Following up with beat writers

[Max Spevack]

On Mon, 7 Jul 2008, Oisin Feeley wrote:

> It would be ideal if the Beat author would mark the table as complete. 
> Less work for us, keeps the responsibility with the primary content 
> producer (who is the one that knows best what the situation is).  All 
> we have to do is to clear the table after each issue is posted out.
>
> I don't think I understand why we would include empty beats in a ToC 
> or am I misunderstanding? Would be sending out a newsletter that has 
> multiple empty sections with headings for them and a piece of 
> stub-text saying "nothing this week"?

An empty beat should not be included in the final issue, IMHO.  Part of 
the process of moving from the Overview Page to the IssueXYZ page is to 
cull un-written beats.

Here's how I'd use the beats table:

1) as soon as an issue is released, an editor-type changes the date to 
the next deadline day, and marks every beat as "INCOMPLETE".

2) Beats that don't have a writer are marked as "NO WRITER".

3) Beats that have a writer but aren't happening that week, for whatever 
reason, are marked as "NOT HAPPENING".

4) Beats that are in progress are marked "IN PROGRESS".

5) Beats that are finished are marked "COMPLETE" along with a note to 
list.

My .02,
Max