Aspies For Freedom

So we have a name, we have support, we know basically what is happening.
Here is what we must do now to keep the ball rolling:


1.  Someone must begin designing a website so we have somewhere to put the first issue.  Any takers?

2.  We must set up a system by which submissions are sent and sorted and chosen.  I suggest we either use the existing art forums at AFF or set up our own forum for this purpose (it can be part of Prizmatik's website once that is up and running).  This will make it easy for all the members of the submissions comittee to read the submissions and agree upon which ones to accept.
On the other hand, we could also have a system where we divide submissions into catagories, and one submission-comittee-member is assigned to each catagory.  In this system, a person submitting visual artwork would e-mail their submission to the "Visual artwork" comittee member, and a person submitting a poem would send it to the Poetry comittee member.  But the drawback to this system is that only one person would have the final say for what makes it into their catagory, as opposed to desicion being made by consensus.


Have I missed anything?  Want to sign up for a certain role?
Discuss.

For the uninitiated (like me), what is Prizmatik?

You can take a look at some threads in the Autistic Culture - Writing forum where you will see some threads with many replies. It's a magazine or at least a website where people on the spectrum can tell/show about their interests and talents.

I am kind of doubting whether the plan will get beyond the stage it's in now. There are only three or four people keeping it alive, and discussions on progress repeat themselves.

It needs a foundation if its to get any further. Simply increasing activity the creative forums would do this. Perhaps something based on the "^ game", which is very successful.

Things to think about. Ownership of the website - A foundation? Start with a site free of advertisements? Who has the ability to maintain and update the site (because I can't even copy & paste!)?  

I think it would be wise to ask around AFF for members who'd be willing to participate not with submissions of material but with know-how and maybe be part of the board, "without having anything to do with the process of deciding what to put on the site;" (that's a really loose thought).

I'll start asking around about builders that can design in their spare-time; for a "symbolic" sum that would amount to at least a three digit sum (us dollars). And I have the economic means to pay for that first important step. But I'm a bit "scared" of it to just go to waste if the interest would decline...

Submissions. Instead of asking people to submit just 1 poem I think it's better to ask for 10 or 20 works.

Luai_Lashire & Erkolos & Logical Paradox et. al.

A realistic and graphic description of what you personally would want the site to be like - examples of other sites for everyone to take a look at.


ichtms...

Even if there's only three or four people interested in it now, that's enough to get it off the ground, and once it's up we can advertise all over the place to get more submissions.  We really only need a small group of dedicated people to be editors and one person to be webmaster, after all; although having regular contributors is nice, it's not strictly necesary, as long as we get a reasonable number of submissions, and I think we will.

We should post in the computers & technology forum here at AFF asking for anyone who's interested in doing the website.

As far as layout goes:
-It needs to be visually pleasing; minimalistic, but not boring.
-It needs to be intuitively obvious how to navigate.  A very detailed navigation bar at the top and side of the page will help.
-Colors need to be nice and actually go together.
-The background should be white and the text black.  I've found anything else can make it difficult to read.
-We'll need an archive section for past issues, at some point.
-Submission information should be easily accesable on the website.
-We should have a front page introducing what Prizmatik is and isn't, who is involved, ect.  Then there will be a link to the current issue.  The issue itself will be navigable in two ways:
          - You can start on the first page and click "next" and "back" buttons to get from page to page
          - Or you can click on links on the navigation bar to get to the section you're interested in- "art", "poetry", "fiction", "essays", ect.

What do you think?

Good idea. I've six or seven worth while things, but everyones seen them already.

We don't have to ask specifically for multiple submissions, we can just say on our website that there is no limit to the number of pieces you can submit at once, or set a very high limit like 20.  Setting a limit is a common practice in literary magaizines, though it's usually more around 5 or 6 pieces, not 20.  

^ seem to know more about the common practice than I. I was thinking of us as some kind of curators looking at a body of work.

I've sent a pm to couldbecousin. In short, it asks 2 questions. 1. Could the Prizmatik project be like a satellite site to AFF? 2. Could the funding of its design & maintenance be channelled via AFF:s donation system?

Why I didn't pm Admin is that I tend to continue to do things the way I've done before which is sending pm:s to CBC. The 4th, this one, I think.

After some more thoughts around what I wrote in post # 5 I concluded that (as I don't know the first thing about web design and so forth) it might be better if it's designed by Affies. Then I would'nt have to talk to strangers.

If we're all agreed on asking around at AFF for a website designer, then one of us should go post something about it there.
I don't want to do this without checking one more time that that's allright, so if there are any major problems they need to be brought up now.  If no one objects, in a couple days I'll make the query.