Lee Braiden wrote:
> Six weeks is a long time in computing, when viruses and patents can change the
> landscape overnight. Hell, that's the lifetime of some software versions in
> Free Software. What use is news about an issue six weeks after it happened
> to someone who might want to help campaign against something, or just to
> comment on an article before the next article in the series is already
> printed?
When one sits down to write an article for publicaton in a traditional
news media such as a magazine, or even in a traditional non-news media,
such as a snail mail letter, one typically takes into account the time
that it will take for the reader to see it, and this influences what is
said, and even how it's said. A paper magazine cannot operate on
internet time, so certian types of articles are right out; no-one will
care in three months[1] about which version of the linux kernel was
released today, or what worm is a problem today, because there will be
an even newer version then. Similarly, a paper letter isn't used to
invite friends over for the nice dinner you're in the middle of cooking.
I think it would be a mistake to assume that just because these media
operate on different timescales that they cannot be used for meaningful
communication. Indeed I think there's a perhaps over-romantisied but
still real reverence for long, involved, drawn out communications by
paper letter back in the day; a sense that perhaps having to pen out
one's thoughts, pay money, and wait for weeks for a reply led to clearer
and more powerful communication. To a limited extent I've seen the same
happen in letters to the editor columns in magazines.
Similarly, in my experience the better and more valuable technical
magazines often lead to articles that go beyond the glitz of the moment
and reach deeper into the heart of what's important. This is why I still
revisit certian Negroponte editorials from editions of Wired from the
mid-90's, and why I never go back and re-read old postings to $blog. My
own single published article in a magazine happens to be the one article
of mine that readers keep contacting me about, years after it was
published on paper and then put up on the web. Little things like having
an editor also turned out to be of value.
To the extent that magazines foster such articles, I can only regard
them as a good thing; the fact that most magazines now also make most of
their content available online after publication means that it's a good
thing that is accessible to everyone of us.
> If everyone is limited to six weeks, then the pace of all related
> communication will slow to compensate, but if some can communicate
> immediately whilst others must wait to hear what was said never mind
> replying, then they are second class citizens, by definition.
You know, this cuts both ways. If I wait six weeks to post this reply to
this thread, then everyone will see a disconnected reply to an old
thread in their mail readers, scratch their heads, and move on. If we
were having this conversation on irc, it would be even worse. I cannot
participate in the conversations on this mailing list without monitoring
it on a nearly daily basis. What if it takes me a week to get mail out?
What if I do not have enough free time to keep up with it daily? When
vast numbers of people still lack reasonable or any access to the
internet, and many people who do have access would still be unable to
communicate on a forum like this list, why do you worry about people who
are online somehow becoming second class citisens due to old media that
has been around for hundreds of years?
Perhaps for some other people, a paper magazine has the potential to
spread out and reach them, and give them a window into our world.
--
see shy jo, whose Dad has edited the Sow's Ear magazine for years, FWIW
[1] Three months being a typical turnaround time to get your article
published in a magazine, in my limited experience. It's pretty funny
that you've lateched onto the six months thing as preventing
communication, when in fact, if you were to do a series of articles
for a magazine, I think it's likely that you'd need to have finished
two or three of them before letters or even emails could make their
way back from the suscribers to you. And that's a monthly
magazine... what about a quarterly? Again, this limitaton simply
influsneces the types of writing that is done in such a series, and
the types of things that responses deal with.
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