Format

I'd like to open discussion on how we want our information presented in this newsletter. -Omar

Personally I think information should be presented in a consise fashion. The last thing anyone wants to do is read through a bunch of gibberish to find a few useful grains. Make it clearly marked too. Bullet points work well. -Matt Gwaltney

I think that we should offer the newsletter/information in as many mediums as possible. I defitiely think we should have an online version ... possibly a rss feed or something like that ...maybe just PDF...I don't know.

We also should offer an email version (possibly with a headline and links to the stories).

Finally, I think it is important to offer a paper version. It is old fashioned, I suppose, but I can tell you that I, for one, am much, much more likely to actually read something if it is printed, as opposed to online or recieved as an email along with the hundreds of others I recieve every day.

-Joshua Silver

Hm. So, since we seem to be stagnating slightly, what do you all think of this? I'd like the newsletter to be in multiple formats: a web page, an e-mail, and hardcopy. I think all incoming CoC students should be immediately subscribed to the e-mail, but we should also have the first few "issues" go out with a headline saying that if they don't want it, they can unsubscribe. The e-mail itself should only be headlines and short, descriptive blurbs. If they want to read the whole article, they can click a link and find themselves at the appropriate webpage. I think this may reduce the "spam" feel that infuses a lot of the e-mails we get.
The hardcopy and the webpage should be fairly equivalent. Obviously, the webpage will have external links for more information, which the hardcopy version can't have, but short of that, it should all be in the same spot.

I think it might be easier to figure out the precise layout for a webpage than for a newspaper, so how 'bout we start posting ideas on where we'd like to lay out the information in the Things to include section? - Omar

I agree that we should really use as many formats as possible. I love the RSS Feed idea, because you can plug it in to Google's Homepage. I check my RSS Feeds a lot from Slashdot. A possible format for the website version could be a type of slashdot format where users post articles and there are some moderators edit and keep the content coherent. Then like, maybe every week give out a paper format with the review of all of the articles of that week. The only problem with this format will be content could fill up too quickly, that all the information is given out one week, and nothing is left for another week. But, the slashdot format enables the community to participate in giving and sharing information. That way it is truely a community run new source. If we get really ambitious we could actually create maybe a Podcast of news form the week, since just about everyone has an IPod. But, that might be a little too much for us to handle, i like the thought. - Jeff Starker