General Questions Regarding Swans
More About Contributing to Swans
Swans was created by Gilles d'Aymery in February 1996 with the occasional and indispensable help of Olivier Coudert, as well as the continued suggestions, editing corrections and moral support of Jan Baughman. In addition, countless help was received from the Net community (please refer to our Credits page) which generosity, guidance and knowledge cannot be thanked and acknowledged enough! The site was completely overhauled in August 1996.
Many factors led to the creation of Swans. Some are explained in our page about Swans. Others are more latent, diffuse in the subconscience of all of us. For example:
- The urge to raise our voice in the name of reason and against the abysmal condition and deterioration of our social fabric.
- The desire to lift the veil of hypocrisy which, like a thick and sooty fog, shrouds the collusion of our governing and corporate elites.
- The sense that we, as a society--indeed as a world, have a long way to go to reach the shores of social justice and human dignity, and hence the call for action.
- The necessity to counter the subliminal messages spread by the main media, themselves an integral part of the powers in place.
- The enjoyment obtained from expressing ourselves in a censorless environment.
- The excitement to be part of a project in the company of fine human beings.
- The pleasure to be creative and write.
- and, as said in our consumerist temple, much more!
So, why do we publish here? Because we can: we can publish without killing trees, selling our souls to advertisers or maintaining a distribution list. Here we are: you may enjoy our work for free. We ask only that you think.
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Once the idea of the project had crystalized, the question of the name took priority. Initially, as Gilles wanted to use the site for his business also, he thought he could use GMA, which happens to be his initials and the unoriginal name of the business. It quickly appeared though that beside being unoriginal --and created years ago when he still had a semblance of an ego--GMA did not encompass the meaning entailed in the purpose of the project. This was not to be a site about an individual. The name had to reflect the idea of a group and of quality. It also had to preferably be original enough as to, hopefully, attract visitors out of curiosity. One morning, down in Santa Monica, Gilles and Melissa Tatem, a wonderfully creative and sensitive human being, brain-stormed together with coffee and croissants mixed with cigarettes and Diet Coke (sorry, we aren't the Pepsi generation!). SWAN emerged as being the closest to represent the essence of the purpose. Immediately alluding to beauty, the word also has a rich mythological significance and is, in a different spelling, somewhat related to Gilles's past.
Unfortunately, the name had already been registered with the InterNIC by a Canadian company. But Swans with an "s" was still available. In the plural the word suddenly encompassed even more the notion of a group, as in a flock of swans. As to its originality we have since found out that there were over 900 pages listed in Alta Vista whose title contains the word swan! Oh well, can't win them all.
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Swans is privately funded by Gilles. At present, the costs include the monthly fee to our Internet Service Provider and the phone tolls. On average the monthly bills amount to about $45/50. In addition there is an annual fee of $50 to maintain our Domain Name registered with the InterNIC. We expect that the monthly fee to our ISP will increase once our daily 200MB bandwidth allotment is surpassed. In such a case, our founding members agreed to pick up the difference. All the time spent by anyone involved with Swans is freely given.
In the future, when our readership and our contributors increase substantially, we will need to review the funding issue and look for some type of non-advertising sponsorship. Meantime, if you consider our purpose laudable and like the quality of what you read, you may want to give a thought about financially helping us by, for instance, sending the equivalent of our present monthly ISP fee ($30). If interested, please contact Gilles. (We have not examined the tax consequences related to possible donations. Legal advice would be quite appreciated!)
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Is Swans interested in advertising or sponsorship?
No to the former, a qualifying yes to the latter. Let us explain:
The Internet motus operandi for many years was the free flow of data for the exchange of information and the spreading of knowledge. It was free in the sense that it was both publicly funded and paid by universities and colleges. Now, increasingly subject to the rules of the "market", advertising which is the antithesis of the free exchange of information has literally invaded the Web. Try to obtain revenues from any commercial sources if you have a non-money-making, totally independent and possibly controversial site! In addition, an average individual is "hit" over 1,500 times per day by ads. Isn't it enough? Finally, advertising graphics considerably lengthen the downloading of the pages. So we do intend to stay away from this kind of funding. On the other hand, sponsorship from one or more organizations that accept to provide financial help because of the value of our service is acceptable. But we are a long way from even imagining such an outcome!
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Are you *really* looking for contributors?
Yes, we *really* are! We very much wish to bring a few people together in order to achieve an on-going and different quality-Webzine. We are looking for people who feel the need to express their thoughts and opinions; people who are committed to make a difference, who have convictions. By reading our past commentaries you should easily figure out the type of people we are.
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But what will happen if you receive tens or hundreds of contributions?
First, it will definitely be gratifying! Second, we will look into the matter at that time! In other words, we are aware it is going to take time to get many contributors. When it happens we certainly will have to look into a reasonable plan to make the site evolve and grow. But, "one day at a time" is our present motto.
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We are striving to publish each weekday but we might have to limit ourselves to three times a week from time to time. The availability of contributions has a direct impact on the frequency of publication. And if our father-of-all coding/formatting/editing/loading/maintaining should happen to break a leg, as he actually did in August 1996, we are in deep voodoo!
That being said, we have been publishing on a very regular basis since May 1, 1996.
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A picture's worth a thousand words! Why so few graphics?
This site is about ideas, opinions and thoughts expressed with words, not with pictures. You can find thousands of sites with as many pictures as you want, from museums to all venues of life. We focus on words. In addition, graphics slow the downloading process of the pages quite substantially, especially for the readers who use analog phone lines with 14.4 Kb or 28.8 Kb modems. Finally, they add to the congestion problems (lack of bandwidth) that we all have experienced of late. So, we have nothing against nice pictures and great icons but we prefer to use them only when necessary to convey a specific message.
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What is Swans' political perspective?
This is not a political site. Actually Swans does not like labels. We pride ourselves as being independent minded, not politically independent. Conservatives will judge us as being too liberal. Liberals will find us too conservative. Some of us are not religious at all. Others are. Most understand the fundamental differences between the spirit and the dogma; a couple of us laugh at it all... So, judge for yourself. You may simply find out that we are strong defenders of free speech and rather impatient with ideologues!
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Why should I read the columns published here?
You will find commentaries written by people coming from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives; people like you, not professional writers. The ideas expressed are rarely represented in the mainstream media. We hope that they will entice you to take a few minutes and think about them. And, believe it or not, you can enjoy our work for free. And you may even be interested in contributing to Swans
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Can graphic(s) be included with a submission?
In most cases we would prefer that you do not include a graphic in your article. However, in the rare occasions when a graphic is really essential to the comprehension of your article, we can accept one as long as its size is maximum 10k (2 colors) for black and white and 15k (16 or 256 colors) in color. Please, only include GIF formatted files. We do reserve the right to decline to include your graphic.
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Yes. Please read it.
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Does Swans accept previously published material?
Yes, as long as your submitted material is not copyrighted by another organization or, if it is copyrighted by another organization, you provide us with a written authorization from that other organization to let you publish this material on our site.
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Please refer to our page: How to contribute.
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No, except for spelling mistakes. And if there are too many we will return your submission for correction and recommend that you visit Strunk, William. 1918. The Elements of Style or consider going back to school!
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This will be agreed to or not on a case-by-case basis. You may have a perfectly legitimate reason to use a pen name; however, our rule of thumb is: Only publish what you are ready to defend; stand by your writings and opinions.
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Can I expect to be compensated if my article is published by Swans?
No, not at this time. You are free to read; you are free to write, you are free to think and we maintain the site for free.
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We deeply support free speech. And we also recognize that free speech tends to be more commercially free than anything else. Hence our site! The very few subjects that we refuse to publish on our site are much represented in the traditional media and on the Web. It is not as though we were implementing some kind of a gag rule on opinions that are not well voiced all around. We consider that if, for instance, you hold anti-choice views it does not make you an orphan preaching in the desert! Go to the myriad sites such as those of Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, etc. (sorry, we do not advertise their URLs). You'll be in good company... Well, perhaps we are not yet enlightened but at least we are open-minded. If ever someone writes intelligently on any one of the few matters defined in our Guidelines, we'll be more than happy to publish that commentary. However, the degree of intelligence of the submission will be determined by us!
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Beside the topics excluded in the guidelines, is everything else fair play?
Well, if you try us enough we are sure you will find the exception that confirms the rule... But you will never find out if you do not try! (Revisionist history and ethnic and racial bashing are topics we particularly like to dislike...)
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What HTML editor is used to code Swans' pages?
Two hands and a brain with the help of a simple text editor such as Notepad!
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Gilles.
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There are three main reasons to validate HTML pages. In descending order:
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Why using the DTD 3.2 (Wilbur)? It's not yet finalized...
Indeed, why? There are quite a few Document Type Definitions, from the HyperLib and the SoftQuad DTDs to the Mozilla (Netscape) and the Microsoft IE DTDs, and more.
From our perspective, we had two choices to make. First we decided to follow the path of the World Wide Web Consortium and not the path of what can be named the commercial DTDs (Mozilla, MS IE). Once this initial choice was out of the way we had to make a second one: Whether to use the HTML DTD level 2 which is finalized or the HTML DTD level 3.2 (code name Wilbur) which presently is in draft form (note that the HTML DTD level 3.0 draft has expired and is not maintained anymore). Stricto sensu we should have elected to go with the HTML DTD 2.0 since it is the most widely supported MarkUp Language in the world. Yet, two reasons, one substantial, the other more practical, made us choose Wilbur. The creative features brought by Netscape and more recently Microsoft cannot be ignored. Some of these features are and will be incorporated into the next HTML level by the W3C as they significantly improve upon the present features incorporated into HTML 2.0. This is what HTML 3.0 was all about (though it went too far). Wilbur is a happy compromise between HTML 2.0 and the commercial DTDs. While it might not be finalized, the next draft (code name Cougar) will without any doubt incorporate the changes made in Wilbur, thus sparing most updating work for HTML authors who have followed the DTD level 3.2. From a practical standpoint to create a site today that conforms to the DTD 2.0 and to have to update it relatively soon thereafter to a newer DTD is not a joyous consideration; the amount of work entailed by such an update can quickly turn into a nightmare. And then, HTML 2.0 does not support <CENTER> (and other helpful tags)!
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At present, the site's maintenance is entirely the responsibility of Gilles. Maintenance includes much more than simply scripting and posting the commentaries. He has to answer mails and comments that the site receives, stay in touch with the contributors on a regular basis, improve the design, correct the mistakes, advertise the URL, etc., etc., etc. On average, he spends ten to fifteen hours a week on the maintenance.
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Does Swans have its own server?
No, Swans does not have its own server. We are using the services of a very friendly ISP, Best Internet Communications, Inc., located in Mountain View, California.
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What hardware/software are you using?
Regarding the server side, please refer to Best's site. On the maintenance side, we are using two old 486 compatible workhorses (a DX2-66 IDE, 32MB RAM and a DX4-100 SCSI 16MB RAM), a couple of 28.8 Kb modems and 17" monitors, and a HP ScanJet 4c. Softwarewise, we use three Operating Systems (DOS/Win 3.11, WIN95 and Win NTW 4.0) and a series of applications, often freeware or old shareware.
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