[Lowfer] Re: Reflector

[John D]

Thanks for your thoughts, Warren.  In my frustration at providing 
infrastructure that goes underutilized while other sites pop up on a whim, I 
may not have been terribly clear making my points, although it appears you 
have a grasp of their philosophical nature.

A couple of folks who thought they were being witty don't seem to have a 
clue what the question is, so no point even answering those.  I'm not 
griping about what is, or what is about to be.  I'm trying to encourage 
thinking BEYOND the near term.

What IS the question, then?  You hit on it pretty well:

>As for Ted being just a private individual, that's true, but aren't we all 
>just
>hobbyists fooling around with this stuff?

Sure.  But there is also strength in numbers, and economy of scale in 
organized, cooperative efforts, that one simply doesn't get from everyone 
just being rugged individualists.

And at risk of repeating myself, there's nothing wrong with individual 
efforts.  As you note:

>I've watched other forums, some have endured for years under
>one owner such as the AM Forum and the Class-E Forum and they do fill a 
>purpose, though they
>are run by individuals rather than a club.

Absolutely.  And yet the niches they fill are smaller in scope than they 
would be if there were a central clearinghouse nudging newcomers toward 
them.  This is what the LWCA site was all about in the beginning.  We didn't 
try to be all things to all people ourselves, but a portal where people 
could get a broad idea what was going on, then seek out more specific and 
specialized information through links on our pages.

As the hobby grew, though, two things happened simultaneously.  The sources 
became so numerous, no one individual could keep track of them effectively. 
In addition, many of the individuals behind those sources became so focussed 
on their own work that they grew less inclined to communicate to the broader 
world what was at their sites and/or when those sites changed locations.

So now things grow ever more fragmented.  That means a high percentage of 
newcomers will find resources largely by chance...or will never hear about 
them at all.

In addition, no matter how rugged we are as individualists, we don't last 
forever.  It's a miracle that Reg Edwards' work is still available, just to 
take one example.  The work of many other experimenters who are now SK has 
been lost forever.  It's not just enough for random individuals to mirror 
the work of other individuals, either.

What's needed is a BROAD-SPECTRUM SOURCE to store the most essential files 
and spread the word more effectively...and not just any source, either, but 
one which:
* Covers a broad enough range of related topics to attract a significant 
audience over time.
* Has wide name recognition so people can search for it easier.
* Will outlive the person or persons who originated it.

In other words--an established ORGANIZATION.

I'm not saying the organization has to trump individual efforts.  That's not 
how progress comes about.  The spice of this hobby is the variety of its 
aspects.  But to borrow a metaphor or two, without a central plaza or 
pavillion where folks can come to show their wares, those individual efforts 
don't reach the wider marketplace.

IMO, far too many people depended on reflectors far too long as their 
primary source of information.  These become insular, provincial little 
communities.  The reflector itself, and maybe a handful of sites mentioned 
on the reflector, comprise the entire world for some people,

There's also the problem of what I call "Internet Time"--people falling into 
the trap of "if hasn't been on my screen in the last several hours, it never 
happened."  They can wake up in a new world every day.  The solution?  A 
central plaza/marketplace/fairgrounds.  An established, organized one...not 
in place of private efforts, but supplemeting them!!!

This business of living on Internet Time leads to errors in thinking about 
the dissemination of information.  This brings us to:

>I'd like to help with the 600 meter area for The Lowdown, but I've been 
>struggling with what I could
>put in it that hadn't appeared on a web site or e-mail reflector long 
>before the printed magazine
>reaches its subscribers. Its a dilemma that all magazines are facing these 
>days.

I submit that this is a false dilemma.  A magazine with a technical focus is 
not like mass-circulation publications that have to out-gee-whiz TV and 
animated websites and podcasts to hold their readers' attention.

The LOWDOWN is more like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. 
Though they have to change and adapt in certain ways, they remain 
publications of record.  If some event is important enough to be remembered 
for more than 24 hours, it will appear in a publication of record, even if 
every blogger on six continents has already worn themselves out commenting 
on it before the publication goes to press.  There is value in the 
durability and accessibility of print media, even today.

Besides, we've got Internet Time working for us.  For some people, what they 
read online won't even be a faint memory by the time the information is 
organized, fact-checked, and condensed into print.  It'll be new to them all 
over again. ;)

In other words, it doesn't all have to be "new" to be newsworthy to our 
readers.  That goes for those readers are online-enabled as well as those 
who are not.  We don't expect you nor any other contributor to The LOWDOWN 
to be all original, all the time.  As long as something deserves a wider 
audience than this highly active but relatively narrow community, it's 
welcome there.

>I know that there are at least some Lowdown subscribers who don't have a 
>computer or are not on the >Internet, but I think this must be a very small 
>number?

It's been a long time since we did a survey on this subject.  I suspect the 
percentage is much smaller than it used to be, probably no more than 20% of 
our subscribers now.

But remember what I said before--as active as this online community is, it's 
not the wider world.  There are still more subscribers to the print edition 
than there are this reflector!  And on a per-month basis, six times as many 
people check into the LWCA home page than read the magazine.

We try to give the print readers value for their subscription money, of 
course, but that's not the sole reason for the organization.  As loosely 
organized as it is these days, it still provides a focal point and a 
recognizable name that we can use to try to draw new blood into the hobby.

Speaking entirely speculatively, there could conceivably come a day when the 
organization might no longer even have enough circulation to justify a print 
publication.  That wouldn't necessarily mean we could do without dues-paying 
members, though.  There will have to be SOME kind of organization behind our 
hypothetical Web-only efforts, not just some sap paying for hosting out of 
his own pocket year after year.

Why?  Well, think back to the LF amateur rulemaking proceeding.  LWCA did 
not file formal comments on the proceeding--but we had an effect on the 
deliberations, none the less.  In their Report & Order, whom did the FCC 
cite for examples of what experimenters have already done with LF?  None 
other than lwca.org!  Even though the organization itself has never yet paid 
a penny of member dues toward operation of its Web presence, the fact that 
the site has held utterly steadfast to the objectives of the organization, 
and reported as accurately as possible what its paying members (and others 
in the hobby) have achieved, gives it a certain cache even in the halls of 
power.

That doesn't happen so readily with a random collection of individuals who 
have no stake in a given site, apart from their participation in it on a 
given day.

Thus we return to my original points:  Individual efforts are fine; 
creativity flourishes that way.  I'm not griping about individual efforts, 
but looking toward the farther future!  I don't think we can afford to do 
without  at least a minimally organized effort to provide a stable portal 
through which others can discover and/or document the broader state of our 
hobby.

We mustn't let one stifle the other.

John