Discuss.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Answers

The first order of business is

What do we want it to be?

Or how about: What do we NOT want it to be?

I'll go first. I do NOT want it to be a big journal. I guess. Though that would be fun. Should it be that? Y'all say.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Do we want it to be fun? Serious? Fun/serious?

Judging by e-mail and the forums, we'd be really good at being funny with an edge (as opposed to slapstick).

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Yes, funny with an edge.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Hello? People?

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

I think we should be funny with an edge.

And maybe sometimes we can be snarky?

I have all the emails abotu the site - should I pull ideas that we talked about?

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Yeah, that might spark some ideas.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Teri:

I think the rotating column is a good idea.

I also think that we should accumulate a TON of copy before we go live - at least a few weeks worth.

Hannah:

I think more than once a week at the outset is too much.

And I agree that weekly sections on Art could be too much, but I think you could write something abut Travel once a week. Are we trying to include too much?

And of course, MATH will each have a column. Rotating, perhaps? But a column, nonetheless. And perhaps once a month a collab column a la MATH.

Teri:

Maybe for the main departments, we could have:

Sports Music Television & Film Literature Love/Sex/Dating Politics

And then have periodic features on:

Travel Art Food/Entertaining ...

That way, we won't be pressured to find something on these subjects on quite as regular a basis.

What will the frequency be? Weekly, like the onion? Daily? Ongoing?

Each issue could have one main feature that could fall into any of the regular topics - maybe they could rotate.

Allison:

Y'all, we gotta do our MATH homework for the magazine. Here's what I thought of originally in the way of departments:

Travel Sports Music Politics Art Literature (to include Fiction) Sex/Dating/Whatever

But, uh, aren't those the departments of every single other magazine in the world? Of course, we'll have a new perspective. The MATH perspective, you know. Y'all say which should stay and which should go and what should be added.

Hannah:

Merrr.

Allison:

Ok, I declare Hannah to be Little Miss Bossy In Charge of Homework. That all sounds good to me. I do want to have a real ed plan, though. I just suck at writing them.

Hannah:

Okay, so what's the homework we need to do?

1. review other sites to determine what kind of content we want

2. check out domain names and web hosting

3. figure out writers and positions for MATH?

What else?

Allison:

Me too. It was my big idea, I know, but I'm all dumb and can't write an ed plan. Omar is so busy, but he wants to try and help, or at least contribute.

And pamie's down for it, once we get it running. Y'all help me get organized and we'll do the fucking thing. We should assign homework, and then have a staff meeting in Vegas. Or something. I've only wanted to do this my whole life, I don't know why I can't wrap my mind around it and get it together.

Mike:

Seriously. I'm ready to go.

Hannah:

Okay jags. We have the name. We've got a tagline. Where is our magazine?

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Does this mean that I can be secretary? Read from the bottom, by the way.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

T, you're the best.

Can I officially state that, though I know my Nurse Ducky story was the inspiration, we should probably not name the magazine Sock Puppet Companions? If we were to have our own portal like Damn Hell Ass Kings then I think SPC would be perfect. But, you know, if we want to name the thing something someone might want to read, maybe it would be better to call it something else. Just sayin'. Y'all think about it.

By the way, Eric and the MOC want to write for it. C, especially, is a good writer. And Eric is very funny, so they would be good additions.

I will renew my courtship of Omar for his skills.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

This will officially kick ass.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Here's my new big idea. Each of us should just plan a section. By which I mean, we should map it out and say what we want in it.

I am going to lunch, but I will flesh out that idea upon my return after I have nourished myself.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Okay, well I definitely want to have an SPC portal then.

Hmm. But right now it's just me and Mike.

so names. Names.

What about Teri's Crouching Tigerbeat?

Perhaps not.

Um. I don't know.

But yay! Lots of good writers.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Sock Pupet Companions is a great name for a portal. We don't need no stinking Simpson's quote - we have Nurse Ducky!

What if we all flesh out the same section?

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Well, I could obviously cover singing.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

I'm saying we need to each pick a section. Everybody pick one.

We can do a portal. I guess I'm gonna make hateyourdaddy.com a journal. My poor daddy.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

What means portal?

Can I do the make-up section? You know, since I'm going to own Sephora soon and all.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

I like the idea of everyone pointing a topic or section.

Do y'all think we should set up the structure so that we have (x) or between (y) and (z) number of articles per "issue", even if every category isn't representative? I think that could cover everything, without forcing us to have, say, a sports article on a week when nothing is happening in sports.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Mayn, it's hard to say. I guess the structure should include a front with highlights of that week's updates but, all sections should stay active and can update on an alternating basis so maybe we could have something updating each day.

Also, I think we should each write a weekly column, separate from any articles we write. And I think we should have actual stories, that are somewhat journalistic in nature, so it doesn't end up being just a huge online journal written by several people. I don't know. I'm just throwing stuff out. I'm not even sure if I'm making sense.

MAYN. The hardest thing about planning something like this is just trying to figure out how to say what you mean without being confusing.

-- Anonymous, January 29, 2001