alanjjohnstone
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Well, Gnome, maybe you can now answer me what proportion of our sales of £8388 is not largely a cross-subsidy by the other elements of the party…branches and individual members and the companion parties. I seek the number of paid subscribers and of course the sales of the Standard to the public by the branches. Shouldn't we know how many people actually buy the Standard, in particular, the number of non-members. I'd think that is a very basic bit of information i'd personally like to see.Calculating how many actually read the print copy it is much more difficult to ascertain since we often pass on and share our copies. I expressed a similar questioning attitude to internet visitor figures and sought more clarification of those too.If it is mostly members and branches buying and hoarding unsold copies (and i gave my personal anecdotal evidence that this happens) should we now treat the Standard as an in-house journal? No doubt you can tell me how many copies KSRB sold to non-members for the month of March and how many they have left over. A full list of questions, BTW, are at message #23 in reply to your "who knows" riposte
As i have already said, i don't envisage the Lancaster or NLB being passed but this is the beginning of a long debate that will continue and i think we will eventually have a number of options to choose from, and it will never be an either/or resolution. IMHO, we will face also in several years time the question to retain or sell-off either partially or totally our currently under-used but expensive to up-keep HO. Yup, i do tend to have a pessimistic view of the future – But i also like to be proved wrong and be pleasantly surprised, rather than be an eternal optimist and be sorely disappointed.I mentioned previously that our continued activity relies on legacies left to us by deceased members…next time a comrade (particularly the treasurer) is looking you up and down and enquiring about your health, in his or her mind, he'she will be wondering if you have any next-of-kin inheriting your money If you don't, they'll also be hoping you are leaving behind a house in the stock-broker belt I do find it a bit disconcerting that my appeal for some facts and figures has so far gone unheeded by the respective committees. I'm sure it is not in the interest of the Party to make decisions based on a dearth of information and only have them available at the last moment for conference attendees.
UpdateOn 6th Apr 2017 they successfully raised £704,114 of £500,000 target with 3409 investors – so all respect to their organisers.Of course, the donations were more than a mere donation but buying shares in a co-operative with voting rights and they all got a free t-shirt to boot.And note some of the money is to be spent on their digital journalism and finance their wider publishing ventures…(books and pamphlets) plus expand their online shopping experience.They too have restrictions on their internet version to protect circulation of their print copy.
Quote:Circulation currently stands at 25,000, compared with a high point of 75,000 at the turn of the millennium. New Internationalist has helped secure its future after raising £550,000 in just over a month through a crowdfunding campaign. It now hopes to reach £600,000 by 6 April.More than 2,700 supporters have made contributions ranging from £50 to £10,000.JWD, if your suggestion is that we unlock our "rainy-day" investments and use it to boost the Standard's circulation to 25,000, then i may well support such an initiative.But it does seem that the New Int. suffers our own predicament – declining readership and a half-million quid is required to remedy the situation. A little bit more than we intend to spend on our campaign.As one of our own strategies for the Standard's survival is to place an ad insert in the New Int. they may well welcome our financial contribution.
I've made my view about the face and the case many times before so i won't repeat it. But pleeeze…next time …a colour photo ….and a big warm smile, not a grimace that passes for one.I know you can look a very cheery fellow, ALB but as Gnome said, this resembles a mug-shot, a wanted dead or alive poster. It can be argued that photos can be welcoming…they can equally be off-putting. Let's look happy to be SPGB candidates.
The issue is a simple one, as i see it.The time has come to re-evaluate the merits of a print edition of the Standard as it may well be a drain on the Party's resources and could be directing energy away from other worthy ventures that possibly will be more potentially fruitful in the future.We have the evidence of our own eyes. The circulation of the Standard has been falling consistently for a number of years, the outlets selling it has been dropping and for all the passion of the members who support the printed edition, there is practically no member willing to street sell it on a regular basis (i have previously added a caveat making an exception of the street stall.) The hope that this declining trend can be reversed by an advertising campaign is in my opinion overly-optimistic. But i will be happy to be proved wrong and see the circulation climb. Our treasurer has often spoken of our economical viability as a Party being reliant on the arbitrary legacies from the dead and the long-term survival of the printed standard is also dependent on such money.Whereas, once a webzine of the Standard is set up, maintenance is very cost effective and sustainable, leaving more money for other activity such as standing in elections or producing commercial quality video or employing paid organisers in the Party. I have asked in an earlier post for a few facts…the print-run to compare with the online visits, for example. Hopefully, members of the respective committees will produce them, long before actual conference arrivesBut i will concede to you, Tim, that it is a gamble on a future…but what you seem to overlook is that if the future does not turn out as expected, you can return to the print Standard with very little consequence for there is little to lose, (subscribers can be re-registered)….That interruption is to be compared with the missed opportunity of concentrating on the internet and forever playing catch-up.And as the treasure rsuggests …being able to ensure the financial health of the Party is a gamble on the ill-health of our members. Since we have had others make comparisons, i note that the WEEKLY WORKER, only prints 500 copies a week compared with an online readership of 20,000. (wiki) and they are out and about at every left-wing political event, off-loading those limited hard-copies of WW, whereas ourselves…the work-load is unfairly placed on a few stalwarts…Anyways, looking forward to your blog contributions…we need a fresh approach…and you did offer…
I think you are right that you may well be the person they had in mind when drafting this conference discussion item, Vin, and i would be aggrieved if i was not able to respond directly during the course of the conference discussion to waht is being said. But that is something that cannot be fixed to the satisfaction of yourself, i am afraid. (did someone suggest we conduct our business via Skype?) I don't think we should re-enact the battles of the past – and you and i have had many – on here because it will only open old sores. But I do think that we need to raise the question of what to do when we have situations that spilled over on to the personal and the emotional and lead to disruption of normal party business and it cannot be denied that much time was spent involved in accusations and counter accusations. We have had some disputes long before your own experiences and the problem basically is the speed of the internet message board…we type and post quicker than we think and we use words and phrases that has no body language to show the real meaning of them. Irony and sarcasm (and even humour) simply does not carry over to be received well on the discussion list. We all have direct experience of how what we innocently post can be misconstrued. Hence the need sometimes for the use of the smiley We have to discuss the issue and find a proper response to possible problems.I think the weakness of the Lancaster motion is that it does not offer remedies for when and where acrimonious exchanges occur. And for all the criticism of the moderator duties – it is at that level we need intervention to resolve problems.BrianJ has genuinely done his best but he is is not endowed with the Wisdom of Solomon and as an ex-moderator, i suggest when he makes a judgement call…we are supportive and don't react like a football crowd calling fo the ref to get a pair of specs but wait a reasonable time for the video re-play, so to speak. Time enough for later post-mortems and no one outside exceptional circumstances should expect instant restitution. Hopefully, someone who does attend conference and hears something amiss being said will raise it with the chair at the time so it does not become a kangaroo court – which seriously i do not think is Lancaster's intent.
Something to considerAre you considering advertising your business or event in The Guildford Dragon NEWS?Here are a few facts that may convince you that it is brilliant value for money:Your advert will cost as little as £25 per week for a front page or inner page slotOur October ‘hit rate’ is an impressive 97,209 individual page views – that’s an average of 3,136 hits a day.Your ad will be seen by a remarkable number of Guildford people every dayNews, features, pictures, readers’ letters and their comments to stories, are added daily. That maintains reader interestMany readers click on to the website regularly for the latest news around GuildfordThe website features prominently within internet search enginesAll articles are notified on Twitter and Facebook when published. We currently run with 2,635 Twitter followersOnce published, articles and their images remain on the website, which means it is a comprehensive database, especially for anyone searching the internet for specific information relating to GuildfordAdvertisements spots are available in key places within the pages of the websiteThey are clear and easy to view at all timesWe hyperlink your advert so when a reader clicks in the advert, it opens a new window on their browser to your chosen websiteAlternatively, we can publish advertorials and special press releases.
Hmm..not so sure…i forget the other question…how?If we take this item of information into context of other news reports…The French foreign minister saying that they will be able to prove for sure it was Assad – in a few days timeIsraeli unidentified intelligence sources claiming that Assad has up to 3 tons of chemical weapons that went undiscovered or undeclared when they surrendered their stockpiles in 2013…I begin to wonder why these reports are necessary right at this time. I recall decades ago a CIA describing you don't study the content of leaks — but their timing to learn the secretsThese "diplomatic" revelations are not accidental coincidence but added pressure….for what purpose?I'm so f**king cynical and sceptical…i would not believe a politician to tell me it's daylight outside at noon
One question has now been answered – what chemical was used http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39648503
Quote:"Incontrovertible" test results show sarin gas or a similar substance was used in the chemical weapons attack in Syria earlier this month, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says.Now the matter of what is settled it is now the questions who and why?
Oh and my own apologies for neglecting to mention the sterling contributions of those members who are using Twitter and Facebook to advance the ideas of socialism. Unlike myself, they quietly get on with the task without whining and moaning.
Tim, I don't think we can describe the blog as a webzine. It will require a whole new design and reformatting the web-pages plus embedding music and video and increasing the mix of article themes.But a blog the nearest thing we currently have to something that can give a daily voice of the Party, since the media committee seem a bit reluctant to issue press releases.In fact, both blogs published posts on the SPGB's attitude to elections within a matter of an hour or two of May's announcement, whereas we need to await some weeks yet for the Standard's response, (Royal Mail permitting), when it is no longer news-worthy. As they say – old news is no news.And it is indeed worrisome that many members value our blogs so little and remain uninvolved with notable exceptions such as our regular poet and those who submit links of interest to follow up on. But could this be because the blogs are viewed in some way as the "poor cousins", while an article in the Standard holds greater "prestige", bestowing authors with higher "status" and "esteem", which may well mean that the Standard is draining much-needed energy and channelling resources away from internet projects that have much to offer in potential.So you could draw the controversial conclusion that the print Standard is actually detrimental to putting forward the case for socialism (i wouldn't go as far as believing that but playing Devil's Advocate)But i am confident that with your future participation we can produce a more thought-provoking and stimulating blog which will bring new enthusiasm and a wider audience.The work entailed is no more demanding than posting on this forum. Contact: spgb.blog@worldsocialism.org for further detailsThe invitation is also open to anyone else who might be interested.
The party has always had to pre-occupy itself with opportunity costs. Many have had their ideas blocked because the party has chosen not to fund them. It isn't undemocratic but allocating priority
Quote:Ask yourself these questions:Do the people currently volunteering to produce the Standard "want to do" this work?Well the answer to that question must be yes, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.Will voting to end production of the Standard stop them from doing that work?Yes, obviously if the Standard isn't produced, then they can't do the thing they currently want to do, can they?Those who write for the print Standard will cease writing for the Socialist Standard e-zine and will not enjoy doing so? Is that your assumption, Tim? If so, it is one i do not share.
Quote:You say you want to produce a webzine, my view is that's fine, get enough volunteers from the Party to help you (if there's anything I can do by the way, just ask and i'll do what I can)The SOYMB bloggers have not heeded advice from those who wish only a few blog posts a week and we have stuck to our guns rightly or wrongly, in producing a daily commentary of selected items from the news. And it pains us that fellow members don't even include it in their daily web surfs. We have put out a cry in every report to conference and ADM for volunteers and contributors and these are all lost in the wind except for a few welcome exceptions. Perhaps the blog is seen as ineffective. Perhaps it is viewed as unimportant. But your generous offer of assistance is gratefully accepted, Tim. JWD, someone should email the EC and tell them that if they are to succeed they need to first restrict access to the online version (which ALB took pleasure in poking fun at Lancaster about), employ several paid staff (even when we decline to pay a HO Organiser), accept adverts from commercial businesses some who we are expected to be hostile towards, and unlike those who say we shouldn't try to follow the example of for-profit publications on this thread, we should adopt a commercial ethos. But once more, let this be noted, there exists an amendment that if passed will still retain a print copy of the Standard (in book form) and from YMS post, i think NLB are willing to be very flexible on the frequency of this anthology. It would put a print Standard on the same quarterly standing as the print Jacobin, but allowing for a monthly e-zine same as Jacobin does which we would strive to make weekly and then update daily.
Jacobin, may well be the exception to the rule having acquired circulation of 25-35,000, having started as online ezine. It has now 40,000 paid digital subscribers A quarterly and not a monthly magazine, something i also suggested the print Standard could become, if anyone cares to look back at my posts. But its web audience is one million, three hundred thousand.It has a paid circulation manager – 15 hours a week at $15 an hour. Someone else might tell me how many other paid positions are held. It accepts advertsThere are Jacobin Reading Groups in US – NortheastBaltimore, MDBoston, MABrooklyn, NYCape Cod, MANew Brunswick, NJPhiladelphia, PAQueens, NYSelinsgrove, PAStony Brook, NYSyracuse, NYWashington, DCUS – MidwestBloomington, INChicago, ILColumbus, OHDes Moines, IADetroit, MIIndianapolis, INIowa City, IAKansas City, KS/MOMadison, WIManhattan, KSMinneapolis/St. Paul, MNUS – SouthAtlanta, GAAustin, TXHarrisonburg, VAEl Paso, TXLexington, KYUS – WestCorvallis, OREast Bay, CAPortland, ORQuincy, CASalt Lake City, UTSan Diego, CASan Francisco, CASanta Barbara, CACanadaCalgary, ABCowichan, BCKelowna, BCMontreal, QCVictoria, BCInternationalBerlin, GermanyBrussels, BelgiumDublin, IrelandManila, PhilippinesMelbourne, AustraliaVienna, AustriaWarsaw, PolandCitoyensEditor & PublisherBhaskar SunkaraCreative DirectorRemeike ForbesManaging EditorNicole AschoffAssociate EditorShawn GudeMicah UetrichtEditorial BoardSeth Ackerman, Alyssa Battistoni, Mike Beggs, Megan Erickson, Peter Frase, Connor KilpatrickArt EditorErin SchellAssistant EditorsElla MahonyJen Hedler PhillisResearcherJonah WaltersEditorial AssistantsBranko MarceticRajeev RavisankarDuncan ThomasCarmen TriolaContributing EditorsBashir Abu-Manneh, Jonah Birch, Sebastian Budgen, Ronan Burtenshaw, Liza Featherstone, Sabrina Fernandes, Belén Fernández, Eileen Jones, Matt Karp, Cyrus Lewis, Chris Maisano, Scott McLemee, Gavin Mueller, Karen Narefsky, Catarina Príncipe, Kate Redburn, Corey Robin, Miya TokumitsuOutreach and DevelopmentJason FarbmanReading GroupsNeal MeyerCirculationKatrina FormanWeb
