M
Mike Bourke
My first thought was that a year is a long time and keeping a link to a
website for an "active member" who only contributes once-a-year is
incredibly generous. My second thought was that keeping track of who's an
"active member" would be a heck of a lot of work. So there is an obvious
trade-off between keeping the site at a low maintenance level and keeping it
up-to-date with respect to activity level.
My suggestion is to divide the page itself into three categories, or
possibly 4:
* Active Members (perhaps a subdivision for those who have been around this
group for what seems like forever, like John Corliss, and who can be
considered less likely to vanish as a result). Call them group mainstays -
anyone who has actively participated for more than 5 years without a break.
[Take a bow, Ladies and Gentlemen - you know who you are - without you this
group would not be half as vibrant and active as it is. Thank You.]
* Gone Walkabout - links to members pages where we havn't heard from the
member in 12 months, but the site is still there and still seems to be
active.
* Twilight Zone - links to members pages where we not only havn't heard from
them in a while but where the old website is either dead or has similarly
not been updated.
That way, you could have an annual call for updated URLs to members websites
with the responses all grouped together to make life a little easier for
those who have to do the hard work; those people who havn't appeared to be
active can have their links moved within the site to the second category
without Susan having to ask each time, just announce that the "active
members links" list has been updated. If your site is amongst those moved
from "active" to "uncertain", that would serve as a gently reminder to make
your presence in the group known a little more frequently.
As for the standards of activity, I've posted several times on different
subjects over the last few months, but I don't think that I would consider
myself a fully active member - not until I had participated in at least one
of the annual pricelessware nominations and voting cycles, or at least been
able to suggest a piece of freeware to solve someone's problem. I personally
would have no problem in listing a "commercial" site provided that the site
owner had met the activity test - if a software developer goes to the
trouble of helping people find freeware solutions to their problems, that's
good enough for me. It would probably be reasonable to require the site
summary to reflect the primary purpose of the site though, so that people
know what they are getting into before clicking the link.
Finally, any site that does not make the same careful distinction between
freeware, adware, spyware, etc, as the group should also indicate this in
the description (a "truth in advertising" standard seems more reasonable
than a blanket ban on such members sites).
The reason for suggesting this comes from thinking about the reasons why
someone would nominate their personal site for inclusion. The reasons seem
to me to be one part "about the active members" and one part acknowledgement
/ reward for active participation. In either case, the active member can be
considered to be trading on the "good name" of the group, as exemplified by
the pricelessware list, for the benefits of increased web traffic to their
personal site. In effect, the member's site list is a reccommendation by the
pricelessware site of another site that's worth visiting. Nothing wrong with
that, in my opinion. But the mechanisms in place for inclusion should
therefore also protect and reinforce that "good name" - the members sites
should be treated in a similar fashion to any other nomination for inclusion
in the pricelessware site. The only difference is that there can be many
"winners" in the category - one per active member.
This notion in and of itself suggests a corrollary page within the
pricelessware site regime - links to useful sites that are neither members
sites nor download links to freeware. These links could and should be
treated as any other form of pricelessware. For example, there is the free
online virus scan offered by Computer Associates
(http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx) and the equally
free upload-and-intensive-scan of a suspect file at
http://virusscan.jotti.org/ . Categories could include best free technical
help site, etc.
Whew! I seem to have wandered a little bit off-topic, though hopefully it's
all relevant to the group and its ongoing functioning. So, to bring it back
to the question at hand, this combined "activity test" and "ethical
standard" raises the question of what to do about sites whose owners meet
the "actiivty test" but which don't appear to meet the ethical standard....
which is a can of worms that might have been left unopened, but its too late
now. I must admit that I don't like the notion of putting them into a
"doghouse" - ie a seperate subcategory - is not all that appealing to me,
especially without some review process such as that which any nomination for
the pricelessware list undergoes. If someone proposes App X and someone else
reports that it might be Spyware, for example, the key phrase is "might
be" - hard evidence of some sort is needed before App X can be excluded from
consideration. At the same time, I'm not all that happy with the thought of
a collective veto by the members. At most, the membership should be able to
annotate the provided site summary - people tend to take attacks on their
websites, or even criticisms, personally. Down this road lies bad blood,
hard feelings, and bruised egos within the group, I fear.
So ultimately, I don't have answers - just some suggestions and related
questions for the group to consider. Definitly some food for thought,
though.
Mike Bourke
website for an "active member" who only contributes once-a-year is
incredibly generous. My second thought was that keeping track of who's an
"active member" would be a heck of a lot of work. So there is an obvious
trade-off between keeping the site at a low maintenance level and keeping it
up-to-date with respect to activity level.
My suggestion is to divide the page itself into three categories, or
possibly 4:
* Active Members (perhaps a subdivision for those who have been around this
group for what seems like forever, like John Corliss, and who can be
considered less likely to vanish as a result). Call them group mainstays -
anyone who has actively participated for more than 5 years without a break.
[Take a bow, Ladies and Gentlemen - you know who you are - without you this
group would not be half as vibrant and active as it is. Thank You.]
* Gone Walkabout - links to members pages where we havn't heard from the
member in 12 months, but the site is still there and still seems to be
active.
* Twilight Zone - links to members pages where we not only havn't heard from
them in a while but where the old website is either dead or has similarly
not been updated.
That way, you could have an annual call for updated URLs to members websites
with the responses all grouped together to make life a little easier for
those who have to do the hard work; those people who havn't appeared to be
active can have their links moved within the site to the second category
without Susan having to ask each time, just announce that the "active
members links" list has been updated. If your site is amongst those moved
from "active" to "uncertain", that would serve as a gently reminder to make
your presence in the group known a little more frequently.
As for the standards of activity, I've posted several times on different
subjects over the last few months, but I don't think that I would consider
myself a fully active member - not until I had participated in at least one
of the annual pricelessware nominations and voting cycles, or at least been
able to suggest a piece of freeware to solve someone's problem. I personally
would have no problem in listing a "commercial" site provided that the site
owner had met the activity test - if a software developer goes to the
trouble of helping people find freeware solutions to their problems, that's
good enough for me. It would probably be reasonable to require the site
summary to reflect the primary purpose of the site though, so that people
know what they are getting into before clicking the link.
Finally, any site that does not make the same careful distinction between
freeware, adware, spyware, etc, as the group should also indicate this in
the description (a "truth in advertising" standard seems more reasonable
than a blanket ban on such members sites).
The reason for suggesting this comes from thinking about the reasons why
someone would nominate their personal site for inclusion. The reasons seem
to me to be one part "about the active members" and one part acknowledgement
/ reward for active participation. In either case, the active member can be
considered to be trading on the "good name" of the group, as exemplified by
the pricelessware list, for the benefits of increased web traffic to their
personal site. In effect, the member's site list is a reccommendation by the
pricelessware site of another site that's worth visiting. Nothing wrong with
that, in my opinion. But the mechanisms in place for inclusion should
therefore also protect and reinforce that "good name" - the members sites
should be treated in a similar fashion to any other nomination for inclusion
in the pricelessware site. The only difference is that there can be many
"winners" in the category - one per active member.
This notion in and of itself suggests a corrollary page within the
pricelessware site regime - links to useful sites that are neither members
sites nor download links to freeware. These links could and should be
treated as any other form of pricelessware. For example, there is the free
online virus scan offered by Computer Associates
(http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx) and the equally
free upload-and-intensive-scan of a suspect file at
http://virusscan.jotti.org/ . Categories could include best free technical
help site, etc.
Whew! I seem to have wandered a little bit off-topic, though hopefully it's
all relevant to the group and its ongoing functioning. So, to bring it back
to the question at hand, this combined "activity test" and "ethical
standard" raises the question of what to do about sites whose owners meet
the "actiivty test" but which don't appear to meet the ethical standard....
which is a can of worms that might have been left unopened, but its too late
now. I must admit that I don't like the notion of putting them into a
"doghouse" - ie a seperate subcategory - is not all that appealing to me,
especially without some review process such as that which any nomination for
the pricelessware list undergoes. If someone proposes App X and someone else
reports that it might be Spyware, for example, the key phrase is "might
be" - hard evidence of some sort is needed before App X can be excluded from
consideration. At the same time, I'm not all that happy with the thought of
a collective veto by the members. At most, the membership should be able to
annotate the provided site summary - people tend to take attacks on their
websites, or even criticisms, personally. Down this road lies bad blood,
hard feelings, and bruised egos within the group, I fear.
So ultimately, I don't have answers - just some suggestions and related
questions for the group to consider. Definitly some food for thought,
though.
Mike Bourke
AFAIK we've never had any short URLs on the Members page so I assumed. . .