Ideas of articles / Brainstorming session

Yes interesting stuff I hope something comes from it.

Doh World is due to finish next issue and it would be nice to fill that gap. Our own Strip "Gomee the Gopher" I feel will never see the light of day. Which brings me to the strip the Myst Community is trying to do. I haven't read the whole thread but it seems like it has taken a long time so far. Do we know of orther alternatives?

It would be nice to have something like this. If not, what can we replace it with? I think this would be a good spot for the Photoquest Remembered thingy. So if we can pull it off for when Doh World runs out that would be perfect. That is if we get can get it organised and ready a month before the paper is published. So that would be the end of May. Announcement in May's issue and then hopefully the first winner or the top 3 published in the following issue.

Yes I know there is much interest out there full stop but please sit back and consider this for a moment.

I think at present we have over 250 subscribers. The Front page Newspaper announcement has had 403 reads/hits. Ok not every single one will download the paper and read it. But if half do the we are well on the way to the 500 mark of paper downloads, 400 to be on the safe side. Not sure if this site allows us those figures of actual separate paper downloads so I am educated guessing here. EDIT: I found out how to count the stats of who and how many downloaded the paper. Admin powers mawhahaha. Anyway that was way out. I had to count them maually so it may not be 100% precise. 228 downloads for March's paper. That includes subsribers becasue as I thought we only send a link to the paper here in the e-mail. So it registers who of the subscribers downloaded it. It also registers which sites it is downloaded from. These are the manaul posting annoucements. Interesting stuff considering how many hits the threads get. A big gap to the ones who look and the ones who look and download.

Does that show an interest in itself? I found it interesting nevertheless. And no I am not venting. I have stopped that now just food for thought.

Also I have had an idea. We have More News From the Guilds: and Guilds and Groups: sections. Can I propose we do a way with the More news form the Guilds and keep it in Guilds and Groups. 

I agree Szark, why have both?

Unless Theremin needs a 16 page newspaper to feel good.   Wouldn't 12 be enough if they contained all the 'right stuff'?

Yeah less pages to assemble. LOL.

I have a friend who is working in a bank's central office. She told me that ...
1- She uses the Microsoft Office Editor.
2- She creates a "doc" file.
3- In the tab file menu, she has the option to directly export/and automatically create a PDF file.
(one of few options in the export sub-menu)

I cannot verify this because I do not have Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Word 2007 + PDF or XPS plug-in: Open the document and go to the “Save as” command as save it as a .pdf file.

This is how I make the tutorails. But assemble a newspaper it cannot. I say cannot as Word will not let you use it like a DTP. Hence the improvisation of using an Open Source DTP program like Scribus. Which I must say is a very good little program that lets us do what we need to do and more. 

  As I recall, it was Al who was concerned when we had less pages in our paper! 

"Less is more!" Kill it!

Nanouk, my goal is to make assembly easier and more accessible for everyone, and also to preclude the need for our assembler to purchase software they may never use for anything else.

(You have a friend in the banking business? Is she looking for a place to send some money? ) 

But since she works on big businesses loan projects, $500,000,000 or more, it would be very hard
to find a way to steel such an amount of money without being noticed.  

Your chances of getting some are about at -500,000,000 % ...( notice the minus sign )

Btw, if you are in dire needs of money, you could offer your services to the Second Life crowd.
I have heard of rumours that some people from the Uru community are hoping to make a few millions
with their extra projects.

WHAT?!?!? Do you have Anything against Italians, ah?

LOL

Only with a special type Leo, no matter where they come from.

Like Da Vinci would have said: try this mind test...
Choose any well known country and add the word "dream" after it and try to imagine
what it comes down to. After a while, you will begin to see a very different "bigger picture".
Then add all these bigger pictures together and you might be able to decipher something even bigger.

An old wise man, Hermes Trismegiste, left us an important key in the past and said:
As above, so below and/or as below, so above. (same conclusions)

Check this post in the Off Topic. (and the link in there)
http://guildofmessengers.com/forum/topic/say-hi-those-online-you?page=9#comment-9367

So, if she were to loan the Messengers $500,000,000 (Canadian, of course) We'd build the headquarters in Quebec, Nanouk's salary as Chief Operating Officer would be $100,000 oer annum, we'd publish a "real" newspaper every week... I think this could work out well! LOL

(Leo, wow! I thought you were much younger!)

(...and better looking...)

Jamey has started a thread that includes us http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17563&highlight please take a look and comment.

Ok the above is in regards to age reviews, fan age reviews that is. I think this is a valid idea. if someone does come along and wants tp do this then we could have a Wiki section for Fan ages which in turn could link to a discussion about the age on either the GoW or the GoMa or both and so on. This way we could build up a libaray of fan age reviews.

Okay, I read Jamey's post and Nalates has the right answer, at least for me, about OUR (The GoMe) involvement;

The idea of something else for the GoMe to do... that is not the community tradition. We come from the idea of see a need and fill it. So, the idea of fan age reviews and age writer interviews while great will languish unless people step up and do the writing and pass it to the GoMe as articles ready to print. See the GoMe web site for info on the format they would like one to use.

Consider how to make this easy on the GoMe and help them in the process.

Full Post link Here

Also, I have, and the rest of you probably have, been many places on GoW and GoMa forums where Ages are discussed, Backstory creation writers are solicited etc, etc. Too many links to list here right now 'cause I would have to go find them.

Anyway, as Szark stated, we are short on personnel to take on the kind of work Jamey is talking about. GoMa and GoW members may be too busy already. Nalates has a better idea. So it REALLY should be some of the other 'thousands' of community members that jump in and help the rest of us raise the level of interest over all.

An official list for fan made ages is a very "hot" subject these days
and you should be very carefull if you decide to write about it.

There seems to be a friendly debate going on between the GoW and the GoMa.

See this late post in the Guilds forum at Mystonline...
http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=293371#293371

Btw, through that post, I have just learned that Uru Educationnal Ages are
now available with Drizzle. (my favorite application)

I admit that, for secret reasons, I am a bit positively biased toward Drizzle.  ...

P.S. for Szark
Alcugs has a Gallery with an image for all ages...
http://alcugs.almlys.org/UAM/Ages/Gallery

Cheers Nanouk I am aware of that Alcugs page. But it doesn't give a review the closet thing fan ages have for info is this http://alcugs.almlys.org/UAM/Ages and this is only a walkthrough type of thing.

So the consensus is yes it is a good idea (apart from Nanouk lol) but not one to be done by anyone here. If someone wants to help then we shall embrace it.

 As Al mentioned, I think Nalates hit it right on the head. I'd like to caution everyone, I'll print a "review" from anyone of any age, but I won't print a "walkthrough". The difference can be rather subtle, but a review will essentially contain an explorers feelings, what they liked/disliked and why.

(Subtle hint: If it contains any clues as to how to solve a puzzle, it's a walkthrough...)

exactly Theremin hence my post bove yours pointing out that Walkthroughs have been done what we need is reviews. Honest reviews might upset some which is something to think about but for me I don't see a problem. IMHO it might make some think a bit more about what and why they make ages. ;)

/me wears the Liaison hat

Back in the beginning of the whole Guild thing, more than a year ago, the GoMa started a project lead by MustardJeep, it was called "Books of Commentaries". The idea behind this project was making a place where the Maintainers could post IC (no spoilers) reviews of the Ages they inspected. But after some time MustardJeep got very busy in RL and started other project, so the Books of Commentaries project died.

I see here a very good occasion to bring back that GoMa project in a new way, making it a common project between our two Guilds. The Maintainers could write an inspection each month (IC, OOC or both. Without spoilers) and the GoMe would publish it in the Newspaper.

This is a good occasion to show to the community the Fan Created Ages and the work of the GoMa and GoMe.

I haven't talked yet to the GoMa so I'm not sure there will be someone interested in writing something. I'll post to their forum right after this post.

Posted here: http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1398&p=12034#p12034

me nods enthusiastically. I like this idea Leo, what say you all?

 Leo, what I'd really like to see are some tough reviews, sort of an "Outsider's Thoughts" article from the inside. We can print the articles anonymously, but I'd like some really hard reviews, something that's not just a pat-on-the-head "good boy" review.

Understandably this may generate some controversy, I would only ask that the reviewer be objective and polite. (and keep it under 500 words...)

Usually the Inspection reports are objective and polite, GoMa always tries to make suggestions, point out incoherences, errors, etc, but usually they don't use hard words:

When inspecting Fan made Ages, a Maintainer will be expected to do two things: 1. Look for and report any technical problems the Age may have. This part must be done OOC. 2. While inspecting the Fan made Age, you will be asked to give your opinion and critique on this. Sometimes you will do this OOC, but many times you will talk about the Age in an IC sense, as though you were really there.

Be thorough. Your job isn't to be good buddies with the Writer. Your job is to tell him where they messed up. Of course, nobody likes to hear that they messed something up or that something they made isn't working right, so always make your inspection reports professional, but positive too. Be factual about what you see rather than saying "I don't like it".

One of the worst things any Maintainer can do to a Writer is either simply report bugs that were found... and say nothing else, or to simply go on and on about what they thought was wrong with an Age, listing not but problems and bad things about it.

Many aspiring Writers will be handing you their very first Age that they have ever created. Your job is not just to find bugs, or problems, but to give an opinion too. It MUST be stressed that when you DO give your opinion, it needs to always be in a constructive manner. Simply telling a Writer that you thought their Age stinks, is in no way helpful. It is unprofessional. It is a good way to destroy someone's confidence in trying their hand at creating these wonderful worlds, and NO Maintainer has the right to do that.

Well the GoMa Grand Master likes the idea. I would like to see some GoMa member responses to Dot's solicitation to them.

I did make a comment and quoted Theremin from here so lets us hope.

Here's what I'd like (in a perfect world, LOL!) 3 or 4 articles "in the bag", preceded by a short article on the review process such as you've quoted above. (I hate to say we're going to start a new series and it ends up only 1 article! We can run the article on the review process first, and then run the reviews in the next several issues,

It would also be nice if all the reviews were of ages available to everyone?  

Usually all the Fan Ages are available to everyone, except some special cases of WorkInProgress Ages and BetaTest Ages.

Yes, I like the idea of an intro article which shows the Inspection Guidelines of the Guild.

http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=293911#293911 got some new art work for the paper.

I have a suggestion for a series of articles.  And I'm willing to start the ball rolling by writing one of them.

I've always wanted to do some educational stuff - to share what I know, and encourage others to do the same.  My article, then, would be on making videos.  Other possible articles that I'd like to see others tackle would be the making of podcasts, the newspaper, and maybe the making of online parties (I have Lord Chaos in mind here).  Any sort of project that gives to the community is good fodder for a "behind the scenes" article that explains some of the work(and play) involved.

In some cases, the topics might be broken down into smaller, more manageable articles.  For example, we could run one article about designing and laying out the newspaper, and another article about the work that goes into finding artwork for the newspaper and some of the Photoshop tricks and techniques that are involved in processing the artwork to make it ready for use in the paper.

While it might be nice if we could run one article per paper, but I don't see any reason to force ourselves to any schedule... such articles would be sufficiently timeless that if an article is ready, it could be included in the next paper that has space for it.  That way we only have to feel pressured about finishing an article if we want to.

Thoughts?