Regular OSNews readers will notice we've had a drop-off in original articles over the past year or so. That's something we'd like to change. We'd like to encourage OSNews readers to submit articles by staging a contest wherein the best articles will be judged by OSNews staff and readers, and the winners will receive valuable prizes. All submitted articles that meet our submission guidelines will be published at OSNews. In addition to wanting articles to publish, this is also a talent search of sorts. We're hoping to identify talented OSNews readers to fill the ranks as editors and regular contributors. If you think you have the skills and desire to be a part of OSNews, please enter the contest, or just contact us. Read more for details on the contest.
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2007-02-22
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There are two stipulations that seem to contradict each other:
The only type of article that we'd discourage participants from submitting is an opinion piece.
and
So review the latest version of your favorite OS or computing device. Or review the latest computing-related book you read. Been to an interesting trade show in the past couple of weeks? Let's hear about it! . . . Do you have some ideas on where computing is headed or where it is now? Flesh that out to feature-length!
Aren't reviews and conjectures about the future of computing also opinion pieces?
Edited 2008-04-18 19:15 UTC
Member since:2005-11-10
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Kroc summed it up pretty well. If you back up your thoughts and ideas with research, then it's reporting. If you're just pulling it out of your ass, then it's an opinion piece. Some people can pull really good ideas out of their asses, though. That's why I said I'd "discourage" opinion pieces, not that they wouldn't be considered.
Nevertheless, you bring up a valid question, and thanks for giving me the chance to clarify.
Edited 2008-04-18 20:24 UTC
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Member since:
2007-02-15
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may I guess, what the intention of the osnews guys is:
people should write more, and better articles, so that me will have more users and than the value of the osnews.com page will rise up.
The motto is: you do the work, and we make the money.
Perhaps this is an idication that the owner/owners of this page want to sell this page, but they want to rise its value before they go with a big bag full of money.
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This topic comes up with reasonable frequency. Have you thought about publishing some sort of financial statements? Nothing of GAAP quality required. Just some basic "we got this much from advertising, this much from subscriptions, and this much of it went for web hosting and bandwidth, this much went to something else, and we have a balance of $x.xx.
Member since:2005-07-17
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RE[3]: what are the posibil intentions ?
Member since:2005-07-24
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I was thinking more along the lines of factoring this particular information out to a separate page that we can just link to when the topic comes up again. And you know that it will... repeatedly.
That said, I'm not sure I'd call it stupidity, out of hand.
Are you saying that the money from advertising and subscriptions exactly balances the expenses? If so, that's quite remarkable. I'd have thought that they wouldn't happen to be exactly equal. If you guys are supplementing OSNews out of your own pockets, step forward and receive due credit. If OSNews has a positive cashflow and staff are getting compensated for their work, be honest about it. Otherwise, it just makes it appear that you have something to hide. A simple periodic statement would avoid that whole issue.
Edited 2008-04-19 17:08 UTC
Member since:2005-08-29
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Some people would argue that asking for donations to a for-profit entity is pretty stupid.
If you're "in the red", post about it and I'm sure no one would have a problem donating original articles.
If you're "in the black", you should really be paying for original content like everyone else in the publishing world does.
Member since:2007-02-15
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Can't expect us to cater to stupidity. "
Yes, that's true.
And perhaps you are right, if you give "the others" the priority to be stupid.
Just out of curiosity... what do you think is the current value of this site (osnews.com). (let's assume that you would like to sell it)
Member since:
2006-07-16
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I don't really care what the motives of OSNEws are. If people submitting their own original content cuts down on the amount of *buntu related non-news and predictable flame bait articles that get posted here far too frequently then I'll be elated and may even participate. :-)
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I think this competition is flawed, in that what you are asking for is too broad; not in allowed topics, but content-structure.
It's like asking everybody to go away and choose their favourite thing ever, and at the end see which one is best. There's no "best", it's all a general sort of mish-mash.
You need to have one thing consistent between the entries so that some metric of quality can be judged. I would say that there should be a three point outline, or a limit on the number of words (something between one to three thousand) or some unifying quality between entries.
Member since:2005-06-29
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I can see your point. However, to extend your analogy, I'd say that this is like a "pick your favorite thing ever" contest wherein we will judge it on a common standard, for example, usefulness or beauty.
We'll be judging these articles on a pretty simple (though certainly subjective) set of criteria: interestingness, quality of research, appropriateness or topicality with the OSNews mission, and overall technical quality of the writing. A longer article may gain points for research, but if it's too rambling, it will lose points for interestingness or writing quality.
Last time we did a contest we restricted the topic a bit more. I wanted to give people a freer hand this time. We'll see how it turns out.
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All articles, newsbits, and comments published at OSNews are automatically copyrighted by OSNews, which happens automatically whenever something is published, by US law. However, our agreement with submitters is that they may republish their articles elsewhere (their own blogs, for example) after 30 days. You may also release your articles under creative commons after 30 days if you wish.
Multiple entries are allowed. Thanks for asking. I'll update the original announcement to say so.