Talk:Society for News Design

Response to hoax accusations

Trust me, the organization is very much not a hoax. SND's been around a good 30 years, and furthermore, a search for "Society for News Design" comes up with over 100,000 results. Instead of throwing around the hoax card so flippantly, why don't you actually research it first?

I find your criticisms disrespectful and very misinformed. - Stick Fig 19:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you think we're getting a little trivia-heavy?

It seems like we're trying to tell people every little detail about SND, when the article should stick to the big stuff.

Like, wouldn't it be easier to tell people where to find information about the speakers at SND Boston instead of overwhelming them with a giant list? Or past conferences – how beneficial is it going to be to readers to know where the conference was held a decade ago? The intern thing could probably stand to be cut down to a nub as well.

All I know is that the article was more summary than list six months ago, and it's quickly becoming the opposite.

Mind if I get your guys' input on this? - Stick Fig 18:13, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

StickFig: I totally agree with you. I was surprised to see that update the other day (I didn't add it). I think we should look at recrafting the entire thing to focus on a more outsider-approachable summary, just as you describe. Then we could be sure to highilight upcoming events (short list, descriptions) with heavy links maybe? I think someone just got excited about publicizing a strong list of speakers (and many of those speakers are known enough to have wiki links too, maybe that had something to do with it? I'm just speculating). So, being relatively new to wikipedia, how do we go about this? Just edit and post? or should we alert the original writer?Sdorsey2 15:48, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It's generally good form to alert the original writer, in my book. I already left a note on the talk pages of the users responsible for the most recent edits, so all they have to do at this point is respond. I've had to defend news design from a similar trivia glut in recent weeks. We need to be careful that we aren't losing sight of the main point of the article in putting in all these side details.

I can clear things up, but I'm hoping we can hear from some of the other recent editors before we go down that road. - Stick Fig 19:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability

Both the society and its serial publications are listed in various editions of Journalism: A Guide to the Reference Literature as an important source of journalism reference literature:

• Cates, Jo A. (2004). "Societies and associations: Society for News Design". Journalism: a guide to the reference literature. Reference sources in the humanities series (3rd ed.). Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited. p. 233. ISBN 1591580617. OCLC 54006671.
• Cates, Jo A. (1997). "Societies and associations: Society of Newspaper Design". Journalism: a guide to the reference literature. Reference sources in the humanities series (2nd ed.). Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited. p. 232. ISBN 1563083744. OCLC 35961407.

There are two criteria for WP:NGO notability, both of which the society passes:

1. Scope: The sources listed above note that the society is long-standing (since 1979) and international in scope.
2. Significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources: There are plenty of these, for example: The scholarly history The Form of News: A History reports that the founding of the society "became legend in the trade, marking the beginnings of the so-called revolution in newspaper design that led the way into electronic forms. Through traveling workshops, the founders, who hold a revered place among the membership, spread the gospel of modern (or what we would call Late Modern) design." Similarly, another scholarly history, Maps with the News, has a whole section on the society and gives it a similarly important role: "Indeed, the single catalytic event was the formation in 1979 of the Society of Newspaper Design, which produces the field's only journal, holds workshops and an annual convention, sponsors an annual design competition, supports student chapters, and promotes internships. Before the SND, organizational support for newspaper design was limited largely to college courses and textbooks and the efforts of a few individuals..." There's a profile of the society in the long-standing graphic design magazine Novum. News about the society is regularly published in the industry magazine Editor & Publisher. See also, for example, on the web: Communication Arts, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and The New York Times Company.

Although mentions are not used to determine notability, it should be noted that news organizations typically run a story every time they win an award from the society, so there are many mentions of the society in news databases: over a thousand in LexisNexis, for example.

References