Is the next step to produce an initial group of editors - or at least a ‘editors working group’ - to thrash out the details of the process? (I agree with the above, btw, I’m detail-type, so I might well have been digging down into the detail).
I do think that as this is a potential draw to the site (of all the many kinds of people) - the moderatorial system, including complaint and access control should be solidly complete and in place before this feature ‘goes live’, but there’s no reason at all that the process for articles/editorial process couldn’t be developed in parallel with that.
That all sounds good - I’d still favour an (optional?) “I’d like to write about this, could you use it?” file. (Maybe even a drop-box of some kind?) as the difference between the NYT and us is that the NYT is (currently) more prestigious and so more likely to be able to pick and choose, and contributers submitting ‘on spec’, know they have take what answer they get.
We, on the other hand have less contributors (at first ;)) and it seems a shame not to be able to tell them we have a glut on the new Arduino, say, enabling them to either find a new angle, or produce something else that we can tell them that we’re more likely to publish.
Of course, it being optional, would still allow people to write that burning Magnus Opus on Arduinos, but then there more obviously do it at their own risk, made more explicit.
[Oops, still completing post, please don’t reply yet.][All done, have at it!]
Actually I was thinking (rather unclearly) about how we can do without such a thing whilst still protecting ourselves.
But… making those things inviolate seems to be the whole point, I don’t know if any community function, distributed or no, could really replace that level of control and buck-stops-there-ness.
Not at all, there’s are all things we’ll need to sort out. There’s lots of detail and a whole jumble of discussion and these things are easy very to get lost/missed.
