Jay brings up some good points in his follow-up to ODV:7393. I'll try to add a different perspective to the issues he discusses. John Bellows wrote:
It has been six months since A&F and Management proposed moving Section News and Contest Line Scores to the enhanced ARRL Web site. ARRL staff has done a commendable job of improving and expanding the Member's Web site month after month.
W6CF: Agree. According to Rosalie White, as of Wednesday 44 SMs are using the new features, while 27 are not. Some of the 27 have indicated that they, or a helper, will be working with the web soon. Steve Ewald continues to work with all SMs, encouraging the non-users to give it a try, and offering help whenever needed.
The motion deferring the decision to relocate Section News to the Web identified QST and the Web Page as the primary means of providing information to members. Director Walstrom has indicated he will present a motion to grant the Web site equal status with QST as the official journal of our association. As contemplated by the motion, the intervening months have provided an opportunity to inform members of the reasons and advantages of moving Section News to the Web site through articles in QST, discussions and members experience with the expanded Web site.
W6CF: The above statement is at partial odds with what I thought we were to be doing in the interim. Jay describes his process as *selling*: "Inform members of the reasons an advantages..." I haven't tried to sell; I've tried to explain. With these differences in process, it perhaps isn't a surprise that I have heard things some of you haven't. It's hard for many people to disagree with an authority figure, especially if the listeners have only part of the story.
Section Managers have supplemented News on their web site with photos, graphics and links not possible in the restricted pages of Section News. They have posted timely alerts with breaking news in their Sections. They have used the email relay to send timely information to members in their Sections. Staff continues to work with SMs to assist them in learning to use the capabilities available to them on their Section Web page.
W6CF: Nobody can dispute the statements given in the paragraph above. Some of the SM sites look absolutely elegant and do a great job of providing information to the members. But that's almost beside the point. I think we all agree that the web sites should stay and continue to be developed. What we're grappling with here is the problem of what to do with the existing Section News column in QST, and how we service the thousands of members without web access.
Perhaps the best indicator of our members feelings toward the relocation is the fact that member concerns regarding the move appear to have reduced to a trickle. Even those SMs who have used Section News to encourage members to express concerns about the relocation have found the response minimal.
W6CF: I would feel better if we had something more than anecdotal reports. I have had members both praise and damn the proposal. What does that mean? Only that some members damn the proposal, others praise it.
Another reason for deferring the decision to relocate Section News and Contest Result line scores was to afford an opportunity to evaluate variations and alternatives to the proposal. Thus far the only variations that have been proposed have come from staff and A&F. They have sought to assure that every member who wanted to continue to receive the news of their section would have that capability. No one else has presented alternatives other than continuing to delay this decision.
W6CF: Of course, there's a hook in the above: "They have sought to assure that every member who wanted to continue to receive *the news of their section* (emphasis mine) would have that capability." What is *really* says is that there will be a reduction in service to some members. W6CF: Furthermore, in my opinion the above paragraph mischaracterizes the progress that has been made. No workaround has yet been defined by staff/A&F or anyone else that provides "web challenged" members access to Section News similar to the access they currently enjoy. It may be that alternatives haven't been suggested because it's a difficult problem and no good, obvious fixes exist. That's why we need further study. W6CF: One possible change was alluded to in my ODV:7390: take a careful look at what other national organizations are doing for local news and see if we can adapt some of their successes to our own needs. That careful look can't be taken overnight. The suggestion (an alternative - hooray!) then is to redesign Section News and make it more meaningful and attractive to the members. Maybe it can be done in fewer than six pages, even. We also need to have more than anecdotal information about the interests of SMs. That means, in my view, that we should proactively *ask* the SMs for their opinions, as was suggested in the April 20 A&F minutes (ODV:7221).
The Readex Surveys have consistently shown Section News has readership interest that is fairly low and similar to other columns on specialized topics. With Section News, however, we're publishing not 1 page every other month, but 6 pages every month. And of those 6 pages, only a very small piece is of potential interest to any given member.
W6CF: What?! 43,200 members (more or less) read it Almost Always/Often, 86,400 (54%) read it Almost Always/Often/ Occasionally, yet Jay characterizes the readership as "fairly low"? Considering the fact that it's a horrendously unattractive layout, stuck in the magazine almost as an afterthought. It has no color, lousy placement, and miniature type. Heck, considering all that, I think Section News is a real success story. Just think what could have been done with the column if it hadn't been treated like a second-class citizen for decades!
Director Maxwell asks: "Do only 27% (or, 43,200 members) read Section News almost always or often because 73% of members don't particularly care?" He then goes on to suggest one reason may be that Section News may be the most unattractive difficult column to read in QST. That very concern was one of the reasons for moving Section News to the Web. The constraints of size, small type, absence of color and graphics don't exist on the Web page. The only way to implement those enhancements in QST would have been to significantly reduce the number articles of general interest to members.
W6CF: Agreed. The web has fewer constraints. Pages can be very long, very attractive. That doesn't mean, though, that Section News, with all its defects, doesn't serve the members well right now (it does - it serves tens of thousands of them) and it also doesn't mean that an improved form of Section News in QST can't be devised (it can - RSGB and DARC and RAC do it right now) and it also doesn't mean that the only workable approach must leave thousands of members behind.
We now have a means of getting Section News to every interested member
W6CF: Oops! No we don't!
and a plan to provide the Text Box Section News for every section on the annual QST CD-ROM.
W6CF: I like that. A nice touch.
What will we know six months or a year from now that we don't know now?
W6CF: We will know that we thought through all objections. We will know that the solution devised is the best solution we're likely to find. And, perhaps most important of all, it the final decision is to phase out the print version, it would give us an orderly transition, providing continuation of service to our members during the transition phase.
The Section Web page that was just a concept six months ago is a reality today. SMs and members have had a chance to see and evaluate Web based Section News. The positive comments received and the absence of ongoing member concern suggests the with few exceptions SMs and members now understand and have accepted the reasons and value of the move.
Its time to move ahead.
W6CF: I wish I were as certain as you that SMs and members now understand. At the EmComm conference in Redding a few months ago I gave a brief rundown on the proposal to a group of about 100. I tried to be neutral and think I was - as one indication, after the session I was accused by one of selling them out. At any rate, the result of a show of hands? Strong Opposition to removing SN from QST. This wasn't a typical group, of course - it was heavily weighted in favor of hams with strong public service interests, most having Field Services appointments. Would they come around if we vote in favor of the change? Probably, eventually, after a period of some grief, and some lack of confidence in the League. But do SMs and members now understand and accept the reasons and value of the move? No way. Right now they're going with the flow. W6CF: In conclusion, we're all concerned about this issue; we're never going to be in total agreement with one another. If the majority goes against my beliefs I'll be out selling the program. Having said that, I don't really understand why this issue makes me feel so uneasy. Perhaps its a feeling that we're not paying enough attention to our strongest supporters, the Joe and Jane hams, the salt of the earth hams who are trying to make their way. We're leaving some of them behind without much of a look back, and I think that's a mistake. W6CF: We also have a big hole in the information we have available to help us make a decision in a few weeks. That is, with all the great looking SM Web pages, how many people are actually using them? How many people who have web access, actually use the web and feel comfortable with it and will eventually switch to the SM pages on the web? It would be terrible to drop Section News from QST, which now draws about 40,000+ frequent readers, another 40,000+ occasional readers, and then discover that only 20,000, say, are reading it regularly on the Web. So, what do the numbers look like today? What do the trends look like? 73 (for now). Jim, W6CF 73, Jay, KØQB