This newbie is feeling very discouraged. Trying to submit an opinion piece to Signpost has been a daunting experience. I rarely take things personally when dealing with strangers, but I feel I’ve received nothing but discouragement and shabby treatment from the Signpost’s editors (in all fairness, editor Skomorokh is currently ill and not involved as yet).
The Opinion desk clearly encourages users to submit opinion pieces via e-mail so I did. Though the Signpost says this e-mail “is monitored by a handful of trusted Signpost editors", my submission was ignored for 10 days before I finally contacted the opinion piece coordinator and managing editor SMasters. Incredibly, neither editor had access to Signpost’s e-mail.
So I submitted my piece directly to the opinion piece coordinator via his e-mail. After no response from him for 3 days, I contacted him only to find out he’s no longer the opinion piece coordinator (and that he didn’t think Signpost was a “proper place” for my essay). Why he didn’t show me the courtesy of contacting me to let me know my submission was in limbo, I don’t know.
So in desperation, I contacted the author of the previous Signpost opinion piece for help. He was courteous and treated me with respect. He said I should submit my piece “directly” (which I knew nothing about) and showed me how to create a subpage at the Opinion desk and how to link to it in the Signpost Newsroom. I thought I had finally successfully submitted my piece.
But a day later, I got this rather terse message posted at the Newsroom from Signpost editor, SMasters:
“You are supposed to create your piece in your own user space first and then link it at the Opinion desk for consideration. Work on such articles can take several weeks before they are published (if at all). --SMasters (talk) 06:05, 14 January 2012 (UTC)"
I certainly didn’t see these instructions at the Signpost pages. If the experienced author of the previous Signpost opinion piece didn’t know this procedure, it’s not surprising a newbie would not know either. But what is editor, SMasters, really saying here?
“Work on such articles CAN [my emphasis] take several weeks before they are published (if at all).” Assuming he read my piece, I think he’s really saying, “Get lost”. Obviously work on such articles need not take several weeks. In fact, if the article is clear, cogent, and obviously well-written, it should take an editor less than 30 minutes to review it and approve it or disapprove it.
I have more than 20 years experience writing opinion pieces. I take my writing very seriously. The first op-ed I had published in a major newspaper was in the Boston Globe (back in 1998). I always have friends carefully edit my pieces before I submit them anywhere (two are essentially logicians/writers who check my arguments for logic flaws and one is an experienced newspaper writer).
I very much doubt any reasonable person reading my Signpost submission would think it needs any “work”, much less weeks of work. I can’t help but wonder if my less than enthusiastic treatment at Signpost has anything to do with the uncomfortable message my piece conveys.
So much for Sue Gardner's admonition to treat newbies with respect...
A NEW DAY HERE...Thanks to SMasters, I now understand the odd, unfortunate circumstances I've experienced my first few weeks here in Wikipedia land. I'm still a mere newbie, but I'm less confused. I hope I can convince Wikipedians to at least give serious consideration to using the wonderful tool they've developed over the years to provide, not just reliable encyclopedic knowledge, but also vital, reliable political knowledge to the world (in a clearly neutral manner). This could ease some of the vast human suffering caused by deceit in politics.
In short, Wikipedians could radically change world government and politics with relatively minor changes to an existing product, Wikipedia. For details, please see: WikiArguments at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiArguments
A little about how I construct my opinion essays
NOTE TO REVIEWERS: I have a background in formal logic. All of my many published opinion pieces are carefully constructed logical arguments (even my political satire). I construct my opinion pieces using a series of informal syllogisms where the conclusions of higher-level syllogisms are "fed in" as premises to subsequent lower-level syllogisms and so on, eventually leading logically to the main conclusion of the piece (my “logician” editors do a good job checking for logic flaws). Many of my premises are implied rather than stated (otherwise the piece would become unruly and unreadable). But any implied premises are statements (I believe) the vast majority of people would agree with without the need for supporting argument. Here are the above-mentioned syllogism levels for my current piece (in order) so you can see the structure of my argument.
--The WMF clearly has a political POV (even if it pretends not to). --Political knowledge is at least as important to humanity as encyclopedic knowledge. --As “the world’s largest free knowledge resource”, WMF should be providing vital political knowledge to the world. --A brief description of how a new neutral wiki for world political knowledge would work --Why this new neutral wiki fits well with WMF’s charter goals and its Strategic Plan --The infrastructure and resources are already in place (Wikipedia) so it would be cheap to implement --Why the worldwide respect and clout of WMF would make this new wiki work. --A reference to more details about how the new wiki would work.
The above gross design using syllogism levels is analogous to the way I used to design the functional flow of operating system software. I design my opinion pieces the way I used to design OS software. The final stage for software is putting the design into code and the final stage for an opinion essay is putting the design into words. I try to use as few words as possible and still maintain the integrity of my argument, because saying the same thing in fewer words is always more powerful and hard-hitting. I try to make sure every sentence is absolutely necessary for the integrity and power of my argument. I start with the first of the above-mentioned syllogism levels, flush it out with words, and then move on to the next level, etc. Of course I then edit and edit and edit and finally pass it on to my editor friends. Only then do I post my opinion piece in public.