Attention comment posters
p2pnet.net:- I started p2pnet two years ago last month because I believe whole-heartedly in p2p.
Getting it out every day is now my full-time job but because I’m doing 90% of the writing by myself, sometimes (maybe too often) coverage is thin.
‘Comments’ under some articles are articulate, informed and interesting and this post is pointed at the people who’ve been writing them:
Why not send your comments in as opinions instead of posting them under stories? You’d be helping to fill some of the many gaps. I don’t guarantee every one will get published, but I promise a fair number will appear – and in your own write with your nick, anonymously, or however you’d like it to be.
P2pnet now has a substantial reader base and your thoughts would reach a much wider audience. (And if your contribution didn’t end up on the front page, you could still post it as a comment : )
But of course, you don’t have to be a comment poster to contribute. We can use all the help we can get from any source : )
Email news[at]p2pnet[dot]net.
Cheers! And thanks. And all the best …
Jon Newton.
September 2nd, 2004 at 4:23 pm
An excellent idea, plus it’ll give you a break. You’ve already qouted some of my comments in your stories. Next time I’ll give it consideration whether or not it’s worth a detailed write-up and submission.
Keep up the good work!
TT
September 2nd, 2004 at 5:01 pm
Much grass : )
September 2nd, 2004 at 6:53 pm
Yeah, good stuff man. Next time I think of something I really want to say about p2p, i’ll email it to you. I don’t post a lot, but I always like to post something informative/interesting at least.
September 2nd, 2004 at 6:59 pm
Thanks – I’m not kidding. I can use really use the help : )
Cheers!
September 2nd, 2004 at 9:01 pm
if you can handle my sometimes horrid grammer, you’ve got a deal.
B
September 2nd, 2004 at 9:08 pm
No problem : )
Cheers!
September 2nd, 2004 at 10:42 pm
One thing that I think would help P2Pnet is to add a webpage where readers can post links to news stories, suggestions, or even written articles – without having to resort to using email. Websites that offer this feature find that a lot more people use the webpage input than send email.
A lot of people are lazy (or sometimes hurried) , and it’s always faster and easier to write in a page’s text-input box than it is to go to the trouble of using email.
Here is what I have to go through when I email something:
go to tools, turn on cookies, turn on javascript, hit “OK” and wait 5 minutes or more (yes, it’s dialup) while every single open browser window auto-reloads, then go to portal page, go to email page, turn on SSL login, key in username and password, wait for all the ads to load, close all the popup windows, clean out all the spam from inbox …..
I really miss the old days before spammers forced many isps to block SMTP port 25, greatly increasing the complexity and time of sending a quick email. I very rarely use email anymore. Then I find out my webmail account has again expired from inactivity.
Besides the addition of a webpage dialog box, it would be nice to have a longer timeout in the comment boxes – My longest comments vanished into the ether because I took too long to submit them, and I forget to save them before hitting “preview” or “submit”. I learned my lesson, but others might be unaware of this until they lose a lengthy comment.
September 2nd, 2004 at 11:22 pm
I’m trying to organize something along those lines in the new-look site that’s a-building. However, Thuan, who’s putting it together, is in Paris, France, and since he’s doing it on a volunteer whenever-he-can-manage it basis, it’s taking a while.
Cheers!
September 3rd, 2004 at 12:43 am
One of the best things about P2Pnet is that the webpages load extremely fast (except maybe for loading the ad images for the first time) and that is something that is getting to be quite rare these days, as webmasters often tend to add complexity and flash to demonstrate their skills – and probably never experience what 56K users have to suffer through. Thanks for going easy on the slow dialup users.
I hope the new-look webpage remains just as fast.
September 3rd, 2004 at 1:07 am
p2pnet # 1 had a lot of pix. Then I moved from Toronto to a small Ontario town with a steam-driven phone system and 56K was in my dreams. Now I’m on Vancouver Island, I have cable again : )
The new p2pnet has more pix, but don’t worry – nothing major and very low res.
As for bells and whistles, they soon get noisy : )
September 3rd, 2004 at 1:26 am
I’ll give it a shot. But I’ll want to stay anonymous. And youd probably have to do some editing.
September 3rd, 2004 at 1:38 am
I’ve been a professional writer /editor for most of my adult life, although you might not think so from some of the stuff on p2pnet – heh
I trained on the job in England and as far as editing goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I’ve had my share of ‘editors’ who think they have to re-write everything, whether it needs it or not. On the other hand, sometimes you have to get in there. But rest assured, if I think I need to do anything major, I’ll tell you, you’ll get to see what I’ve done before I post it and if you disagree, you can tell me to stuff it and put your original up as a comment : )
Cheers!
September 3rd, 2004 at 3:48 am
Something that might be interesting to consider is putting up a wiki about (or on, or around…) p2pnet.
It’s very much into the spirit of sharing and people contribution.
Not to replace anything, but it might allow for more organic contributions.
It would make e-mailing unneccessary,
and you could just point to pages of interest in stories.
You might not even have to host it yourself,
you could probably find someone to host wiki pages for p2pnet.
So, what is a wiki?
Basically, anyone can change anything on any page of the wiki.
This way everyone can contribute and the pages evolve with time.
There’s also an history of the changes, so deleted is not really gone.
Anyway, here’s a page to get you started:
<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiGettingStartedFaq>
wolphin
September 3rd, 2004 at 8:01 am
Awesome idea Jon. When I have more time and freedom (hopefully soon!) I’d be happy to contribute. Best of luck.
~G
September 3rd, 2004 at 8:34 am
wikis are great! here is one that offers a sandbox to play with
http://grey.ripcord.co.nz/wiki/?index
September 3rd, 2004 at 5:26 pm
Thanks GuidoZ – like I say: it all helps : ) And it’ll also get some good material on the site.
Cheers!
September 3rd, 2004 at 6:38 pm
If you are redoing the site I hope it keeps its current reasonably clean and light-weight appearance, sites like Slyck are ugly as hell.
September 3rd, 2004 at 9:14 pm
And a very fast writer, too. I noticed that p2pnet articles sometimes appear nearly as fast as I can read them. Britain (and also France) seems to produce much better journalists than the USA. Maybe it’s because of a different corporate environment that might tend to allow writers to say what they really think.
I just wish that the professionals would write a lot less and research a lot more. Or at least stick to a subject that they actually know something about. Just look at this recent PC World article:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117637,pg,1,00.asp
Anyone who knows anything about the p2p scene can immediately see that this upcoming print article is riddled with many mistakes and distortions. The population statistics are off by many orders of magnitude. Yet this is the kind of trash that typically gets spoon-fed to the general public by the clueless corporate media.
Plenty of P2P information is openly available on the internet, yet most journalists appear not to even know how to use a search engine like Google.
It seems that writers don’t even pass a copy around the office for comments before it goes to print. Some young intern just might have responded “Hey, wait a minute – eDonkey is not offshore. Metamachine’s office is just across the bay in Brooklyn.”
September 3rd, 2004 at 11:12 pm
My aim is to question, if not unspin, at least some of the baloney the entertainment industry tries to get accepted as fact.
p2pnet is a Google news source and when a p2pnet story appears on Google, it pulls readers in – readers who might not otherwise be exposed to the crap the RIAA and MPAA routinely try to pass on behalf of their masters.
So some of the stuff I write is borderline p2p / digital media. But it gets people to the site and hopefully, they’re exposed to perspectives they might not have come across before. I’ve opted for quantity rather than quality. Maybe I’m wrong.
In a perfect world, I’d write two or three pieces a day maximum – or fewer, if they needed a lot of research.
September 4th, 2004 at 4:54 pm
Well, quantity brings people in,
quality keeps them coming for more.
I find the quality of most articles are rather good.
I tend to appreciate less the articles that seem to rehash previous stories,
sometimes to the point where I recognise various identical paragraphs.
Repetition of ideas gets your point through,
but repetition of text leaves a “Wait a minute, I read that already” feeling.
Maybe strike a balance between elaborate pieces and short heads-up pieces.
Filler pieces should concentrate and put the focus on the new points.
September 4th, 2004 at 5:13 pm
“sometimes… I recognise various identical paragraphs”
I’m admit that I, too, use the dripping tap technique (http://p2pnet.net/story/2304) and when I do, sometimes it’s just plain faster to clip a par rather than write a new one.
- but I’m aware of it and when I have the time, I re-jig : )
Cheers!
September 4th, 2004 at 6:03 pm
Yep. I actually have Getting Started book marked. I just haven’t been able to get started. heh.
But I will when I get some time : )
Cheers! And thanks …