Lessons Learned: Heavy Metal Magazine Moves To Content Management

[Scott Abel]

Decibel, the underground hard rock and extreme heavy metal magazine,
had the same problems as many other content-heavy organizations:
inefficient and disconnected processes, outdated tools, and the lack of
a unified content strategy. But things are changing at Decibel. The
magazine recently adopted a new approach to creating, managing, and
delivering content to its customers. In this exclusive interview with
TheContentWrang ler.com, Decibel's Robert Roberts-Jolly shares his
experiences moving to content management and reveals several lessons
he's learned along the way.

Take a peek: http://www.thecontentwrangler.com

Scott Abel, Content Management Strategist, The Content Wrangler, Inc.
ab****@netdirec t.net * 941-359-3416 * skype: abelsp

News | Reviews | Jobs | Events | Books | Whitepapers | Training | More
www.thecontentwrangler.com ---become a member today!

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <11************ **********@i3g2 000cwc.googlegr oups.com>, Scott
Abel <ab****@netdire ct.netwrites
The direct URL for the article concerned is:

http://thecontentwrangler.com/articl...robert_robert/

I can't see anything at all on that page to do with spreadsheets, but I
do see:

invalid XHTML (a mere 385 errors)

XHTML served as text/html

textual image adverts whose alt attribute is "advert"

a link to a separate "print version", which nonetheless includes
adverts, and is not optimised for printing

text overspilling background shading

low contrast between text and background

91 automatically-detectable WCAG level 1 failures

21 automatically-detectable WCAG level 1 failures

7 automatically-detectable WCAG level 1 failures

non-hierarchical use of Header tags

Javascript- dependent links

and at that point I gave up bothering. Your is, quite certainly, the
worst example of a website I've seen, from anyone in the sector.
--
Andy Mabbett
Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>

Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata .org.uk>

[Giggle Girl]

TheContentWrang ler.com, Decibel's Robert Roberts-Jolly shares his
experiences moving to content management and reveals several lessons...

This Robert Roberts-Jolly fellow isn't a distant relative of Boutros
Boutros-Ghali, is he?

Just curious,
Giggle Girl

[Andy Dingley]

Andy Mabbett wrote:

http://thecontentwrangler.com/articl...robert_robert/

>
I can't see anything at all on that page to do with spreadsheets, but I
do see:

XHTML served as text/html
textual image adverts whose alt attribute is "advert"

What's wrong with either of those? (I note the other comments
though!)

IMHO, this is just yet another example of a sad effect that's endemic
in the industry. "Technical Authors" are uniformly appallingly bad at
the nuts-and-bolts technology of authoring.

I'm a tech geek, not really a content creator. I work closely with two
very different groups of content creators though: museums / librarians
and tech authors. Quite opposite to how you'd expect them to be, the
curators are at the absolute leading edge of tools and are quite
capable of showing the leading research labs how it ought to be done (I
was that HP Labs researcher. Fortunately I was a bit more humble and
open to realising this than Philip Greenspun's infamous keynote at the
Boston "Museums and the Web" a while back). I've lost count of how many
in-depth discussions I've had on the nuances of RDF parsing models with
someone who then turns out to be a world expert on parsing of ancient
classical languages in their "real" job.

In contrast technical authors, even those writing _about_ these tools,
are immune to their benefits. They will argue passionately about the
"benefits" of proprietary tool-based platforms ("AuthorIt" comes to
mind) whilst wasting thousands on bad partial solutions to problems
that are trivial with an open standards-based process instead. I have
yet to meet a technical author who wasn't at least 3 years behind the
technology curve of their core job - and I work with a _lot_ of
technical authors!
PS - Scott, I owe you an email. Thanks very much for yours, your
measured reaction was much appreciated and I'll reciprocate when I have
time to do it justice.

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <11************ *********@m73g2 000cwd.googlegr oups.com>, Andy
Dingley <di*****@codesm iths.comwrites

>Andy Mabbett wrote:

http://thecontentwrangler.com/articl...robert_robert/

>I can't see anything at all on that page to do with spreadsheets, but I
do see:

XHTML served as text/html
textual image adverts whose alt attribute is "advert"

What's wrong with either of those?

1) http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

2) It's not the textual alternative of the information conveyed in the
image (which, providing one is not the advertiser, might be a good thing
I admit!).

>(I note the other comments though!)

I was hoping the OP would...

>IMHO, this is just yet another example of a sad effect that's endemic
in the industry. "Technical Authors" are uniformly appallingly bad at
the nuts-and-bolts technology of authoring.

The Register isn't too bad.

[...]
--
Andy Mabbett
Say "NO!" to compulsory ID Cards: <http://www.no2id.net/>

Free Our Data: <http://www.freeourdata .org.uk>

[Andy Dingley]

Andy Mabbett wrote:

http://thecontentwrangler.com/articl...robert_robert/

XHTML served as text/html
textual image adverts whose alt attribute is "advert"

What's wrong with either of those?

1) http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

Who gives a stuff what Hixie thinks? XHTML as text/html is kosher, he
just has a grudge against it.

2) It's not the textual alternative of the information conveyed in the
image

It's an advert. At the appropriate level of detail (i.e. "I don't care
what it's for, I just want to know it's a banner ad I can't see
anyway") then this is a fine choice of alt text. It's certainly what I
use for them.

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, Andy Dingley wrote:

Who gives a stuff what Hixie thinks?

Quite a lot of what he says is food for thought, even though you might
disagree with him.

XHTML as text/html is kosher,

It *relies* on at least one widespread bug in browsers. That alone
would put it beyond the pale.

But one point that I *do* take from Hixie's presentation is that the
vast majority of soi-disant XHTML on the web today is no such thing.
It's in reality defective HTML, fixed-up by browsers. If that stuff
were ever to be offered as real XHTML, to a real XHTML client agent,
it could not work. Authors have taken XHTML on board because it was
sexy - but without taking on board its principles.

Fact is, browsers are mostly attuned to HTML (and to fuxing-up the
faults in defective HTML). There's IMHO no need to challenge them
with XHTML/1.0 Appendix C, and almost[1] nothing to be gained by it.
The fact that XML-based tools might be used inside your authoring
process is irrelevant - they can just as well emit HTML as their end
product.

We're still waiting for widespread deployment of anything worthwhile
in XML-based markups, such as SVG, Math, etc.

he just has a grudge against it.

That's as may be, but some of his points are on target anyway.

And as for "XHTML/1.0 Transitional", surely that's a sick joke (or as
some deem it, a bogosity indicator)?

ttfn

[1] in fact, if the W3C hadn't gone so head-over-heels for XML-based
markups, it would have been feasible to devise a new DTD for HTML,
which more closely matched the recommended usage of HTML, such as
decoupling the different features of SHORTTAG and setting them
separately to appropriate values; amending some of the rules allowing
opening and/or closing tags to be optional, and so on. Could even
have called it HTML/4.2 ;-)

Yes, I know Hixie wants to throw that out of the window for HTML5,
along with the whole business of DTDs. Don't have to agree with
everything.