Re: Looking for Authors

On Sun, 27 Oct 2002 21:29:49 +0000 (UTC), "Ken" <nokia3330e_at_yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>> What's wrong with just sharing knowledge on the USENET newsgroup? Old
>> questions can be looked up on Google's www.deja.com or in the FAQ.
>Nothing, but what we have found is that peoples questions can be ambigous
>and not always the correct answer.

Not really true. If someone posts incorrect information, it will typically be corrected by someone else here. That's one of the great strengths of technical USENET newsgroups.

BTW, what is the mechanism that you will guarantee that you will always have unambiguous and correct answers on your website? What do you know that the rest of us don't?

>> What's wrong with the already-existing websites like Roedy's Java
>> Glossary at http://www.mindprod.com/jgloss.html
>
>Nothing and websites like this and ours can only enhance the users
>experience.

Not necessarily. Google/Deja does one heck of a job indexing and retrieving information.

What exactly will your website bring to the table that Google/Deja doesn't?

>> What about the Java category-driven expert website www.jguru.com ?
>See above answer.

With all due respect, can you give us something more than a platitude?

Exactly what unique are you bringing to the table? Are the "experts" going to author their own HTML, or is there going to be strong editorial support within HTML frameworks/editorial standards? Will you have professional HTML editors on the staff?

How are you funding your endeavor?

>> How will you control this? How will you know who an expert is?
>It will become apparent quite quickly who knows their stuff and who don't.

To whom? How will you know? What will you do when you find out?

How familiar are you with jguru.com? What will you be providing beyond what they do? Why would it ever be advantageous to look up on your site?

>> www.about.com is already doing this. Depending on the expert,
>> about.com is quite reasonable ... once you turn off pop-up windows.
>www.about.com is another 'google', links to other sites.

No, it isn't. There are human experts in each of the topics.

>> I get HTML errors when going to the links on your site. Oops. Not a
>> good start. Perhaps you're not ready to announce your website yet...
>www.about.com also has these features! :-)

I don't see this. I see well-behaved links on about.com. I see standardized formatting of the various topics, and extensive cross-linking. There are clearly professional content HTML editorial staff backing about.com.

Will you have professional editorial staff backing up the site? How will you pay them?

>The About Us does say it is not available yet and thus so the links are also
>not available yet.

The "Contributor Login" "Enter MyInfoDrum as a User" "Register" links are all failing when I use Mozilla 1.0 RC 1.

The same links fail when I use Internet Explorer 6.0.2600.0000.

The same links fail when I use Netscape Communicator 4.77.

If I put in a sample login/password into the form, I get an error that POST is not allowed for this URL.

The only things that DO work are the e-mail URL and the link to your website's ISP.

>Seriously Phil, I understand where you are coming from but all I can say is
>stay tooned.

You have fundamental problems on your website. I can find nothing that works. I believe you'd be better off making sure things work before announcing your "service" anywhere publiclly.

>MyInfoDrum.com

--phil Received on Mon Oct 28 2002 - 07:28:23 CET