10 Years of The Politics Forum - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14156496
Surely the zine should get back up and running if you're looking to extend pofo's popularity? You may be able to just publish some of the better researched posts (like many of TIG's) each quater or six months.

Would you be uploading videos onto youtube or making a play list? One would require a lot of work, and the other wouldn't attract much attention. I'm not sure how many people (especially me) would be willing to place a face to their views on the internet either.
#14156668
Igor Antunov wrote:Another avenue exists that we haven't considered in this thread although I'm sure fox has (personally I despise the notion); an original news/citizen's reporting section. Sure you can do it with threads but it would do much to dress things up a little, help legitimise original efforts.


I don't know that the membership base is quite wide enough to have people ready to do original reporting in the same location/region as events. If people report on things off-location then it really becomes more commentary than reporting, in which case those sorts of things should be submitted to the blog.

Bounce wrote:Surely the zine should get back up and running if you're looking to extend pofo's popularity? You may be able to just publish some of the better researched posts (like many of TIG's) each quater or six months.


Before attempting to get the e-zine restarted it needs to be shown that there is enough original material - that means running the blog first. While I'm still 'tidying up' and finalising the site design changes I'm content to have the blog updated once a month. After that I think it should be at least weekly, and if there is more content than can be reasonably published in a blog format (especially long articles) then that would be a good sign for restarting the e-zine. I don't want to make the mistake of trying to do too much at once.

Bounce wrote:Would you be uploading videos onto youtube or making a play list? One would require a lot of work, and the other wouldn't attract much attention. I'm not sure how many people (especially me) would be willing to place a face to their views on the internet either.

I was thinking of the former, although you make a fair point about that not being for everyone. Still, one can upload a spoken opinion without video - it could just be audio and a picture related to the topic or other footage.
#14157372
Bounce wrote:Surely the zine should get back up and running if you're looking to extend pofo's popularity?


Add to what Fox has said on this, having had some experience putting together the two issues, I think eventually it is something too good not to do.

How to do it has to be thought carefully. One of the biggest issues is that promises to send in articles don't materialise. While PoFo has a large membership base, the pool of potential contributors (with the ability, time and interest to write for PoFo Magazine) is actually not very big at all.

What is the incentive for posters to write (that is, if we want original pieces rather than repackaging posts)? I think we can rule out financial incentives (not that it is what contributors want). It is probably useful if PoFo Magazine can be distributed more widely than among existing PoFo members, so that contributors feel their writings are reaching a wider audience.

Here is probably where integration with social media can come in.
#14157533
KurtFF8 wrote:Yeah last time I checked my early posts I was a bit embarrassed to say the least.
This is a given, coming from a Liberal-Marxists. :D

HoniSoit wrote:What is the incentive for posters to write (that is, if we want original pieces rather than repackaging posts)? I think we can rule out financial incentives (not that it is what contributors want). It is probably useful if PoFo Magazine can be distributed more widely than among existing PoFo members, so that contributors feel their writings are reaching a wider audience.
I actually wanted to write some articles for the PoFo Mag, but I just found myself not motivated to give it some serious thought. Part of that is due to the fact that I work 8+ hours per day and now I have a child to take care of and am taking some courses (should finish this year), but part of it is actually sitting down and being able to brainstorm original pieces that add value to the magazine. With the PoFo magazine, maybe we have to start small with repackaged posts and then grow from there in order to get started. I think we might be expecting too much from PoFo members to start developing articles similar to the Monthly Review and other such magazines.

Siberian Fox wrote:In the long term I think PoFo should be hosting real-world debates and posting the videos to the site. Failing that, it should be video conference debates. Perhaps recorded to begin with, and eventually live, with questions from members who are online. I think in the very long term, live streaming video debate will be the future of forums, but there will always be a role for text based discussions too.
This is a very interesting concept and as you said, a long term goal, however, I would be concerned about whether this is a realistic goal though. When I'm using the forum, I log-in and check out the recent posts and such and I don't have to download a full video to find out what is being discussed, however, with video, I have to have the time to download the discussion and then download further discussions regarding the topic. It might be worth it if it is a once per month debate, but having multiple debates via video might not be the most logical step forward for an internet forum. This might be best suited for a separate forum by itself (or website).
#14157552
I actually would love to contribute, as well, but I only write when I'm moved to and usually leave my articles half-finished. Hell, I'm suprised I passed comp last semester- stopped handing in work halfway through the semester.
#14157571
I'm not sure how many original articles the PoFo Mag was receiving when we first started it, but let's assume 6 original articles. The PoFo magazine might consider a format such as:

Note From Editor

Original Articles 1-6

Short Comments/Rants/Criticisms/etc.

As much as we'd like to structure it around a specific theme, I think it is fairly tough, given the broad range of ideologies that exist on PoFo. In addition, I think it goes against the whole theme of PoFo, to ask users to develop original pieces of literature, when the whole concept of PoFo is to post articles from sources or discuss your own opinion regarding a given topic. Most people don't have the time or desire to pump out month after month original pieces of opinion, along with researching this information and presenting it in a university paper style.

Of course, these same topics will be discussed on PoFo and might be similar to what someone posted, but the idea of a short comment section might provide them a chance to think over what they originally posted and put some more detail into and back it up with some research possibly.

I think though, that the concept of a PoFo Mag is somewhat just a repeat of the forum itself. Since we already tried to have original articles and that failed to attract writers, it is somewhat of a question as to whether the PoFo Mag is even worth continuing. At the moment, let's say someone posts a topic about XYZ topic. We've seen how fast some of these threads turn into 10 - 20 pages long, just because people are posting their opinion. It's fast and easy and a reply from others is provided fairly quick. By the time that a PoFo Mag is published, many of these topics may be of the past. I think the problem with the PoFo Mag is three fold. First, the group is far too broad. Take The Monthly Review, they cater to a specific ideology, thus they can develop their topics around that ideology. Second, there are not enough people who have time to develop serious articles that can be published each month. Third, the magazine is not user friendly enough, compared to the forum. Would you rather post a paragraph or two on PoFo right now or spend the time writing and submitting your article to PoFo Mag and see it published 1 month later, at which time, it may or may not receive some reviews/criticism.
#14157585
It depends on how how often the mag is published, Eauz. The longer it takes, the more articles that will be collected; at the same time, I think your concerns about articles being outdated at the time of publishing is unwarranted. Granted, some discussions are time specific, and discussing the assassination of the Ambassador in Bengazi six months out w/ the knowledge available the next day might not be a working model. However, I don't think you give us enough credit. What makes this place work is not just the unique and divergent perspective on specific issues, but the broad stroke of them themselves. If you take the old blogs and look at their post dates, you'd have several original, borad-brush articles a month.

I really think that we would be able to publish a magazine from the posters on this forum. We have berth of ideologies, an indefinate amount of general topics, and more specific topics that can be expressed. If PoFo publishes eight times a year, that's about a month and a half to collect, edit, and organize articles, and not long enough for most subjects to become obsolete.
#14157629
I'm sure it's possible, I just think that at the moment, we are going at this the wrong way, trying to get original articles published, when we should be starting small and consider a variety of comments, even if they are only a few sentences long. Just look at how a newspaper works. They have full sections of actual articles from their employees, but they often will add in small comments and suggestions from their readers as well that are usually only a paragraph in length at most and sometimes just a few sentences long. Of course, we have to root out the 4Chan idiocy with their one liners and such, but if a user has a comment about a topic, but doesn't have the time to write an essay about it, the Mag should be open to publishing even short arguments/comments, assuming they are somewhat related to a topic at hand. Remember, we don't want this to turn into a GP magazine.

Maybe I want to write about XYZ event, but I only have the time to write say a paragraph and no serious research to back it up. Even if I was able to write one paragraph and submit it to the PoFo Mag, this contributes to the development and success of the magazine. Then users can read it and either comment on it in PoFo or write back a reply to the magazine regarding my original article (or not at all).

If we start small, we can then move forward and consider the best options on becoming a bigger magazine. Maybe we find that there are more submissions that are one paragraph or less or that it would make more sense to have a quarterly or half a year publishing of the magazine. I just noted from the previous publications that there were some well thought-out arguments, but the time was not there for many people to submit well thought-out originals.
#14157777
Siberian Fox wrote:[

Before attempting to get the e-zine restarted it needs to be shown that there is enough original material - that means running the blog first. While I'm still 'tidying up' and finalising the site design changes I'm content to have the blog updated once a month. After that I think it should be at least weekly, and if there is more content than can be reasonably published in a blog format (especially long articles) then that would be a good sign for restarting the e-zine. I don't want to make the mistake of trying to do too much at once.


I didn't know we had a blog, that would be an easy substitute to a zine though. Wouldn't run on a time frame so could allow people to write indefinitely.
HoniSoit wrote:
What is the incentive for posters to write (that is, if we want original pieces rather than repackaging posts)? I think we can rule out financial incentives (not that it is what contributors want). It is probably useful if PoFo Magazine can be distributed more widely than among existing PoFo members, so that contributors feel their writings are reaching a wider audience.


Guess I didn't put much thought into incentives.
#14163984
Thx to all to have contributed, been a great exp. for me.

A lush, valuable community we have here.
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