Congratulations to George!

George's publication at BoxOfficeProphets is a great development, and an instructive one. It points toward some of the uncertainties -- and some of the suspicions -- of internet publication. As George writes,

I submitted what I was hoping to be a first draft to what I assumed was a bi-weekly article, so my first piece posted to the site is actually one I'm not too thrilled about. I was expecting more discussion with an editor, but instead found out it was live before I even knew the webmaster found it worthy.

(Strange for a blog post to quote a recent post from the same blog, but there you are.) George entered this arrangement, in short, believing that his work would go through the traditional editing process. It did not: instead, it was shipped straight to the site as is. As a result, he's not as happy with his publication (which he considers a draft) as he had hoped.

What does this suggest? To me, at least two things:

1. Web publication is faster, but the very speed of web publication may mean the role of "content developers" (what we used to call "writers" and "editors") is unclear. Do people even have editors? Or do writers do their own editing? What about post-publication editing? That's very possible, but should it be allowed, and to what extent?
   
2. Traditionalists are suspicious of the quality of web publishing. I tend to think their suspicions are overrated, but incidents like this suggest that there may be some rationale.
   

In traditional magazine or journal publishing, the writer gets to see a corrected draft or a galley proof before a text goes out into the world. The speed of web publishing makes that less likely, and a great deal of the burden of editing may be pushed upstream, as it were, in the direction of the writer.

Bottom line: the roles (and the rules) are changing. During a period of transition, mistakes proliferate. When working with a web publisher, try to nail down who is responsible for what. Get a clear sense (if you can) of the steps of the process. Because some web publishers might never have articulated the process in so many words, you could be doing them a favor.

Anyway, congratulations George! This is a good gig.