[thesite] Where to put author info

isaac isaac at members.evolt.org
Mon Nov 19 17:05:03 CST 2001


> > Take a look at ZDNet Anchordesk's front page - full of photos:
> > http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/

I think that the goal of ZDNet/CNet with their corporate photography is
primarily to give the feeling it "We're experienced; you should take our
content seriously."

We would want ours to say "Hey, we have character. We're friendly. We're a
crazy bunch of fun people." (It'll depend on the preferences of each author
even.)

> so then we'd have to either support mutiple photos (yuck) or (my
> preference) use just one small photo

What if I want a small photo on my articles, and then a larger happy snap on
my user page? Why couldn't we support that for any users wanting to provide
both photos?

	/79/isaac.gif
	/79/isaac_sm.gif

	or whatever.

The article photo should be portrait though. Perhaps 90x120 or so.


Remember, that the best thing about author photos is that people will think
we have Jude Law writing for us when Dan puts up his photos! ;)

> it isn't just the photo on the article page i object to, either, it's that
> whole mass of author stats as well

Including the cubes??

	- email: directly contacting the author with one click
	- info: finding out more
	- bio: jumping down the page to get a quick idea as to who this person is
	- user since: how much evolt.org experience does this person have
	- last login: how active are they
	- articles written: effort in writing for the site
	- rating: rough indicator of writing quality
	- # ratings: necessary to accompany previous.

All in one little box.

> again, if we're gonna include author stuff on the article page, and not
> include all of it, like phone number and cat's name, then we're just
> haggling

Yeh, we're haggling over what should go where. We've already put in more
stats and removed those.

> but notice the absence of author stats at the top

They're paid writers. Our writers are not paid. They need more obvious
credits.

"So, what do I get for writing an article?"

"Well, you get your name on the top of the article."

"Is that all?!?"

"Yes, you don't get to have a picture of yourself, a bio tagline, a direct
email link, an indication of the quality of your writing and your general
committment to the web community or anything like that. We might put that on
another page someday soon, but you can't have that on your article where
everyone will see it."

Yay.

> returning for a moment to the issue of photos on the front page, we have
> not yet mentioned the logistical problem of obtaining photos along with
> article submission, further delaying the publishing process, and the
> tackiness of having photos for only a very small number of articles -- and
> it wouldn't take a lot of reflection to notice that the only articles with
> photos are mostly those by evolt "insiders"

If prolific writers set an example, and we provide a means and encouragement
for others to follow, the opportunity is there. We've also directly provided
more credit for an author than their username.

> (http://test.evolt.org/article/thesite/17/8869/#rating) is that
> there is undue emphasis on the author, almost as if we were insecure and
> attempting to bolster the legitimacy of the article by pimping how good
the
> author is, and in my opinion, we don't need to do that

Oh, I forgot -- we're not trying to encourage people to write and promote
themselves amongst the community...

Adrian has 2/5 of the top5 articles on WEO. You don't think he writes those
solely to help others do you? It'd be great if we all had 5 hours a day to
write articles for nothing more than the thought that we're helping others,
but I don't think that's entirely realistic.


isaac

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