Comments on Under the Boxes-and-Arrows hood

Christina Wodtke — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:21 GMT

note—we were hacked, and are recovering. some things may look odd, or comments will be missing. please bear with us….

Christina Wodtke — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:20 GMT

Joe and all—We really believe in the importance of the editor also. That’s why we have taken a different, hybrid attack.

The CMS supports editorial workflow, and B&A articles will always have a true editor to shepard the process, leaving the author’s voice intact and preserving the integrety of the magazine’s style as well. But it also harnesses the power of the crowd. Reputation points, while leaving the nonparticipant behind—or unaffected, depending on your point of view—also rewards an intellegently crafted participation, and punish trolls.

It will be interesting to see how it all shapes up in the coming months. We plan to adapt the program to the community’s behavior, learning as we go.

Excelisior!
(excelsior was used by Comics great Stan Lee as a closing for his lettercol. It was borrowed from Longfellow’s poem, Excelsior. Obscure, yes, but who doesn’t love a fun fact? Speaking of, it’s also what they call the material used to stuff teddy bears.)

Alok Jain — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:19 GMT

I am enjoy using this, appreciate the thought behind. Ratings on Suggestions does not show how many people rated though. Will be interesting to see that.

Cheers
Alok

Joe Sokohl — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:19 GMT

Hi Rob,

Because not everyone’s qualified to be an editor…in the same way that not everyone’s qualified to be a .Net programmer or a user researcher or an information architect or a CEO. Editing in all its forms takes specific skill, be it substantive editing, copy editing, or proofreading.

Rob Sutherland — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:19 GMT

*Joe*,

Heck, why not edit by committee, if we can all be on the committee :)

Joe Sokohl — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:19 GMT

I hate to be a naysayer or detractor, but I gotta say I’m looking at the new features a bit…askance. For example—the preview feature below is somewhat unnerving—it’s cool, yeah, but it interrupts my peripheral cognition.

Also, I’m not so sure that editing by committee is the best course of action. I’know y’all have probably cussed & discussed this issue. Let me just weigh in on the side of those who like their magazines edited by a few rather than by a lot.

Also, I’m not a fan of things like “reputation points.” it enforces an idea that somehow those kids who alwyas answer the questions in class are somehow better than those who listen & learn.

Just an initial thought—I’ll watch & learn, though.

Mark Reeves — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:19 GMT

The terminology portion of the styleguide sounds most intriguing. Please also include whether “the Web” and “the Interent” are still proper nouns or not, or if they every should have been.

“Front end” and “backend” in terms of programming or site architecture always catch my attention too.

Liz Danzico — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:18 GMT

Getting rid of the drek does, indeed, include catching typos. Whether things like that are intentional or not, I will never tell!

We are starting to make public our B&A house styleguide so that we can be persistently consistent, revealing our POV on things such as the one-worded “sitemap” and hyphenless “email.” For many years, it’s lived in a private wiki, only accessible to editors. Now, we’ve started to make it public and hope that you can help us build it.

True; at the moment, it is a static page, but we are continuing to build up B&A features. Stay tuned over the next couple of months to watch the evolution…

Victor Lombardi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:18 GMT

I just want reputation mojo.

Seriously, congratulations on the launch!

Priya Khanna — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:18 GMT

“excelsior”?

Mark Reeves — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:18 GMT

You’re welcome!

“Drek” looked right, I was referring to the 2 words. The “if that was intentional” question was whether “[getting] rid of the drek” included catching typos.

Tobi Jo Langmo — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:18 GMT

Thanks for the new features! I’d love to read some articles that go deeper into your process -

* A look at the background and psychology of this kind of participatory/community centered publishing and content vetting

* Insights on user testing and analysis that went into adding these features

* Thoughts on presenting a clean, coherent UI system with community generated content ratings and comment

Peter Marquis-Kyle — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:17 GMT

institiuted (did you mean instituted?)
manger (did you mean manager?)

Liz Danzico — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:17 GMT

The first certainly wasn’t, but the second (assuming you mean “drek”) was. It’s an accepted spelling, I believe.

Thanks for helping make B&A better. :)

Mark Reeves — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:17 GMT

“so we’ve institiuted a reputation manger…you can help get rid of the drek”

Not sure if that was intentional? But two typos in one sentence.