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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: IF CD Project:  overdoing ideas
Message-ID: <erkyrathDwr6oq.Hr3@netcom.com>
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Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 16:19:38 GMT
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Michael C. Martin (mmartin@seanet.com) wrote:
> You can never have too many ideas on a project, especially good ideas. 
> The key thing is that we don't get so bogged down in ideas that we
> endlessly rehash the same issues over and over again and never arrive at
> a decision.

> I think something that would definately help the project along is to set
> some specific goals and deadlines.  The "action officers" can do their
> leg work, we can all shoot out ideas and suggestions, then the action
> officers can report back to Andrew on the deadline date with their
> findings so Andrew can make decisions.  Without goals and deadlines, we
> may very well be in the "perpetual idea mode" cycle.

Keep in mind that we *are* keeping a lot of the discussion off the 
newsgroup. :-) So more is happening than meets the eye. Maybe not a lot 
more...

So far we have initial acceptances from all the desired authors except
Gareth Rees, Dave Baggett, and Dave Leary. I haven't seen those people
post since before this discussion started, so I figure they're on
vacation, and end-of-vacation season is soon upon us. 

We have rough-draft plans from the PR department, and Neil the 
Indefagitable Document Dude is working on the documents. We're getting 
price quotes for printing and such. (Although that original 
CD-duplicating place that started this mess hasn't gotten back to me. 
Gotta bug them.)

I wrote the first page of the booklet. :)

The discussions on this newsgroup are for turning up ideas, not making 
decisions. That's why decisions never seem to get made.

This hints thing is still a bitch, though. We're definitely going to have 
easy games on the CD (look back at the list), and some games have 
built-in hints. For the rest: the hint files on GMD just are not 
suitable, in general. We can either spend a lot of time writing hints, or 
not include hints. Would anyone like to donate a lot of time? It really 
should be one person, or a very small group, or the quality is just going 
to vary way too much.

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
