August 9, 2009

Present on Call: sandpiper & chiaroscuro

 

Basically we just had a phone chat where sandpiper taught me what she'd learned about organic groups and we talked some about the zine. Some of what we discussed:

* "creative commons license" -- apparently we don't actually need permission to use any material contributed to the web forum, although it would definitely be courteous to seek it.

* themes -- when we have enough material we can start grouping things by theme for future zine issues, or even ask for contributions on particular themes, but right now we'll probably just do more of a hodgepodge.

* inspiration -- the hope that once we get an issue out, it will inspire more people to contribute.

* size -- Inel had suggested making the zine a similar size as the Friends guide

* color -- to allow for easier photocopying we'll most likely use black and white artwork for now

* printing -- there's a possibility of obtaining funds for professional printing but nothing's certain yet

* length -- Steven had suggested 750 max word length for articles, but some of our submissions are much much longer, this can disrupt balance of voices and also make layout difficult, what to do?

* quality and inclusivity -- the difficult question of whether we'll use anything and everything submitted, and how to handle it without hurt feelings if we don't, and how to make that call?

* editing -- how much? what sort? done by who? if collaboratively, how?

* collaboration -- important but tough for certain tasks, how to avoid the "too many cooks in the kitchen" phenomenon?

* OG tools -- group blog's kinda like the forum, wikis are holding spaces for writing and images, what will we do with the gallery? I suggested that I could put up screenshots of zine pages during layout for possible feedback, or we could just put our finished products up there? Task list -- we discovered that you can only 'assign' one person to a task, unfortunately. Email notification -- if you don't check the boxes for them, you won't get them.

That's about all I can remember... sandpiper might have stuff to add!

Any thoughts?