Hello folks,
I wanted to throw in my tuppence worth in the form of a sort of
retrospective from my point of view. Opinions my own, and any
similarity to those of persons living or dead are entirely
coincidental.
The good:
* Getting BBC people out into the public and meeting developers (both
at BBC-hosted events and otherwise) and shows that BBC staffers are
people too ;)
* Showing that the BBC's creativity is not limited to its traditional output
* A forum to ask technical questions about stuff
* BBC people being open and honest (less good: having to face the
internal grumbles as a result)
* (most importantly) demonstrating that the sky will not, in fact,
fall in if things are opened up
The bad:
* I can't speak for anybody else, but I think the timing is
potentially terrible. Backstage started winding down not only as I
discovered it, but as the stuff Backstage has been helping to make
happen has become increasingly more important.
* As a knock-on effect, the big takeaway impression is of stuff which
is in the process of being decommissioned and a website which hasn't
been updated properly in forever, which is a shame.
* It's mostly just BBC.
The ugly:
* This list. Or rather, the fact there's only _one_ list. I think
having a general discussion list ("heated debates" and all) is great,
but I think, and others have expressed a similar sentiment, that
having 'general discussion' and 'technical help and enquiries, and
announcements' all on one list served to discourage the latter and
attract people who are interested in the former but less the latter.
So I reckon you can break it all down into different things I'd like
to see happen or continue in *some* way:
* Things like /programmes, /nature are clearly brilliant. More of this
across the BBC, please.
* A forum of some sort for help and advice in making use of this stuff
-- whether it's hangers-on like me, or involved experts like Yves
* A place to announce prototypes and such (I'd assume the R&D blog
would be high on the list for BBC stuff, but there needs to be
something for the third-party stuff and unofficial hacks by BBC staff)
* General discussions... thing. Somewhere for these to go
(friends-of-backstage?)
* BBC presence at events, and BBC-hosted events -- hackdays, Maker
Faire, etc. I presume this would be fairly easily be turned into a
"BBC R&D" interest rather than a "BBC Backstage" interest as it is
now.
* A cross-broadcaster vehicle underpinning & promoting a lot of this.
Where's the data on ITV? Channel 4 (actually, wasn't it there, then
switched off recently)? Five? Sky? -- I realise this one's ambitious,
but I think it's something which needs to happen.
* A voice for developers, hangers-on, hecklers, etc., to whinge and
praise when things are done badly/well.
So, yeah. That's my take. Make it so :)
M.
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