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***User submissions on AI? What do you think?

post #1 of 24
3/8/02 at 5:58pm
Thread Starter 
Would you guys be interested in writing and submitting good articles about emerging technologies, beta software, reviews of new software and hardware, to be posted on the AI site?

We'd be looking for cogent, well-written pieces.

Note- this is not a call for submissions- rather a gauging of interest with which we can convince the higher-ups that this is a good step to take.


So, opinions please!

[ 03-09-2002: Message edited by: Jonathan ]</p>
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post #2 of 24
3/8/02 at 6:10pm
I think it would be great, as long as they're vetted pretty carefully by others.
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post #3 of 24
3/8/02 at 6:13pm
Thread Starter 
It goes without saying that they would be carefully reviewed and edited before posting.


Additionally, this would create new openings for authority figures: I can't review all the submissions and stuff myself. A new submissions/review team (volunteers, of course) would need to be created.
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post #4 of 24
3/8/02 at 10:56pm
I think it's an interesting idea, BUT I'd like to see a different "spin" on the articles, so as not to be the same as every other Mac news/rumor site. I'm not sure what could be done to accomplish that, though. At least upon first thought I don't.
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post #5 of 24
3/8/02 at 11:18pm
Thread Starter 
Well, frankly, i think that the user-submitted aspect is enough to differentiate... news is MacNN's department, but I think that the real articles from real people approach is good...


thinking about this more, i was thinking to have several diffferent categories. A section for member-created mockups, a section for editorials, etc.

It's long been said that what makes AI so special is the community- why not tap the greatness of the community to pump a little life back into the main page or whatnot?
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post #6 of 24
3/8/02 at 11:45pm
  • Anders
  • Feared and Biased Moderator
I say yes. Things like the cookie thread should have been made into a article on the front page long time ago. Thats what I would be interested in reading.

Mock-ups and stuff like that: Isn´t enough sites doing that?

I would gladly submit an article about the similarities and differences between the sociology of Luhmann and Object Orientated programming
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post #7 of 24
3/8/02 at 11:50pm
A very good idea, plus it will be "we the people" making the articles, it just sounds nice to me.
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post #8 of 24
3/9/02 at 12:01am
Indeed, very good idea.
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post #9 of 24
3/9/02 at 12:42am
great idea.
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post #10 of 24
3/9/02 at 4:48am
It's a great idea. At the moment it is the forums that make AI what it is but the rest of the Mac community still just see an idle front page and scurry away.

Put me down for one big YAY!

J :cool:
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post #11 of 24
3/9/02 at 10:01am
It would be a great idea to tap into our collective knowledge -- something pretty unique to AI is our members' expertise on many Mac-oriented subjects. Though I should mention that I'm not sure how much I could contribute. I would recommend finding those who could specifically make this kind of contribution. That is, who is qualified to write this stuff?
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post #12 of 24
3/9/02 at 4:58pm
All I can say is I have not seen the front page of AI in a loooong time becase I know there is nothing new out there.

I like the Mochup idea alot.

Somefresh articles would be a good thing, but a carbon copy of another site would not. (MacRumors) There is nothing at MacRumors for me, but then again. If they had an awesome UBB comunity things might be different around there.

What would cool IMO would be for
AI news to be the first legacy site to break the old Mac mold, and do some reporting on OS 10 UNIX.
Like articles on what developers are sturring up at sorceforge? What are Mac xNix developers working on for us, and what is waiting in the wings. Maybe some Unix Tip's, or what not.


I think you would need much faster servers with a lot more space if you took a leap into the future of the Macintosh platform.
You would get a lot more UBB members also, and would probably have to add a few forums to acomidate.

What ever you do. I've always liked the fact that AI is it's own design much like Apple itself. Don't loose your originalty.

Take all these elements. User Mochups (vote on the mochups that are displayed), Legacy AI Rumors, and inside info - then add the Mac Unix Community news, and you would have an extremely popular site. Not that you don't already.


And that is my input.
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post #13 of 24
3/9/02 at 5:46pm
Thread Starter 
[quote]Originally posted by onlooker:
<strong>All I can say is I have not seen the front page of AI in a loooong time becase I know there is nothing new out there.

I like the Mochup idea alot.

Somefresh articles would be a good thing, but a carbon copy of another site would not. (MacRumors) There is nothing at MacRumors for me, but then again. If they had an awesome UBB comunity things might be different around there.

What would cool IMO would be for
AI news to be the first legacy site to break the old Mac mold, and do some reporting on OS 10 UNIX.
Like articles on what developers are sturring up at sorceforge? What are Mac xNix developers working on for us, and what is waiting in the wings. Maybe some Unix Tip's, or what not.


I think you would need much faster servers with a lot more space if you took a leap into the future of the Macintosh platform.
You would get a lot more UBB members also, and would probably have to add a few forums to acomidate.

What ever you do. I've always liked the fact that AI is it's own design much like Apple itself. Don't loose your originalty.

Take all these elements. User Mochups (vote on the mochups that are displayed), Legacy AI Rumors, and inside info - then add the Mac Unix Community news, and you would have an extremely popular site. Not that you don't already.


And that is my input.</strong><hr></blockquote>


We've got a plenty fast server. Dual GHZ, 2 gig ram, all the trimmings.

When the new site comes, we'll freshen up the layouts/etc a bit. I've been working on something....


I'm thinking that it's not going to be so focused on the *nix parts of OS X... however, if someone would like to start writing something about that, by all means... they can go right ahead...

The rules are that there are no rules. It goes without saying that we'll edit the stuff a bit, of course.


This is, all, of course, dependent upon how receptive the MacNN people are to this idea...

seeing as they don't particularly like or care about this place too much, it's possible that they won't give this any attention...
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post #14 of 24
3/9/02 at 6:06pm
Bring it on. AI (content) has been dead too long. Even if it isn't "rumors" There really should be some news. If not that, you should just make AI a forums only site.
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post #15 of 24
3/9/02 at 8:01pm
yes please. i'm tired of reading about the "new" IRC services. something interesting could go a long way.

i'd think something like the good 'ol <a href="http://commons.ucalgary.ca/king/appleinsider/Forum4/HTML/005430.html" target="_blank">cookie</a> <a href="http://commons.ucalgary.ca/king/appleinsider/Forum4/HTML/005430-2.html" target="_blank">sheet</a> thread would be a great start for a first article.

[ 03-09-2002: Message edited by: alcimedes ]</p>
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post #16 of 24
3/9/02 at 8:19pm
why have you resorted to this? has all rumor and "inside info" dried up.

MOSR and especially Think Secret seem to have plenty of material. ATAT is doing fine even if they aren't a pur rumor site.

Is it a problem of lack of info or a lack of interests or something else?
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post #17 of 24
3/9/02 at 8:22pm
I also find it hard to believe that it's so impossible to get new articles up. If you want to put up reader submissions, though, it would be better than nothing.
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post #18 of 24
3/9/02 at 10:12pm
Thread Starter 
[quote]Originally posted by applenut:
<strong>why have you resorted to this? has all rumor and "inside info" dried up.

MOSR and especially Think Secret seem to have plenty of material. ATAT is doing fine even if they aren't a pur rumor site.

Is it a problem of lack of info or a lack of interests or something else?</strong><hr></blockquote>

I posted an explanation in GD in a thread called 'Someone Had To Do it"... it's pretty detailed and convoluted.


go take a look.
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post #19 of 24
3/9/02 at 10:32pm
[quote]Originally posted by Jonathan:
<strong>

I posted an explanation in GD in a thread called 'Someone Had To Do it"... it's pretty detailed and convoluted.


go take a look.</strong><hr></blockquote>

was that suppose to be a joke?

<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000501" target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=10&t=000501</a>
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post #20 of 24
3/9/02 at 10:45pm
Thread Starter 
nope. you got the wrong thread.

<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000840" target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000840</a>

edit- realized it's in AO not GD. apologies.

[ 03-10-2002: Message edited by: Jonathan ]</p>
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post #21 of 24
3/10/02 at 2:49pm
I think the rumor business is basically dead for now.

So how about instead of rumors, more background reports like the cookie sheet thread Anders mentioned?

I've always thought the predictions based just on publicly available information, combined with general knowledge of the industry and computer engineering were more plausible than the "leak-from-an-insider" types of rumors.

There are people with lots of different expertise here, and we only usually get to see it in disorganized bits and pieces.

Some ideas off the top of my head:

What is 32-bit vs. 64-bit?
What are Mhz, bus speed, L3 caches, etc.?
Which is really faster, the G4 or the PIV?
What is Carbon vs. Cocoa?
What is Apple's market share?
Analyses of Apple's financials.

I think some well-done analysis articles like this, done as objectively as possible, with links and all, would be much more useful to people than the "I heard from a drunk Apple employee that..." types of articles. They'd be hard to do well, but I think people may do them just for the respect they'd get here.
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post #22 of 24
3/10/02 at 2:55pm
[quote]Originally posted by Jonathan:
<strong>nope. you got the wrong thread.

<a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000840" target="_blank">http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000840</a>

edit- realized it's in AO not GD. apologies.

[ 03-10-2002: Message edited by: Jonathan ]</strong><hr></blockquote>


lol, alright.

BTW, why is it impossible to search all forums?
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post #23 of 24
3/10/02 at 10:29pm
I say go for it, except, I kind of wonder what unique niche in the pantheon of Mac Web Sites this new,new AI would fill. I've read AI since it was the 'Reality" page on MacNN and I miss what it was. But frankly, nobody has the goods on new Apple products more than 72 hours or at the most a week before a show. There aren't that many new models released in a year. You need something to do the other 40+ weeks a year. In the linked Thread Jonathan mentioned the obvious dangers of doing reports on prerelease software. Rumors aren't a "growth area" right now and with at least 4 sites I know of fighting over that space, posting anything new is going to be a challenge. Plus, we could all only take so many "I have friend at Apple/CompUSA/a major Apple customer/the big rock candy mountain and they told me..." stories.
Some of the ideas seem to be a sort of Mac Ars-Technica with Articles written on fairly high level technical subjects. OK, there may be some merit to that, but 1. do we have enough folks who can/will write engaging treatments of these subjects on a regular basis to keep the site fresh. 2. Since Mac users aren't choosing from so many technologies and building their own machines does the concept really have "legs" (ie are there that many people who care which cache architecture is best when they don't have a choice).

Knock yourselves out. I'd love to see Something done with the AI front page, it just would be smart to be sure we aren't having this discussion again 3 months from now.
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post #24 of 24
3/11/02 at 6:43am
Thread Starter 
BobTheTomato (love the name) wrote:

...1. do we have enough folks who can/will write engaging treatments of these subjects on a regular basis to keep the site fresh.

That was sort of the point of my posting this poll; it seems to have garnered a lot of positive support but no "i have experience in xxx field, and I can help there". :hmm:


2. Since Mac users aren't choosing from so many technologies and building their own machines does the concept really have "legs" (ie are there that many people who care which cache architecture is best when they don't have a choice).

Again, I really don't know. It's definite that, if this would happen, the forums would become the focus of the site; not the articles. The articles (seeing as they would be written by the forum users) would sort of be a bonus- something to give a little more substance to the site. Perhaps what we're going for is less 'articles' but more a 'FAQ' type page for each forum- that is, in FH, have a corresponding page with common definitions like DDR-RAM, etc.

hmmm...
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