Ideas & Proposals
July 1 ’05 Internet | Language/Structure |
I’ve prepared this document as a general how-to guide for what a community organization should consider in upgrading their website– something to serve the organization and the community. The fundamental choice from the start of the design is what architectural decisions to make. I explain why an open source CMS solution is a good architecture to pick, and do point out Drupal as a worthy example for that.
June 13 ’05 Internet | Visual Design | 1 comment
A decade ago, the term webzine came into vogue simply to mean a web-based magazine. I’d like to breathe new life into it to describe an alternative format to the weblog for online publishing. Whereas the design fundamental of weblog is the reverse-chronological format, the design fundamental of the webzine is separate departments based on the style of the writing. I’m going to describe here how this would be useful for online communities/publishers.
May 16 ’05 Media | Access/Network |
This is an addendum to the New Gatekeepers series (formally, part 7). In the series,
particularly part 4, I described that the need for gatekeepers is a result of
discursive postings; in order to minimize the influence of gatekeepers, we need aggregatable declarations.
Responses & Reviews
June 16 ’05 Lexicon | Media |
On Monday, Steve Outing of the Poynter Institute stacked up the eleven layers of citizen journalism. Stack may be the wrong word– that’s mine– but layers isn’t exactly right, if we are thinking about network communications layers. They’re eleven concepts used to frame a number of concepts related to the new media called citizen journalism, with some helpful examples. But it can use a little more work. Here’s my citizen additions.
June 8 ’05 Media | Language/Structure |

Yesterday I posted the article Fixing a Blog in Time, which was a little experiment in reading a particular blog, and trying to understand how it covered 26 different posts over a period of a little over two weeks. I chose Robert Cox’s The National Debate. I did not make fully clear, with each post, how much I was mixing my initial impression of reading it with subsequent understandings. This begs a larger discussion about the tradeoffs inherent in impressionistic news.

Bob sent me the following response via email this evening. I post it in full here with my brief reactions interjected.

June 7 ’05 Internet | Language/Structure |
Checking the sequence of posts on Robert Cox’s The National Debate blog over a sixteen-day period.

May 25 ’05 Media | Access/Network |
Here’s a summary of reactions to The New Gatekeepers series– and some brief responses back from me.

Special Reports
April 4 ’05 Media | Language/Structure |
To read the headlines, or the bloglines, one might get the sense that the the bloggers have arrived on the scene to challenge the “gatekeepers” of the big media. This is an essay in six parts to examine this theme.
Analyses & Summaries
May 17 ’05 Media | Access/Network |
This piece brings the New Gatekeepers series to a close. I sketched out a future vision in the previous part, which I believe could happen, sometime. In the meanwhile, I will write about the future as it has happened over the past four months.

May 15 ’05 Media | Access/Network |
Before I get to the solutions, I’ll spend some time summarizing what has been discussed in The New Gatekeepers series, this being part 6.

People around the world have discovered their voices, and enjoy seeing their work published online for others to read. The tools they use are quite often blogs, and thus they call themselves bloggers. And by the bubble of blogging, the format been hyped as a panacea for solving the problems of the media, of business, or organizations. It just doesn’t follow.
April 30 ’05 Media | Access/Network |
Fifth in the series on The New Gatekeepers.

It’s been over two weeks since the that last part of this series. This gap in time can be partly rationalized by my hoping to build up some anticipation for this next part. We’re going to look at epidemics, cascades and the problem of crowds.

April 12 ’05 Media | Access/Network |
Fourth in the series on The New Gatekeepers.

A wonderful set of coincidences happened this weekend; I decided to take a break from writing, and then a beautiful woman flew into town and we happened to met, and we decided to go out Saturday night. Pretty quickly I had to find something to go see and a restaurant to dine in. Your dividend from all of this, dear reader, is an illustration about the different circumstances where gatekeepers are necessary or not: from theater shows to dining options.

Definitions & Explanations
June 4 ’04 |
Welcome to Civilities, one of the most innovative public interest publications on the web.
June 24 ’05 Internet | Visual Design |
This is a technical design document for the Webzine module for Drupal. It will be updated in an ongoing basis as I work with other Drupal developers.
June 17 ’05 Media | Language/Structure |
There are two fundamental styles of writing which comprise most of the writing around us. I call them normative and narrative, though it shouldn’t surprise me if this has been thought of communications theorists prior. Each style lends itself to a different type of publishing platform. I will explain here what the ramifications are for online publications.