[Siberian Fox]

The old blog area is history.

Are you guys up for restarting this project at the moment, albeit in a less ambitious form?

[Cartertonian]

I was on board before it all went very quiet and had been in external email comms with Honi and MB on the matter...but I still wasn't 100% sure what we were doing or how.

I do think the project has merit, so I'd be up for rejuvinating it, but I don't have the skill set to do the formatting, which I assume was done on some Adobe pdf-generating software?

[HoniSoit]

Fox - Yes, it would be excellent to restart the project. The main thing I am concerned with is the lack of incentive for posters to contribute articles. Soliciting articles has taken the bulk of the editors' time and promises of articles after a long wait do not always materialise. So I am wondering whether we could create some sort of incentive. For example, some kind of indication that displays either on a poster's profile or on a poster's post (e.g. below the signature or in the place of watermark) which says that particular poster is a contributor of PoFo Publication and if possible the number of articles the poster has contributed. This then could be combined with better promotion of PoFo Publication, say, by alerting all PoFo members with a PM - when a new issue is up - that lists the content with a link to the PoFo Publication subforum for download.

What do you think?

[Siberian Fox]

I'm of the opinion that initially at least we should shelve the PDF format and publish the articles directly on the site like this. So we can publish what we have without waiting for anyone or needing any additional software.

It gives the author the immediate gratification of having had their article published at least.

Although I do agree with you HoniSoit about some kind of reward for authors, I'm not sure about the technicalities of how I would implement that at the moment in a way that didn't require a lot of manual updates.

[HoniSoit]

I'm of the opinion that initially at least we should shelve the PDF format and publish the articles directly on the site like this. So we can publish what we have without waiting for anyone or needing any additional software.

Yes, I agree. I haven't been on HiFo for a while. How does it work over there?

Although I do agree with you HoniSoit about some kind of reward for authors, I'm not sure about the technicalities of how I would implement that at the moment in a way that didn't require a lot of manual updates.

I agree it would be a problem. Another idea would be to create a 'permanent' link manually displaying by the side of signature that says the poster is a contributor and links to a list (or perhaps more like a search?) of the posters' contributions. Just my two cents.

[Siberian Fox]

How does it work over there?

There is a forum like this for editing draft posts, then another forum for posting the articles that allows members to comment (like the Administrative Announcements form on PoFo). The displaying of the articles on the main page is automatic.

Another idea would be to create a 'permanent' link manually displaying by the side of signature that says the poster is a contributor and links to a list (or perhaps more like a search?) of the posters' contributions.

The restrictions on who can use the Search feature would make even this problematic. We might have to resign ourselves to something manually updated by an admin.

[MB.]

I think we should pursue the blog format for the publication with the current e-zine editors validating the post content. There should be clear word count restrictions (ie, only posts over 500 words or so) and images + references are a must (say, at least 2 images and footnotes a blogpost). I would like to see the publication revitalized in the future (For the Motherland must not die!), perhaps in conjunction with publication watermarks or special privileges for contributors, etc. In the short-term the objective should be to establish a high quality, content-laden format for longer (original) articles by PoFo contributors. I see no reason why the existing blog format (ie, the HiFo format) would not work for PoFo assuming there is contribution. How to encourage users to up their game with quality contributions and original research should be the key objective. Blog contributors have the potential to become moderators because we will know for certain the quality of their discourse. Some kind of incentive program seems logical, aesthetic or functional I don't know. My two cents.

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[Siberian Fox]

with the current e-zine editors validating the post content.

The way you phrased that has just put a thought into my head that never coloured to me before. I think I might be able to set up the blog so that users can post articles to it direct, but they will not show up until a moderator approves them (like new users). That would make the entire process so much simpler. No more e-mailing or PMing articles, or posting in a seperate forum for review and editing. Users would submit articles in the same forum where they post comments simply by starting a new topic.

Unfortunately, the way I have HiFo's blog set up I don't think this will work. But I should be able to get it going without too much changing of the script.

[HoniSoit]

The way you phrased that has just put a thought into my head that never coloured to me before. I think I might be able to set up the blog so that users can post articles to it direct, but they will not show up until a moderator approves them (like new users). That would make the entire process so much simpler. No more e-mailing or PMing articles, or posting in a seperate forum for review and editing. Users would submit articles in the same forum where they post comments simply by starting a new topic.

I agree with you both, Fox and MB. It is an excellent idea. This way posters also won't feel pressured to submit articles as when requested by editors via PM. Perhaps we could set it up first to see how much interests it attracts, and then consider whether there needs to be any further incentives.

In terms of reviving PoFo Publication, perhaps we could select from some of the quality articles published on the blog, and ask the authors to work on the articles to turn it into a more publishable - and more lengthy - articles for PoFo Publication.

[Siberian Fox]

Regarding my not having done anything about this. I've been working on the mobile version of the forum this week. Realistically I think it might be a couple of weeks before I can set this up properly.

In the meantime if you're able to set up the first couple of articles that would be great - even if only selected/modified from old submissions (as long as they are still relevant). One can post them in this forum to check all the formatting prior to posting on the blog. Also, being a blog post, a few hyperlinks for interesting terms in the text might be good, rather than assuming knowledge.