[Boston-editorial] minutes of 4/24 web-editorial meeting

[Matthew Williams]

Minutes of April 24, 2005 Web-Editorial Meeting

Present: Matt, Joe, Sofia, Pete, Rob B., John P.

1. Calendar: Release of the new calendar system has been delayed 
somewhat because Drupal has come out with a new calendar module and 
Robby's checking to make sure everything is compatible.

2. Google News: We have things set up with Google News so that their 
bot only searches our features, not the entire site, thus ensuring we 
will not be booted out of their system.

3. Usability tests: The group working on the usability tests has all 
the questions developed for the most part and will be meeting next week 
to put the test together. They will then begin doing the usability test 
with a group of 15-20 people, a group that is large enough so we should 
be able to detect any problems. Sofia has volunteered to be an 
additional tester. We are going to try to do the test on people from a 
broad range of communities in order to make sure there are no cultural  
barriers in use of the site and to begin outreach to get a more diverse 
group of people involved in the editorial team. We agreed that the 
following question should be added to the usability test: "What ideas 
do you have to make this site more representative of your 
community/ies?"

4. Site design: Below the current newswire, we want to set up a section 
in which the Global and US RSS feeds (which contain the Global and US 
features) will appear so people can see everything listed all in one 
site. (Clicking on the links will take people to the Global and US 
sites, hopefully increasing their traffic.) We would also like to 
include RSS feeds of features from countries which have significant 
immigrant populations in Boston, in order to make the site more 
relevant to people from those communities. (This will be in addition to 
feature articles written by locals on international affairs.)

5. Press releases: We have defined a press release for our purposes as 
something written by a paid staff person, not a volunteer with a group. 
We are OK with featuring commentaries (i.e., op-ed pieces) by paid 
staff people. Press releases that are news items though will generally 
not be featured, though if someone thinks we should make an exception 
for a particular piece, they should e-mail the editorial list and 
check-in. Only when everyone has agreed can the press release then be 
centered. We would much prefer that IMC volunteers take press releases 
and use them as material for writing a story instead of simply 
featuring the press releases.

6. Immediate changes to the website: We will put up links to the 
editorial policy both on the front page (in both the left-hand column 
and near the top) and on the "post an article" page. We will put in the 
new, smaller title bar developed by Nicole that will allow the left and 
right hand columns to go up higher, making more content visible. We 
will make the "About Us" and "Calendar" headings in the left-hand 
column into links, turning them into buttons or something to make it 
obvious they are links. The "info library" link under "About Us" will 
be eliminated, since it will be redundant (it now links to the "about 
us" section of the website). Rob will execute these decisions.

7. Transition to new website: When it gets to that point, we will 
sacrifice a bullock to speed the process along. (Or a two-headed 
chicken if we can find one.)

8. Website mission: Joe, Rob and John fled, leaving Matt, Pete and 
Sofia to hash out their differences. We managed to so without breaking 
any bones. We made some headway, but there are still a few sticking 
points. Sofia will post the notes from our conversation to the Wiki, 
allowing us (and everyone else) to look over them and may be come up 
with some creative solution to our impasse.