Cindy Alvarez (calvarez@kokopelli.teamsphere.com) writes:

As one of the projects underway at info-arch.org, I'm trying to do some brainstorming about a "Pragmatic IA/Experience Discussion" area.

This is not the same thing as the deliverables archive; the idea comes more from the IA cocktail hours I've been to. Basically, the most valuable resource I've gotten from the IA community are the "war stories" - real, practical, get-the-job-done discussion.

The main question that arises is: Why should this area be different from a mailing list thread?

A few of my thoughts:
- Sub-topic threading would allow people to read by train-of-thought rather than just chronology
- How can we encourage perpetuity? (add to original questions rather than
re-visiting the same one over and over)
- Do we want author/experience categorization? (for example, as an in-house IA my views are often quite different from consultant IAs)
- Area would probably be most useful to people who are just beginning with IA, expanding their duties, or facing a particular political, resource, or relationship-building challenge
- Is there another audience we need to serve with this area?

This would make a great story or series of stories for Boxes and Arrows. Could you email storyideas@boxesandarrows.com?

Hopefully this will be adopted soon...a great idea. Here's a starter...I've recently been polling some within the practice as to material dealing with developing controlled vocabularies and connecting that to a metadata schema. I've been given some great direction, but almost all of it deals with the what, almost totally avoiding the how. For someone who is taking a first stab at this "deeper" degree of IA, I'm somewhat daunted. Now...where's that close knit community that's going to come to my rescue?

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