Re: Diplomacy World Articles Needed!

adam silverman wrote:
Fair points. I think the real gist of the problem then comes down to the fact that there is plenty of demand but not enough supply (of articles/content, that is), which is why I brought up the idea of consolidating...


There's no scarcity of people to write articles, but there is a scarcity of people to motivate them to do so.

One problem is that doing anything in the hobby paints a huge bulls eye on your back as a player. Let me give you an example... Someone discovers the Dip hobby through an online contact. That contact is a retired postal player with strong opinions about the hobby that the new player adopts as his own. As a result, the new member of the hobby ends up working on a website, running a judge, joining every Dip group on the 'Net. Everyone forgets that this guy has played maybe a dozen games and has a JDPR in the low 900's. He's been GM in over 70 games, his name is recognized and his borrowed opinions have been forcefully expressed in a number of venues... but enough about me. ;-)

Problem number two is that people don't have the confidence to write. It's not a special talent - honestly. You have an idea, you plan how to organize the content, you write it down, you check to see how it reads then you send it to the editor. The reason that so few people write isn't that they don't want to or that they can't, it's that there aren't many good editors. The writing process isn't complete without submitting the work to an editor. That's why self-published materials are usually so bad; Most people don't know how to edit - especially their own work.

In order to get more writing, you need more editors. In order to get better writing, you need better editors. This is the person who finds people to write and motivates them to get it done. This is the person who helps the writer get past the ego and mood swings - first to actually complete and submit content then secondly to go back to the work and tighten it up... and all in a timely manner. A good editor will fix punctuation, grammar and syntax errors that the writer missed, so that fear of the language is less of a barrier to personal expression. He'll also compress the article fit in the space allotted and make sure that the author's intent is expressed as clearly as possible.

It's great to have new 'zines, because it means that more editors are active. They are not soliciting the same parties for content. They do not have the same selection criteria for articles. They are, however, working to expand the pool of available talent as well as content.

Good luck guys,
Chris Bab***
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