LWN Status Update [LWN.net]

Here is this week's report from LWN.net; read on for the latest in subscriber counts, and for information on potential opportunities for those who might like to write for LWN.

The LWN individual subscriber count still stands a little shy of 2400, almost unchanged from a week ago. That is mixed news - the frequency of subscription expiration has gone up, but, so far, new subscriptions have kept the overall count from dropping. We have, however, definitely hit a plateau with regard to subscription levels.

If you are still trying to solve you holiday shopping needs, you could maybe help yourself and LWN by giving LWN.net gift certificates.

Parts of this week's Weekly Edition may be a little thin due to one editor being distracted by (non-LWN) issues. Things will hopefully be back to normal next week.

Partly inspired by these issues, we are looking for ways to bring more authors into the LWN.net fold. We are in no position to hire anybody, to say the least, but, with luck, we should be able to split out a small amount of money to pay for externally-written articles. If you have good English language writing skills, are interested in writing about free software topics, can deal with short-term deadlines, and are willing to deal with extremely picky editors for very small amounts of money, we would like to hear from you. Please drop us a note at authors@lwn.net, and we'll talk. Please don't submit actual articles until we've come to an agreement.

Thanks, as always, for supporting LWN.net.

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LWN Status Update

Posted Dec 4, 2002 12:07 UTC (Wed) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

The potential value of knowledge/work/ideas/etc LWN subscribers could provide each other far outweighs the subscription cost. The fact that people subscribe to LWN involves an entry cost which indicates a level of technical interest in free software and networking, together with a willingness to make a contribution to a valuable community resource (LWN). Advogato and Slashdot increase the value of their sites by building trust metrics. LWN subscription could help in this regard by enabling conversations and trades within the free software community amongst a set of participants who already know something about each other, which excludes those not so qualified.

Would having a bulletin board/ set of newsgroups/ chat rooms/ mailing list facility exclusively for LWN subscribers to capitalise on this potential (community of interest/added value) be viable ? If one or more of these channels were successful this might attract more LWN subscriptions.

LWN Status Update

Posted Dec 4, 2002 13:00 UTC (Wed) by Mithrandir (subscriber, #3031) [Link]

Interesting idea. phpBB (www.phpbb.com) is a great online forum system. Easy to set up &c. Might be worth looking into.

I'm not sure how much interest this will generate though. Numerous services like this exist elsewhere, and it's been my experience that unless there is something specific to discuss, then not much discussion happens.

And really, what would a forum system provide that the current comments system doesn't?

If you do a forum, do it right

Posted Dec 4, 2002 14:04 UTC (Wed) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link]

If you're going to do a BB system *please* do it with NNTP. Or, better, provide both web and NNTP interfaces. It can be done; I've seen it in action. (Indeed, one might say that Google does just that, although of course with LWN.net you'd have to have some way of handling the account information.)

Online web forums bug me. It's using the back end of a screwdriver to bang in nails. With NNTP, each user gets to choose his own client; with web forums, you're stuck with the interface that the web designer coded up. And, even the very best web forums I've seen feel clumsy in comparison to an NNTP client I know well.

-Rob

If you do a forum, do it right

Posted Dec 4, 2002 14:50 UTC (Wed) by bartman (subscriber, #3476) [Link]

> Online web forums bug me. It's using the back end of a screwdriver
> to bang in nails. With NNTP, each user gets to choose his own client;
> with web forums, you're stuck with the interface that the web designer
> coded up. And, even the very best web forums I've seen feel clumsy in
> comparison to an NNTP client I know well.

I agree with Rob 100%. I have yet to see a web forum that is as flexible as NNTP clients.

If you do a forum, do it right

Posted Dec 4, 2002 15:17 UTC (Wed) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

Awesome forums done via NNTP: LUGNET News.

If you do a forum, do it right

Posted Dec 7, 2002 1:03 UTC (Sat) by mogul (subscriber, #3163) [Link]

You might want to look at Papercut, which is designed as an NNTP backend that talks to several popular webforum packages. http://www.papercut.org The latest version supports phpBB, among other things.

LWN Status Update

Posted Dec 4, 2002 15:16 UTC (Wed) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

>And really, what would a forum system provide that the current comments
>system doesn't?

One problem with the current comments system is that threads are exclusively headed by a single news item, which tends to give the thread a fairly short life expectancy. Relatively few people are likely to see new messages relating to a thread which started more than a week before.

Another advantage of having a subscribers-only area is that, for certain purposes, higher signal-to-noise ratio discussions can sometimes occur within a forum with an entry cost.

LWN Status Update

Posted Dec 4, 2002 16:13 UTC (Wed) by lucho (guest, #2362) [Link]

My reason for supporting LWN is its weekly editorial. To me it is a unique insight into the industry that has no match. I imagine that many others like LWN for the same or similar reasons. Therefore there is probably some homogeneity (sp?) in its subscription base. I would suggest running some polls to determine this. I have a professional interest in computing and like to mingle with people who have the same interest in computing. There are others who may be more interested in things like games for which I have no interest. Still others may feel passionate about politics and computers. In this case, I like to watch the crowd and follow the discussions but not be totally involved.

If there are clusters of interest, definitely, LWN could cater to those groups by providing a place in which to exchange ideas on such topics. I think that this may be an important benefit to this already selective crowd that may be relatively inexpensive and that at the same time may attract others looking for place to meet, discuss and learn about the subjects that would be discussed in these forums.

LWN Status Update

Posted Dec 4, 2002 18:38 UTC (Wed) by scripter (subscriber, #2654) [Link]

I absolutely agree -- I subscribed because I like the high-quality editorials.

LWN Status Update

Posted Dec 5, 2002 8:43 UTC (Thu) by amikins (guest, #451) [Link]

I subscribed specifically for the front page and kernel editorials, with the 'linux in the news' section being a third.
This week in history was also a nice thing, but really I don't pay much attention to anything other than the main three.

Just in case people are curious as to what draws some of us. =>