[3067] in APO News
On the APOc
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Cho)
Wed Feb 18 10:29:14 1998
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 15:28:03 GMT
From: David Cho <dcho@hno2.atria.com>
To: apo-news@MIT.EDU
Reply-To: dcctdw@MIT.EDU
I'm mold, just in case you didn't know. :)
I have two quick points to make:
* The written word is a useful medium. It can be saved, archived,
looked at again, read in probably an easier manner than an electronic forum
(many will disagree), and probably to most people, something on paper means
something to them -- as opposed to this email, which I'm sure everyone will
delete within a day.
* There's no point in doing something "just for tradition's sake".
These two points are contradicting, and by and large, I leave it to the
actives to decide which (if any) of the points they side more with.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The following is going to get long, but hopefully will be interesting. :)
If you think that the written APOc is a good idea, then there are some
questions that could be asked:
* Instead of writing what we are writing, how about asking for
different articles? We currently ask for articles in a manner that we know
fails for finding PCs -- a generic plea for articles. No no no; you get
committed and psyched PCs by doing the personal touch, and perhaps a little
more focus is required for articles as well.
* What the heck do people want to read? Minutes? No.... not
unless you're Glenn Berry. ;) Traditionally, the APOc was used to discuss
Issues Facing The Chapter. I don't think we have those as much anymore (it
may be a myth that we ever did have them; certainly not during my time).
So perhaps... people want to know what's up in other people's lives?
Perhaps a themed APOc. Dopey themes that come to mind are "What I want out
of APO this term" (which could be interesting, mind you); not-so-dopey
themes are left as an exercise to the actives.
* Is there material to put out ah newsletter once every two weeks?
Yes: look at /mit/dcctdw/PS/APOc/. "APOc", in this case, stands for
"APOcalypse", which was a hack newsletter that Mike Bauer and I put out to
prove that a newsletter could be published every two weeks. It's
specifically made content-free, so as not to compete with the "real" APOc,
and is filled with all the dumb jokes we could think of. People laughed,
people winced, people generally ignored us, but people got the point --
even a dopey hack newsletter made them feel in touch with each other.
Typically they were two sheets of paper saddle-stapled together (we didn't
have -that- many dumb jokes!) Not a big production -- just a simple,
focused production.
So... in conclusion, I'd say that if APOc's aren't coming out due to lack
of creativity, well, someone get a bag of Oreos and hand out one to people
who come up with a new idea for the APOc. But if it's a dead horse, then
by all means, move along. :)
dave
dave cho
dcctdw@mit.edu
mold (this means you should feel free to ignore me) :)
