up to 8 weeks before my words saw print, by which time the conversations from which it arose would have been ancient history.
I spent very many hours in the summer writing up my ideas for a 2nd edition. When I'd finished, for want of a better place, I published it myself at http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk/2nded.htm and a couple of the ME web sites were kind enough to link to it. There's no way I'd want it in Bree - sure I'd get a wider initial readership, but then it would get filed as unindexed pdfs or piles of paper. I want it to be where I can refer to it, update it, and easily refer others to it. Some very good stuff has been written in Bree, but where is it now? I know I _could_ go fishing through the old pdfs, but am I likely to? Some awful tripe has been written in Bree, which I would love to have seen exploded here by the "chatterers", but no, it get's the veneer of dignity which writing gets when it is seen to be "published" in a paper or paper-like format. No small print disclaimer protects the newbie from being taken in by the spoutings of the nearly newbie, who, having completed his first two games, thinks he's the Napoleon of Middle Earth. (The diminutive French chap appears again).
Newsletter = not a place for news in the information age. Anything which comes out every 8 weeks can only ever be full of "olds".
Newsletter = not a place for discussion. People get to mouth off there, and nobody gets to challenge them. Who wants to write a counter article, which won't be seen until the original is long, long forgotten.
I stress again, these are not criticisms of you Colin. In fact, it actually grieves me to think of you spending your precious time, and the efforts of your literate mind, on a medium which is so out dated, and which, to me at least, has so little value.
> Things won't get better unless Harlequin decides to be a little more
> proactive, developing a single web site (hey when was the last time you
> went to their site? It's static and might as well be a printed paper
> leaflet) to act as a single forum for discussion, news and articles.
You clearly have little understanding of the work involved in developing a
dynamic website. Harlequin would almost certainly have to employ someone
specifically for the purpose (something I'm fairly sure they can't afford to
do). Unless you'd like to pay quite a bit more for turns?
OK, if I used the term "dynamic website", it was perhaps ill chosen, as it conjures up a overly grand picture. All I want is a SINGLE site where we can have discussion threads, post up weekly or occasional articles, debate them and file them sensibly. This could probably be achieved in a Yahoo group, if someone such as yourself was given the moderator role (no, not AS WELL AS editing Bree), but I expect there are people out there who know of other providers or could themselves knock up a web site that could do discussion threads and a files area.
Unfortunately I don't think such a website would work anyway. If people don't
write into a mailing list which gets delivered right to their desktop, then I
can't see them actively going to a website. Why are people more likely to
interact and become "chatty" if this will require them to put in more effort
than they currently do by not contributing to this mailing list and Bree?
At the moment, some write for Bree, some write here, some write in the other place, and I even feel obliged to publish myself (yeah I know, ultimate narcissism, the therapists have given up on me). Impose a single, well structured meeting place, and there's immediately 3 times as much written material coming in. Certainly not everyone will contribute to every discussion, and there'll be times when it all goes quiet, BUT there will not be the same feeling that when something really important comes up like the PRS discussions, that 90% of the players don't know anything about it, unless they pick something up about a dead discussion 8 weeks later, as a footnote in Bree
Laurence G. Tilley
http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk
···
At 12:42 PM 26-10-01, Colin Forbes wrote:
