Must be time for one of our periodic discussions about the ISTA. Should we forget this or try to do something with the idea? I don’t think it will ever be possible to get it going as an independent body simply because we all live in different parts of the world. I suggest that Snuffhouse.org becomes ‘Snuffhouse - the home of the Internatinal Snuff Takers Association’ and that any member of this website is an ISTA member. We could then maybe get some formal link/sponsorship with the producers and suppliers and maybe have our own merchandise. Any thoughts guys?
I don’t think our geographic differences should make a difference unless and until we have physical meetings. Snuffhouse is fine for an online discussion group, and it can even be the official online forum of the ISTA, however we need to reach out to snuff takers the world over who do not hang around in online forums all day. I suggest that we begin some sort of newsletter to start with. It can include interviews with some snuff makers and snuff merchants (the ones that hang around here will be easiest to start with.) It can also include articles about snuff types, history, reviews, etc. It doesn’t have to be a big thing to start with. Getting started is the hardest thing. Once we have something established, we can build from there. If the snuff merchants wanted to put ads or coupons in it, that could help defray the costs.
Historically the devil has been in the detail Xander, we’ve always had lots of ideas about what we should do but never got further than discussion. Not being able to ever have a physical meeting of the people involved is actually a bigger obstacle than you might think - keeping the momentum going by email is a very hard thing to do. The last person to make serious noises about this was Roderick and he started to investigate various angles but I think business must have got in the way, understandably, as he’s not mentioned it since. Simple facts: most of us work and are busy people living in different parts of the world. Getting ‘staff’ to do anything other than contribute to this site will be next to impossible. Reaching out to the people that don’t hang around on the net would mean physically producing large amounts of hard copy and getting it distributed. It won’t happen. To work this has to be simple and based around this site. The first step should be how this site is presented and whether or not it becoms the official voice of the ISTA, IMHO. I agree that getting started is (obviously!) the first major step and its the lack of agreement about what the ISTA actually is that has been the main problem so far.
I still think hard copy is the way to go. I strongly suspect most snufftakers would be more enthused to read about snuff via a quarterly newsletter rather than check on this forum everyday. Historically snuffhouse membership is strong at first, but many regulars disappear after a few months. Perhaps trying to keep up with an online forum is too much, however they might like recieving a one or two page paper in their mailbox every few months. That at least would allow them to keep up with current events and not worry so much about what is in everybody’s nose every five minutes. I don’t think we need a lot of staff at first. A chairman, a secretary and contributors are all we need. The chair at this moment is nominally Roderick. A secretary would be the one to actually keep records of the subscriptions and make all the mailings. Both can be contributors, but so could any member. Just have the sec & chair agree if the article is worth printing. You or I could submit something via email. No one would ever have to meet face to face. This is still Alex’s brainchild too, so perhaps we should have his imput.
I would love a hard copy newsletter - or even twice yearly journal as you get with various literary societies for example, but it would be costly and difficult to produce in significant numbers - if it was to be used as you said earlier as an ‘outreach’ tool for the non internet folks. We all agree that Roderick would be Chairman or President. I am a great believer in precedent, and as such have come to the view that the ISTA is not viable unless it starts as a very simple adjunct to this site - growth and development would have to come some way down the line and nothing should be ruled out, but the start up - even if its no more than a name change for the site to begin with - is the all important factor given the dynamics of our diffuse group.
I canprovide a section here for the ISTA (as we already do by now). I think running a printed magazine is way to much work, that I could handle it. If this helps as a platform, I would be honored to run the ISTA. Much more, I can’t do due to time and money limits. Hope that helps anyway?
Not seeing any good descriptions in the ISTA folder. I am a little confused as to what ISTA is and what it’s purpose is. Why is it different from Snuffhouse? Can someone enlighten me, please?
Really, its just a concept at this stage. A great idea but one that has proven impossible to develop. I don’t think it can/will ever happen as something other than a website. We are just too widely dispersed. Alex, what do you think of just making this site in general the ISTA, i.e ‘Snuffhouse.org - the home of the ISTA’. Just a thought as maybe a title is all that the ISTA is ever likely to be.
I’d love to be a member/ wish we could organize something, but it seems we just don’t have the resources! Someday though! We shouldn’t cast ISTA aside just yet.
Really, what we need is people with both time and talent.
There are companies out there that will print your newsletters, a quick google search told me so. Really the only reason we (well, you ISTA members) don’t have a newsletter is, again, people are busy and what have you…but it would be really neat to get it up and running! I’m with Xander, and think a newsletter, quarterly or even twice a year, would be awesome, and quite the achievement…something to be proud of! …and for what its worth, Alex I’d like to apply for membership in the ISTA…lol.
Well, not a member of it, but I would suggest cannibalising ideas from other websites. I’ve been an editor for BME for quite some time (it’s somewhat sporadic, and quite different subject matter, but hear me out), and the idea was that anyone could submit an article, but it had to go through a team of reviewers. The reviewers were culled from the general users by volunteering for the job, and would proof read articles as time allowed. An article had to get so many yes votes with typed out justification for it in order to show up on the site, and if it was denied, the reviewer denying it would have to provide the author feedback explaining what they found fault with. This allowed a very nice turn over rate for a volunteer project, with several articles going through the cycle a day. Also, as it had a very broad base, it was okay if one of the regulars dropped out for a while due to work/school/whatever, as there were others to take their place. If a proofreader was consistently unhelpful or insulting when denying articles or just didn’t seem to get the minimum requirements for an article to be approved after a while, they were removed from the pool eligible to vote. Now, meld this with a newsletter like b3ta’s, where the best articles are selected, and emailed out periodically. Take the best articles from the given period, as decided by the voters or editor, format it so it looks nice, and export it as a PDF. You could have ads, coupons, snuff trading sections, and it would have comparatively low overhead compared with a physical magazine, be easy to produce and have the work load widely distributed. It has built in quality control, while offering everyone the opportunity to write for it. They only need to sign up, and it shows up in they’re inbox monthly, quarterly, whatever. If they prefer to read a physical copy, it could be printed out, and depending on length, wouldn’t be prohibitively costly to do so. Just my thoughts. I’d be interested in seeing if anything came of it. Also, one of its faults is that it requires a fairly large base of volunteer proof readers, or else a small number of people wind up shouldering the load, and if two or three drop out of the project for some reason, it could be crippling. Of course, you could do fun things like provide incentives for being a good proof reader. Say, have the user’s screenname or name (whichever they preferred) appear in the edition if they vote most consistently with the other editors, or put in a large amount of work. Every once in a while, have contest’s of some sort, for a free tin of something.
"Well, not a member of it, but I would suggest cannibalising ideas from other websites. I’ve been an editor for BME for quite some time (it’s somewhat sporadic, and quite different subject matter, but hear me out), and the idea was that anyone could submit an article, but it had to go through a team of reviewers. The reviewers were culled from the general users by volunteering for the job, and would proof read articles as time allowed. An article had to get so many yes votes with typed out justification for it in order to show up on the site, and if it was denied, the reviewer denying it would have to provide the author feedback explaining what they found fault with. This allowed a very nice turn over rate for a volunteer project, with several articles going through the cycle a day. Also, as it had a very broad base, it was okay if one of the regulars dropped out for a while due to work/school/whatever, as there were others to take their place. If a proofreader was consistently unhelpful or insulting when denying articles or just didn’t seem to get the minimum requirements for an article to be approved after a while, they were removed from the pool eligible to vote. " shikitono “Now, meld this with a newsletter like b3ta’s, where the best articles are selected, and emailed out periodically. Take the best articles from the given period, as decided by the voters or editor, format it so it looks nice, and export it as a PDF. You could have ads, coupons, snuff trading sections, and it would have comparatively low overhead compared with a physical magazine, be easy to produce and have the work load widely distributed. It has built in quality control, while offering everyone the opportunity to write for it. They only need to sign up, and it shows up in they’re inbox monthly, quarterly, whatever. If they prefer to read a physical copy, it could be printed out, and depending on length, wouldn’t be prohibitively costly to do so.” “Just my thoughts. I’d be interested in seeing if anything came of it. Also, one of its faults is that it requires a fairly large base of volunteer proof readers, or else a small number of people wind up shouldering the load, and if two or three drop out of the project for some reason, it could be crippling. Of course, you could do fun things like provide incentives for being a good proof reader. Say, have the user’s screenname or name (whichever they preferred) appear in the edition if they vote most consistently with the other editors, or put in a large amount of work. Every once in a while, have contest’s of some sort, for a free tin of something.” (SHIKITOHNO) I second this post. I’m not an official member either but these are great ideas. Thanks
I ‘third’ shikitohno’s post - a newsletter distributed via email that can be downloaded and printed off would be the way to go, depending on how many volunteers would be able to available each issue to spread the workload.
Since I suggested it, I just feel I should play devil’s advocate on this one. Now, this sort of thing works best if there’s at least about 15 people reading the article queue. So, if we have 15 people reading one article each a day (the same article for a number of them, for sake of convenience I’m removing this article after 10 people vote on it), you get either one article a day for the newsletter, or one rejection. If 4 drop out due to issues in their lives or something, you still have eleven people reading, could clear one article a day. If you start off with only 10 people though, and four drop it, you go from one article a day to one every two or three. This only works if there’s adequate interest. One other suggestion to go with this idea (I don’t know what’s been discussed before about a newsletter), but if anyone can write for it, have a minimum article length. Say, about 800 words. It’s not too long, only take about an hour to write. But if you have no minimum, the articles will wind up short and disjointed, with the newsletter rapidly bouncing from one thing to the next.
Here’s an off the wall idea: A podcast. Not necessarily something as a replacement for a newsletter, but an occasional supplement to it.
I’d like to join this. Having enough snuff in my home to support the habit of a small nation’s army, and having 3 more orders on the way (1 that should be here any time now wondering where it went plus two I made tonight) and being gabby enough at snuffhouse… can I get in on it? Also, has anybody ever thought of or had maybe sort of ‘snuffers’ convention? I know people from other sorts of (unrelated) special interest groups meet up, sometimes go camping together in summer etc Now I realize that miht not be the most exciting idea ever at a glance… a bumch if people sitting around taking pinches to their nose and going “hmmm” or whatever, but still… its an idea Maybe the europeans from here could meet up, same, another for americans & Canadians etc could swap snuffs directly that way, talk about tobacco laws etc whatever
I’m in school right now for graphic design, and I’m decent at using layout applications such as Adobe InDesign, so if a newsletter was ever something that came around, I could volunteer my services to put it together and create a pdf file of it that would be easy to send around via email.
Aaahh, Guys, The ISTA only exists in our minds. It is sort of an informal fellowship. Every once in a while someone brings it up and we think about really organizing something, but I think everyone is afraid it would loose some of its charm if we did. It couldn’t be as cool as the ISTA in our minds. EDIT: I do think we should make up some cool caps and snuff boxes with a really cool ISTA logo on them. I would certainly buy them.
The proceeds from the merchandise could be reinvested into this website or one dedicated to the ISTA.