Re: Oshi-dashi'd message

[Stefan Gelow <f95-sge@nada.kth.se>]

At 09:12 2002-02-08 -0500, you wrote:

>I haven't suscribed yet to Sumo World. And from what I hear from the ML, I
>probably won't. But I really would love to receive a good Sumo magazine,
>with as many informations as possible. So I think Josh had a great point
>proposing a campaign to convince people like Ozumo to make an
>English version of their magazine. We are enough to prove them this
>would be good for their benefits (which is, I fear, the only way to really
>convince them...). And the fact that most of us suscribe to a magazine
>(sumo world) that we find not so good should be a good argument to
>prove them that we REALLY want a sumo magazine.

Well, I don't really agree, and for these reasons:

>But, I don't agree with the idea of a web site that we would be doing. I have
>several reasons for that :
>
>1- making such a web site, or web-zine, will make it necessary to create a
>kind "sumo writers for the web site mailing list". I'm new in the sumo ML,
>but I love all the informations I receive through it. And I fear that creating
>such a "second mailing list" will stop a lot of informations from being but
>on the sumo ML. OK, everybody will still receive them on the new web site,
>but I think that really wouldn't be the same than the ML...

I don't think it would stop anything. What such a sumo web-zine would
primarily do is to at one place collect interesting info that, possibly most
of it, already have been sent to the ML. This does not lessen the value of
the ML, but would also enable people NOT on the ML to take part of this
information. The people who provide this info would hardly stop getting it
to the Sumo ML, if they still collected it at all.

>2- doing a web site (or a webzine) will necessite us to choose what will be
>put in it... I think we don't all want the same kind of informations about
>sumo. And I don't want us to start arguing against each others about what
>should be put in the web site, or what sould be written BIG or small, etc. I
>really fear that doing this will only make us argue against each others...

I agree with Josh that this kind of discussions should rather be held on a
seperate mailing list, since it's part of the "behind-the-scenes" of such a
web magazine. But this is of course ALWAYS a problem. I can't see it should
prevent us from trying though.

>
>3- imagine we don't like the web site (or the webzine)... Do we really want
>us to start talking of "the people doing the site" the way we talked about
>Clyde for the last week ? I surely don't want it. But I fear this will
>probably
>be the case, one day or another...

But this is not only to the bad. One of the greatest irritation people have
had with Clyde is that he doesn't answer e-mail, and doesn't seem to hear
critique at all. With people on the mailing list responsible, that problem
should more or less disappear, since most mailing list participants should
be ready to discuss critique against their work (well, hopefully at
least...). This discussion is PART of possible success for the format, and
not something working against it.

/Stefan Gelow