September 2012 Socialist Standard

Looks good…..if it gets delivered…….?

I meant, I again haven’t received my subscription copy before the online version is out. Of course, this is no big shakes, but if we publish online before subscription copies are sent out, then perhaps subscribers may think why they bother. Then they’ll stop subscribing, reading The Standard instead for free, online. Then another income source for the Party dries up.I know the SPGB has legacies, etc. but they won’t fund everything forever and all the while we are under capitalism, spreading the word costs money and it would be foolish to keep shooting ourselves in the feet about these matters. The written Standard is important not only historical, but as a tool that can be passed around, left in libraries etc – relying on digital versions further shrinks our cause to the cyber world which often bears no relation to reality – the workng class are online, but we don’t live here…..

Hi there,If the E.C. / Conference decided to instruct the Internet Dept to hold back on a full digital version, then it would be easy enough to sort out. As things stand, the new Standard gets uploaded in advance, with all articles held in a ‘schedule’ due for publication on the 1st of each month. That could easily be changed to the 8th, for example, and thus give time for hard copies to arrive. Perhaps only the editorial and a selected article could be published on the 1st, or nothing at all as the case may be.  

I strongly disagree with artificially delaying the PDF publication. Not only would it be out of step with most other propaganda publications with a modern web strategy from a similar milieu (Weekly Worker, Socialist Worker, Occupied Times of London etc.), it rests on the outdated assumption that the publication exists to provide an income for the party.It seems difficult enough to have late enough deadlines ensuring the Standard is contemporary and current as it is, let alone imposing an artificial delay on the basis that the Standard is a funding source for the party.Print subscribers probably buy the Standard because they like it in print (which will generally be cheaper in large print-runs than small print-runs), or because they dislike reading on a screen. Even if the PDF was artificially delayed, there’s nothing to stop print-editions being scanned in by anyone and shared under Creative Commons license.Something more creative will be required for a strategy in future, not a defence of old proprietal publication traditional methods.