World New York is back

December 21, 2002 5:52 PM

Ladies, Gentlemen and New Yorkers, this is to inform you that World New York is back.
posted by riffola (14 comments total)

Previous World New York thread from January 25, 2001. I don't consider this to be a double post that would require the DoublePostGuy to come out of retirement, but if it is then I am sorry.
posted by riffola at 6:04 PM on December 21, 2002

I suppose we have Kottke & Co. to thank for this.
posted by crunchland at 6:30 PM on December 21, 2002

what is it? somebody's blog?
posted by donkeyschlong at 9:02 PM on December 21, 2002

And we should care because...?
posted by valerie at 11:02 PM on December 21, 2002

yeah, the site should at least have an "about" section. so what is this place?
posted by bison at 11:13 PM on December 21, 2002

I suppose we have Kottke & Co. to thank for this.
For making New York topical, maybe, but at least a tip of the cap to Rick Ellis and his pMachine CMS/blogware, because this site is practically the default layout of pMachine, which is pretty nifty.
posted by planetkyoto at 12:06 AM on December 22, 2002

incidentally, why do people bring kottke up so much? even if it's to bash him, you're still paying him too much mind. he's just a dude. live, let live. or send him hate mail. i dunno.
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:24 AM on December 22, 2002

I think it's just fun to say his name. Kinda like 'salsa', or 'jelly,' or 'pumpkin'.

(Ooh, all edible; Yo Freud - yeah, you with the lipstick - read me, dreamboy.)
posted by Opus Dark at 1:46 AM on December 22, 2002

World New York through it's various incarnations was/is a e-zine/weblog where the best quotes from news stories and feature pieces of each day are posted. It's run by a fellow MeFi member.

From the old FAQ

The short version, then, is this: what New York City has been, the rest of the country is becoming, and the world not far behind. That peculiar bit of urban subtext shows up in media around the country, whether accidentally or willfully, proving other cities are living parallel lives to ours, though delayed. Comparisons to be made, lessons to be learned. Across the broad spread of, say, several months postings on World New York, you're bound to recognize a peculiar sense of anomie: that you're not where you need to be and not sure where to go, not sure what to wear, what to watch, not moving fast enough, not doing enough, not famous enough, rich enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, moral enough, not faithful, honest, wise, clever, funny, competent or even altogether sure whether your dog likes you.

That's what World New York is after.

posted by riffola at 2:39 AM on December 22, 2002

um, then it's failing.
posted by donkeyschlong at 3:36 AM on December 22, 2002

Thanks, riffola, for the plug, although I would have to agree it's probably not appropriate here.

I don't know that the old mission statement is appropriate for the new site. In the 12 months since I killed the site, the Internet has changed. Google News exists, for example: there's the best set of collated news which has ever existed anywhere, at any point on this planet or in history. What site would render itself redundant by relaunching with an attempt to do that better? It'd be like John Henry trying to beat the steam-driven track-laying machine.

No, this time it will return to its original mission, when it was a Tripod page four years ago. Samples of what I'm reading offline (in the form of Recent Acquisitions), odd statistics which strike me as significant (very much in the vein of Les Chiffress featured in many French newspapers, and nothing like the Harper's Index), foreign or new words I come across (since I am, after all, a dilettante lexicographer), and of course passages which please me from my daily Internet reading, which is still done very well by sites such as Wood's Lot. Of course, everyone's reading is different, and therein lies the editorial voice.

Planetkyoto is right: Rick Ellis deserves great credit for his pMachine CMS. In the past, I've done this site using hand-coding (which I prefer when I have the time), PHP-Nuke and PostNuke, but pMachine was the tipping point which permitted me to relaunch World New York. In order to justify relaunching the site, I needed to know that it would not take hours every day. One way to do this is to reduce the amount of back-end support and the technical endeavors required. pMachine does that; no more mercilessly hacking PHP or Perl in order to get something inoffensive and functional. I've paid the voluntary fee to Rick and thanked him in email. It's good stuff, and I recommend it.

I'm not much bothered that the layout is so close to the pMachine default. By coincidence, that default layout is very close to the past layouts of World New York which I derived on my own. Anyone who remembers the old site will recognize that. And again, by only simplifying an existing layout, I reduce the time I have to piddle with the site. And anyway, it's about content, not appearance. I'd expect that most of the traffic will, eventually, come by the XML feed. I had planned to relaunch with *only* an XML feed, but it required too much daily hand-coding, and thus, too much time.

Regarding Kottke & Co.: He has nothing to do with this. It would be a better site, I'm sure, if he did.

As for whether it lives up to donkeyschlong's expectations, or anyone else's, well, time will tell.
posted by Mo Nickels at 6:27 AM on December 22, 2002

We're thrilled to have you back (and thanks for the thoughtful statement above).
posted by RJ Reynolds at 8:58 AM on December 22, 2002

This is the best web-related news I've seen since the last time World New York returned, and the best MeFi post since Get Your War On.
posted by sudama at 11:59 AM on December 22, 2002

lets all go stand around and gawk at it.
posted by quonsar at 3:35 PM on December 22, 2002