The Magazine Thread

[Cain]

Yeah, but those mean nothing to someone who isn't already a Discordian.  And jargon is on of our enemies, as it leads to a distinctive thought process whereby it becomes very hard to communicate ideas with those who don't already use them.

[Cramulus]

If our audience is only people who have read the BIP pamphlet, it's a narrow audience indeed. The BIP metaphor is lost on like 99% of Discordians. It's fair to assume familiarity if you're writing a rant for these forums, but for a stand-alone publication, assume that the reader has no idea what you're talking about.

[LMNO]

So, you're asking me to write around the metaphors.


Oy.


This is gonna take some time.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The magazine is called "The Black Iron Prison" right?

Straight away the title itself is a question in the mind of the uninitiated - "What the hell is the black iron prison?" They ask.

Best explanation is the content of the magazine itself.

Fuck the spoonfeeding bollix that that relegates any new mag I pick up to the 'trying to be the next big thing' pile. Let the reader ask the question and then continue to ask it. Eventually they will reach a point where either they know what it is or they will ask the question themselves.

If they work it out then we have them for life for that's a feeling of achievement that we gave them. They'll love us for it. They'll love the BIP and subscribe.

[Cain]

The magazine is called "The Black Iron Prison" right?

No, its Aftermath

[P3nT4gR4m]

Ah okay. Bang goes my contribution then.

[LMNO]

Upon reflection, I could probably whip up a nice turn of phrase that can easily be substituted in place of the old metaphors.

[AFK]

First off, kudos to the progress.  I'm sorry I couldn't contribute much yesterday but I spent the better part of the day in a stuffy room in City Hall. 

I like the mission statement.  I think something we might want to consider is some sort of diversification.  This was something I brought up a month or so ago.  Let's say we have 8 or so semi-regular contributors.  Would it make sense to see if we could all specialize in something somewhat different?  That is, LMNO does the intellectual/philosophical stuff, Cain does the political stuff, BWM does the sciencey stuff, etc.  (These are just examples by the way, not suggestions)   

I also think once we feel comfortable that we have something ready for dissemination and distribution, outside of the wordpress.com regulars, we should scour the internet for Discordain-esque sites.  Compile a database of e-mail addresses, and broadcast the fuck out of the url.  This is something, btw, I volunteer to do.  Networking is something I have to do IRL so I feel pretty comfortable doing it. 

Anyway these are just some thoughts I've had.  Oh, and as far as LMNO's editing, I think the by-line of "various contributors" is sufficient.  No one knows who we are individually and will have little to no interest in such.  It's much cleaner without all of the user/holy names.  So, I say go with it. 

Okay, I'm done. 

[That One Guy]

I was thinking along similar lines to this, with people going with a general theme/specialization for their own posts/contributions. It will help give a sense of continuity and will also help people from overlapping the same specifics in a given time frame, especially if we really intend to pursue a magazine-style approach.

Part of that involves the reader being able to expect certain things from one issue/update to the next which helps to establish a long-term readership base. Over time, I've come to anticipate specific writers at the various sites I read. Some of them publish at specific intervals (IE once a week), others are a bit more random, but since I know what kinds of insight to expect from them, I constantly check in on the sites to see if they've updated. While I'm there checking for one thing, I take a look around at what else is there and if something seems interesting, I read it, oftentimes adding another writer to keep an eye on.

If it feels disjointed and random (even if it IS discordian  ) it wouldn't make anyone think it was something other than a one-off and wouldn't encourage anyone to keep coming back to see what else we've come up with. Since we don't want this to just be a one-shot thing, having regular features with added extras is something we should shoot for IMO.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

In a couple of weeks I'll have a lot more time on my hands to play with illustrations, print propaganda, and some web stuff. 

I have the resources to launch multiple citywide propaganda campaigns,ÄîI've been itching to do so for a while now.  I'm also prepared to distribute propaganda kits to people who aren't rolling in the dough, but, I'd need mailing addresses. 

I don't think we should settle for crappy black and white photocopies. 

I can get a handful of people a few hundred full color, double-sided, professionally printed postcard sized flyers and full color stickers. For sure.  I'm thinking some people in the midwest US, east coast US, Canada, Europeans, all depending on who has the time to propagandize their city during our launch. 

Or, if everyone is too paranoid to give me a mailing address, I can just blow up Portland, OR.

I know we're not there yet, but I thought I'd remind people that the offer is still on the table.  If we coordinated a cohesive message across cities around the world people would probably start taking us much more seriously.  You know our audience and potential contributors are out there, we've just got to find them.

[Cramulus]

I think you're definitely on the right track, TOG.

If we coordinated a cohesive message across cities around the world people would probably start taking us much more seriously.  You know our audience and potential contributors are out there, we've just got to find them.

I just got goosebumps reading that.


See also:

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

If we coordinated a cohesive message across cities around the world people would probably start taking us much more seriously.  You know our audience and potential contributors are out there, we've just got to find them.

I just got goosebumps reading that.


See also:

Right?  People love the gooseflesh.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

not only "people" will notice.

an organization capable of planning, organizing and executing delivery of propaganda in multiple cities around the globe, simultaneously, is going to be noticed by other, less savory, characters.  not that that's a bad thing.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

TTM,
wonders what happened to Orbital Bombing Monthly...

[LHX]

i still have a hard-on for Orbital Bombing Monthly