WCCAs
Problems with the WCCAs:
- Administrative (running things, making changes effectively)
- Promotional (making people aware of them, getting people to care about them)
- Professionalism (gah! the website, the voting, the everything)
- Technological (delays, manual vote counting, etc.)
- Miscellaneous (communication, participation of the people involved)
Some thoughts on solutions follow.
The WCCAs are horribly mismanaged, they are not well organized and they don't do what they are supposed to. I know this because I have been part of the administrative process. I have been, I should note, a frustratingly unempowered part of that process. Minor changes to the website so that it was no longer out of date (note: it is out of date again, already, by the way) took months. Why? Because whoever was in charge of that wasn't in contact, and that was all there was to it. The e-mail list had repeated promptings from people such as myself, but there was no mechanism to fix the fact that the person responsible for making those changes was incommunicado. This is not a failing of that individual, it is a failing of the WCCAs in general.
My repeated warnings that we should figure out a backup plan for the upcoming WCCAs in terms of the web site and voting were ignored by the people who had the authority to enact a backup plan. As a result, there were delays, and the votes are being counted by hand.
People didn't know when the WCCAs were happening, despite repeatedly pointing out that we needed to take serious steps to get the word out about them.
I could go on and on listing problems, but that be a serious waste of time.
So, given that I knew all those things were problems, why didn't I help fix them? Well, I wasn't in a position to actually do anything, the literal most I could do about them was nag others.
So, my suggestions for how to improve the WCCAs, given that I like the idea of the community collectively recognizing the excellence of its members, is the primarily the following: more distributed authority
First off, make the main website a wiki, since Wikis are easy to install and manage, and easily allow for people other than a webmaster to edit pages. In fact, it also maintains a history, which reduces worries about having more than one person authorized to make changes. Bam, right there, switching to wiki software immediately solves some of the major problems, namely, things that people want to fix, but can't.
The WCCAs image problems need to be addressed by actually soliciting and responding to community feedback. In fact, as a separate issue, it should be clear who the community is. Everyone who votes should be listed somewhere, and, as they are all required to be webcomic creators of some stripe, that list should link to their comics (again, I'll note that a Wiki would make this much easier to create and maintain).
Someone should be in charge of professionalism, someone should be in charge of promoting the WCCAs, someone should be in charge of the technological stuff, and so on. And those people should be held accountable. I don't know if there is a good way to hold volunteers accountable, but if there isn't, then the WCCAs won't be successful with volunteer administrators.
The most frustrating thing is how utterly obvious my advice is. Maintain the website, actively solicit community feedback, distribute work so that (a) no individual can sink things, and (b) each person can help participate in small ways, rather than one person being solely responsible for everything, etc. No one should need me to say this stuff, it should just be that way. It's kind of sad that it needs to be pointed out, but that is the state of things.
ten comments:
The thing I don’t get about the WCCAs is that their organizers seem completely ignorant and unaware of what is needed to run a website, let alone one that people need to be able to register and vote at. The other problem is that you wind up with a Wikipedia mentality, where it is easy for the organizer to get upset at this and say “well, it’s volunteer. If you want to make it better, then help us.” But it’s not anyone’s job to bail out a group that took up a banner without the ability to follow through on it properly!
Kristofer Straub (URL) - 31 01 07 - 04:00
If WCCAs are ever going to be legitimate, you can’t depend on some hacked open source solution. It takes real money to hire real developers and designers. And it’s a full time job. Most people I know in webcomics don’t have time just sitting around to blow. My recommendation: community donations to build a new site, and hire some folks who actually know what they’re doing. This recommendation is based on being a professional web developer for 10 years. Hire someone like Thin Slice.
Fabricari (Email) (URL) - 31 01 07 - 08:53
I think you guys both have very legitimate points, but I would say that whatever solution is ultimately presented on the tech end should have the following wiki-like feature: a web interface for updating content that can be restricted to a handful or more of people. Because there is no reason to require going through a professional web developer to make minor changes to content on the page.
I didn’t mention community donations because I feel like the idea of people just giving money to the WCCAs is kind of laughable. Maybe there could be some prominent advertising or the like that people could buy as they donate, kind of like a patrons of the arts thing, but for the WCCAs.
Lewis Powell (Email) (URL) - 31 01 07 - 09:54
What you’re talking about, Lewis, is a pretty normal CMS (content management system). A wiki is a type of CMS, but probably not the best one in this case, since the point of a wiki is to give mostly unrestrained editing access. There are lots of CMSes out there, many of them free and pretty easy to set up if you know what you’re doing. I’ve only been a professional web developer/designer for 3 or 4 years, but you really shouldn’t have to pay a lot to get a serviceable website. Mambo/Joomla is is pretty decent, along with the other Nuke-based ones, and the one we’ve started using on some sites we make at my firm is called Magnolia (also free and open source).
Miles Grover (Email) (URL) - 31 01 07 - 11:30
The reason I thought Wikimedia or the like would be optimal is that it would be very easy there to allow any users in a certain group to have the ability to edit the frontpage content, which would mean that if anything needed to be changed or updated, anyone who noticed could change it. Other systems that I am familiar with require more administrative activity to do that. My familiarity with other systems is somewhat limited though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Wiki was a suboptimal solution.
I guess my point was less wiki specific and more to say that “better than what is going on now would be if people who notice problems with the webpage and wanted to change it could do so, rather than being consigned to e-mailing a yahoo mailing list repeatedly pointing out that the front page should be accurate and updated.”
Lewis Powell (Email) (URL) - 31 01 07 - 13:39
I’m not saying that using a prepackaged Content Manager, like Wikipedia is bad. (Hell, blogger.com is a simple enough content manager.) But to build an elaborate functioning site; maintain all the third party software; customize to suit things like registration, voting, listing, etc; and design a professional looking site with corresponding marketing material it takes a hhhhhuge amount of work. It’s quite possible that there is a benevolent superman out there who wants to dedicate a heathy chunk of their life to this, and is incredibly talented, but unless it’s you or someone on the board, it just isn’t going to happen. Money makes things happen.
But the challenge is just as great or greater for a site like WCCA to raise funds as it is for any webcomic with an audiance. Another option, is open delegation to volunteers, but still, someone will be putting in an exorbitant amount of time into project management. I’ve seen the way webcomic communities pool together. It’s impressive. It can be done if folks are given a good reason.
Sorry to go on about this, but I’ve been noticing lately that a lot of good ideas for the webcomic community seem to fizzle because of a lack of good software. Sites like Project Woderful are examples of good software, but I’m guessing Ryan can’t solve everyone’s problems with his genius. :) The problem with WCCA’s are not that they’re a bad idea, as some folks suggest, but rather that it just needs to develop.
WCCAs are important. Even if they can’t be completely fair. They help broaden webcomic awareness. That is what we want, right?
Another future is, if the WCCAs don’t get sorted out, is that a site like ComicSpace will take over the awards. They already have the registration software down.
Fabricari (Email) (URL) - 31 01 07 - 14:04
“Another future is, if the WCCAs don’t get sorted out, is that a site like ComicSpace will take over the awards. They already have the registration software down.”
I’d suggest that Josh at ComicSpace could be the benevolent super man that is needed. And if Mark ever becomes willing to take the imitative instead of waiting for webcomics en masse to vote for the idea to contact him, they could maybe together.
The William G (Email) (URL) - 15 02 07 - 10:15
Maybe WORK together, that is…
The William G (Email) (URL) - 15 02 07 - 10:16
Having anyone and everyone that is currently making a webcomic is kinda ridulous. Even the SAG Awards and other awards limit who is a member, and those have to be nominated. Heck for a short short while even I was working on a comic years ago, but that wouldn’t be a decent reason to let me vote.
Spencer - 20 02 07 - 00:40
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NancyGarza30 (Email) (URL) - 28 05 10 - 13:12
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