Especially alarming is that fellow forum-member f1gast's UnracedF1 is beginning to post content before we did
(no offence meant, f1gast)
Sure, articles for this site would require a lot more work considering the high standard of the legacy we carry. But it is indeed true that the leadership of this site has had the habit of having the efficiency levels of the Belgian bureaucracy. (though good work has certainly be done regarding the forum, i do acknowledge those efforts.)
Though i have lot of free time, i'm not exactly good at profile writing and research and my judgement is not esteemed high enough to get more responsability on the forum. I could perhaps help in social media, as that does not require intelligence (except for not going into discussions with others) though then again the fact that i just put up the inactive F1 Rejects Racing Team page up for deletion is not a good credential. Though to be fair that page had lost all of its purpose(somehow it still keeps on getting likes). But again, that was a good example of a do-able idea not happening because we couldn't even get to the planning stage.
I do have plenty of time to review written articles and all, but then again, my judgement is considered rather poor, and the only reference i can give is writing concert reviews (mostly from the Groezrock festival, as i stopped other activities for that site) and re-writing others reviews for the same festival when i think they messed up. Then again, that is dutch, which is my native language, and therefore significantly easier. Though the judgement from my collegues was generally very good, the standards i've been compared to aren't really high.
But i'm defenitely willing to give the writing in english a try, if somebody who is good at research and bad at writing needs help.
But the idea is clear, we need plans. We can no longer be satisfied with ideas alone, or we end up with a profile at UnracedF1.
First thing to do is set up a company structure, like every well running organisation has. Putting the responsability on just one person is simply risky, as that person has a life.
This forum can not forever build on its legacy, if such legacy isn't even available. It's not like we've become a group of close friends over the year. What made us decide to join here in the first place are the articles. The legacy is enoch and jamie's decicion, but we do need to start to get results. If we don't, i predict this forum will simply bleed to death. (Maybe with the exception of our fictional universe).
We do have talents like mario onboard and people with experience like faustus. It's not like i want to pressure them to become more involved, but are we going to just let their talent and knowledge go to waste?
A good company structure serves the purpose of combining talents. Our structure is not effient. I'm not saying Biscione is not capable, because he certainly is. It's just that he does not posess godlike abilities like being everywhere anytime.
First thing to do: write a list of who is capable of what. Who is capable of doing research? Who is capable of writing articles? What are peoples specifc talents? Who has a lot of free time and who hasn't? When does the person has free time and when doesn't he? If we have such a list, we can team up people effeciently and get things done. Some people might prefer working alone on a subject, other people might prefer working in team. And when things don't go to plan, they have a good view of who is available to help them out.
Judging by the level of the posts on this forum, a lot of people are at least capable of creating half-decent articles, which saves a lot of time for the final editor. I'm strongly in favour of adding the possibility of co-writers as the main writers and main editors have lifes too.
Step 1B: decide on an official structure of who has which job, and an official reserve structure, of the people who can additionally help when this is needed.
Make sure to have at least 2 people with administration rights as a backup to the main administrator. So at least a few simple things like posting the ROTR and featured pictures and stuff like that can keep running, to at least give readers the feeling we're active.
Step 2: create a structure for the type of articles we want, and a template of how those articles arestructured. Again, this saves a lot of time for the final editor.
Are we going to keep us strict to the F1 Rejects rules? I suggest we do add 'reject technology' as a third big category.
Step 3: concrete deadlines.
But you know what will happen? We won't even be able to decide on who is going to make a document for step 1.
