Decline of Countryside Magazine

stanb999 · #61 01/02/07, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Wheaton

When life gives you lemons, you throw them at people and call them filthy names!

Oh wait .... maybe I don't have that quite right ....

When life give you horse potatoes, you .....

I'm gonna let that part go ...

So there is mountains of fun stuff on the internet. It seems like that would be a great place to collect info. I suspect that if the CSM folks wanted to fill their magazine with good stuff, I think a person could spend ten hours a week cruising this forum and exercising google a bit so come up with a lot of content. Then spend an extra two hours a week asking for permission to republish and link back to the respective sites. Half of CSM might then become a place to regurgitate stuff from the internet. By printing the links, they'll help drive traffic to those sites that are posting good stuff.

Yeah, the internet has a lot of first class info that just isn't available elsewhere. Rather than closing up shop, work with it!

If the owner/publisher/editor/wahtever of CSM doesn't have the time, surely there is somebody here who would be willing to come up with 12 hours per week at ten bucks an hour to put that sort of thing together. $500 per month could make for a far better mag (read: $$$) and go a long ways to supporting one of us over the net.

Wouldn't it be cool to have such a person come on to this forum once a week and say "I need to fill out the 'bits and bobs' column with some one liner tricks for the barn." or "100 uses for baling twine" or "100 uses for rusty barbed wire." or whatever. We have some excellent threads in this forum that get 150 responses and after reading the 150 responses I think that I would much rather have read the top 50 condensed to 10 times smaller. A magazine could do something like that. And I would subscribe to something like that.

The problem with a magazine like that is it's not a magazine it's a message board. Post the problem and you get answers.
Why would you make a middle man?

Paul Wheaton · #62 01/02/07, 01:24 PM

If you just copy and paste, then, yes, you have something stupid and worthless.

But if you pick the best thread out of a hundred, and then pick the best 10% out of that and massage it into an article with lots of quotes - I think you have something of great value.

And I'm not suggesting that the magazine be made entirely of this sort of thing. I think there is still plenty of stuff being sent in by other means.

stanb999 · #63 01/02/07, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Wheaton

If you just copy and paste, then, yes, you have something stupid and worthless.

But if you pick the best thread out of a hundred, and then pick the best 10% out of that and massage it into an article with lots of quotes - I think you have something of great value.

And I'm not suggesting that the magazine be made entirely of this sort of thing. I think there is still plenty of stuff being sent in by other means.

I agree to a point. But I never had trouble reading the responces to question I have asked.

Paul Wheaton · #64 01/02/07, 02:34 PM

You can still post questions and do like you always did.

I'm suggesting something for paper magazine content: one of us spent 100 hours finding "the best of the internet" and filled half a magazine. Stuff I might not thought of asking about. I think it's worthwhile.

Ken Scharabok · #65 01/02/07, 04:59 PM

Just for a clarification: There is no connection between Countryside Publicatins (Magazine) and this forum. When the old Countryside LUCINET forum ended the keys and title were turned over to Chuck with the only stipulation it no longer carry the Countryside name.

Paul Wheaton · #66 01/02/07, 05:08 PM

There is no connection .... any more.

And now Countryside is owned by somebody else.

And I think it would be to the benefit of both parties to build a relationship!

sullen · #67 01/02/07, 06:56 PM

I would like to add that as soon as I saw an article on Al Gore I called MEN and told them to switch my subscription to something interesting!
I also sent a card into GRIT. I will see how it goes.

Mr. Dot · #68 01/02/07, 07:25 PM

I recently re-upped for another year but it was a close call. A lot of interesting ideas in this thread as to why that might be.

straight shot · #69 01/02/07, 07:40 PM

if you look at it as it as a has been, well you made it.

congratulations!

I used to subscribe to a teen mag but now there is no need for it anymore as I enter the 40 somethings.

chamoisee · #70 01/02/07, 09:23 PM

Believe me, you don't want that connection. Once Dave got his hands on it, he was pretty oppressive. There was a phase, IIRC, where there was talkof not allowing (in other words, deleting) anything that wasn't strictly homesteading related (in other words, that they couldn't potentially lift the content from to use in their magazine). Yeah, they were taking what we wrote and using it for articles without even asking us or crediting us as the source. Greenbeanman complained bitterly about this and was basically told, tough luck!

I'm sorry, but I just don't have enough respect for them anymore to submit any articles. They were going to take the forum and flush it down the toilet if they couldn't pass it along to someone that they handpicked. Luckily, Chuck has turned out better than we had feared.

Laura Workman · #71 01/02/07, 09:32 PM

I'll second the Chuck comment, for sure. Actually, IMHO, Chuck turned out far better than we could have dreamed!

okgoatgal2 · #72 01/03/07, 10:31 AM

since it is reader written, write some articles for it. and ask the specific questions you'd like to read about. someone will know and answer. i think people are not contributing as much, so they are having to pull for stuff a little more than they used to.

**Terri** · #73 01/03/07, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by okgoatgal2

since it is reader written, write some articles for it. and ask the specific questions you'd like to read about. someone will know and answer. i think people are not contributing as much, so they are having to pull for stuff a little more than they used to.

I sent in an artcle a few weeks ago, even though I really wanted another growing season before I wrote things up.

I challenge the rest of you to do the same! Don't worry about whether or not you write well enough, they will edit it if it is a little rough! But, they DO need more good articles!

Deb862 · #74 01/03/07, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Wheaton

You can still post questions and do like you always did.

I'm suggesting something for paper magazine content: one of us spent 100 hours finding "the best of the internet" and filled half a magazine. Stuff I might not thought of asking about. I think it's worthwhile.

I think this is a good idea. Not everyone has internet access and not everyone of us can afford to spend hours upon hours glued to the internet to read and sort through all the information. As the information is put out there on the internet freely by people typing it in, I believe it is basically there for anyone to see and so filling some pages of a magazine with some of that information with links attached shouldn't be a problem. After all, anyone could just go on the 'net and read it anyway, but I definitely feel it would be nicer to have just some very salient articles/words sorted out of the multitude of stuff here on the 'net. Saves me time and I like that!

PyroDon · #75 01/03/07, 12:49 PM

Part of the problem is many post here freely but if someone is going to take their posts and use them to make a profit then the writer should be compensated. Its no different than paying a lawyer for a consultation.
if you are going to steel someone elses knowledge and sell it well lets face it thats stealing.

diane · #76 01/03/07, 12:57 PM

I agree Laura........WAY BETTER!!!

I try to share here what I have to share. I found it pretty annoying that people think they can just "harvest" what is written on the internet and make a profit off it. Let the forums be forums and magazines be magazines and respect that if folks what to submit to a magazine they will. I agree with Pyro....it would be stealing.

cowgirlone · #77 01/03/07, 01:18 PM

Quote:

I found it pretty annoying that people think they can just "harvest" what is written on the internet and make a profit off it.

Diane is right, You need to watch out what you copy and re-post on other sites...... all of the Homesteading sites I've been to have copyright laws.

I agree, this site is so much better than the old one. It's amazing how we've grown to over 16,000 members!!

Paul Wheaton · #78 01/03/07, 01:30 PM

1) I think the right thing to do is get permission of the author of the post. I suspect that most folks will freely give permission without desiring compensation.

2) It is possible that Chuck owns the copyright to everything we post here. After all, freedom of the press belongs to those that owns one - and Chuck owns this one. We are each submitting something for Chuck to publish. Chuck appears to be pretty happy to publish whatever we send in. So while we might wish to claim copyright to whatever we post, I suspect that the true copyright is owned by Chuck.

3) As I look upon the world and the state it is in, I think that many of the world's problems can be solved with more people doing what we do: living off the land. If my contributions here help get the word out, then I'm doing my part to make the world a better place. Plus, if I say something less than accurate, I hope that somebody will point it out and I will then learn something.

cowgirlone · #79 01/03/07, 01:54 PM

Here's the clip in the FAQ's that I was looking for....

Quote:

Who owns the content of this site?
When someone posts original content on this site, the content enters the public domain. As such, the moderators of this site are free to censor, edit, ban, publish or delete any information voluntarily posted to the site, with the possible exception of previously copyrighted work that does not belong to the poster. In that case, the work shall retain whatever copyright terms and conditions that it had previous to being posted here and should be shown to be so copyrighted.

cowgirlone · #80 01/03/07, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terri

I sent in an artcle a few weeks ago, even though I really wanted another growing season before I wrote things up.

I challenge the rest of you to do the same! Don't worry about whether or not you write well enough, they will edit it if it is a little rough! But, they DO need more good articles!

Terri, I'm looking forward to reading your article.