I've been sitting out the conversations about Quanta, QL Today, etc, but
I thought I would chime in here.
When it comes to volunteer projects, we have to remember the old adage:
"You can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"
Having been on the Board of 4 non-profits, and know how hard it can be
to push volunteers to get things done.
For QL websites, we really have to wait for a volunteer to step up and
do something. Geoff is right about needing a place for long form
articles. At the moment, I use two QL websites; the QL forum for news
and short discussions, and Dilwyn's site for downloads and basic QL
information.
I have not done any longer QL writing in a while, but if I did, there is
not a single location for it. I'd probably host it on my website and
point to it from the QL forums (I've done this some recent ZX81 work).
Now, some have suggested that Quanta step up and fill some role, mostly
an article oriented website, but they may not be able to find a
volunteer to do that. I'm working a new website for a local Museum, but
I'm so rusty with HTML stuff that it is a bit of a struggle and not very
enjoyable.
Eventually, someone will get frustrated enough and do it themselves.
This might be enough of a catalyst that gets others involved. Until
then all the gnashing of teeth will do nothing.
I do admit until a few minutes ago, it had been years (8+) since I
visited Geoff's web page. I did not know it had a news section. I've
really only been focusing on one website for my QL news (ok, on the
mailing list). I don't know if Geoff announced his news section on the
QL forum. If he did, I missed it.
So, if people to have long-form articles for the QL, don't just leave it
sitting on your local system. Use the existing web sites that we do
have. If you don't have a location to host it, ask the mailing list for
someone who can. If we have enough authors writing new material, that
might encourage someone to create a newsletter.
Tim Swenson
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