GrassHopper Digest -- Monthly Periodical?

[Mark P. Line]

The GrassHopper mailing lists are quite useful to me; I'm sure they're
quite useful to most of us. The available archives of GrassHopper messages
-- dating back to December, 1991 -- are also useful, if not very usable.
I'd like to propose to the readers of these lists that more might be made
of this resource than a difficult-to-peruse chronological archive.

Since our company is -- among other things -- a publishing house, I wish
to propose that it might be possible to squeeze a monthly periodical out
of the GrassHopper lists to the advantage of all concerned. This
periodical would also be available to those not fortunate enough to have
constant access to the lists themselves, and it would be an easy reference
for those searching for answers in the over 4000 messages archived in
grassu-list alone as of 8-31-93. There are several ways of going about
this, so to (hopefully) start a productive discussion rolling, I'll make a
more-or-less concrete proposal, as follows:

each monthly issue contains the digested "answers" of reasonably general
interest from that month's lists;

the bare-bones digestion is carried out within a set of general rubrics by
members of an editorial board -- one member per rubric -- with royalties
to be paid on the basis of word count and circulation;

general editing, typesetting, printing and distribution is handled by Open
Pathways;

the rubrics might be:
-- organizational matters (OGI, OGF, vendors?)
-- specific central hardware or OS ports
-- peripherals
-- drivers
-- data import/export: technical
-- data acquisition
-- database development/management programs?
-- raster analysis programs
-- vector programs
-- imagery programs
-- integration with related software
-- applications
-- varia

each issue contains something on the order of 60 pages, 8 1/2 x 11

a yearly subscription costs something on the order of US$60.00, pending
completion of a more detailed business plan on our part

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Apart from the monthly periodical, it would be useful to prepare as much
of the previously archived GrassHopper material as possible in a similar
fashion. I see two routes: (a) include additional digested material in
each issue, making it larger and more expensive, or (b) begin work on a
complete digest of the entire GrassHopper archive from 12/91 to 10/93, to
be published in perfect-bound book form. 

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I would like feedback on this idea from the current readership. You can
make general comments, make detailed criticisms of the proposal, or
volunteer to serve on the editorial board (or any combination thereof :).

Please don't stretch the bandwidth of these mailing lists with your
responses. Send only those responses which should really be brought to the
immediate attention of the entire readership to the mailing list.
Everthing else can be sent to my e-mail address directly, whereupon I will
post regular summaries of the ongoing discussion to the lists. 

Thanks -- I hope this works.

-- Mark

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Mark P. Line                       Phone: +1-206-733-6040
Open Pathways                        Fax: +1-206-733-6040
P.O. Box F                         Email: markline at henson.cc.wwu.edu
Bellingham, WA 98227-0296
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