First some history. IP-Wars was started because Groklaw's message boards were seen as undemocratic and intolerant. I'm not going to get into the arguments as to whether Groklaw's policies are a good or bad thing, it's been argued ad nauseum on this site and Yahoo's SCO message boards. The point is that this site was created as a Groklaw alternative with democratic & tolerant article promotion and comments. True, it is democratic & tolerant, but it is failing as a Groklaw alternative.

Why do I go to Groklaw? Why is Groklaw the success it is? Why does IP-Wars.net not compete? Answer: Human resources.

I break it down into the following points:

1. PJ offers legal insight. Most Groklaw readers are techies, not lawyers. The readers already know the tech, they want to know the law. There are some lawyer-types that submit articles on IP-Wars.net, but most submitters don't have legal training, and none are as prolific as PJ. IP-Wars has too many techie articles that are not law related. Besides IP-Wars drifting offtopic it's not ever going to compete with O'Reilly, Newsforge, Slashdot, ... etc, so shouldn't bother trying.

2. Groklaw articles are timely. Groklaw often breaks the news. PJ knows how to obtain legal documents quickly and has minions helping her. She can post articles as soon as they're ready, and she is always available to write them. IP-Wars.net's democratic article promotion is slow. Democracy is inefficient. People go to Groklaw for breaking news. If you want to compete with Groklaw you need to break news, and a "breaking news" message board thread is not the way to do it.

3. Coverage. PJ is nothing if not prolific. She writes about every single thing that occurs in the techie IP world. I marvel at her dedication. Does she sleep? If that sleazy article by Maureen O'Gara is to be believed PJ is probably retired and has the time on her hands. Most of the rest of us go to work or school, have other priorities, and can't dedicate our life to IP-Wars. There are some very important stories out there that don't even get a mention on IP-Wars because nobody (myself included) writes an article.

4. Attention holding. PJ's articles are usually more interesting than those on IP-Wars.net. She has a knack for journalism and an ability to explain to us non-lawyers without putting us to sleep. I haven't seen that ability on IP-Wars (with a few exceptions). PJ has a journalistic talent that most of us (myself included) don't have and will never possess.

1. Less knowledgeable (in terms of the law)
   
2. Less immediate
   
3. Sparse in terms of coverage
   
4. Less interesting
   

Note that I didn't mention the message boards as a reason I go to Groklaw. I think very few people go to Groklaw for the comments. They may glance over them while they're there, but it's not the draw of Groklaw. You aren't going to get the audience Groklaw has simply by making the comments section democratic and tolerant. The reason that people go to Groklaw is the articles and the articles alone.

So what to do?

1. Accept the fact that you aren't going to compete with Groklaw in terms of articles. The authors here (myself included) don't have the time, dedication, knowledge, and talent that PJ has.

2. Remove the need to publish articles. Link to other articles instead. That is, change the site to be a central portal with comments (ala Slashdot) rather than published-article centric (ala Kuro5hin). This will allow readers to submit articles from elsewhere. You'll need to change the software you use to run this site from Scoop to something like Slashcode. You may want to keep the ability to publish full articles, so perhaps keep the current Scoop-based site, but have it as a link off the front Slashcode portal site. When a new article is published you can put a Slashdot-like link on the front page just like it was a link to an article on any another website.

3. The articles submitted to the Slashcode portal front page need to be approved for publishing by one or more benevolent dictators (Jeff & probably a few others). That is, remove the democracy from publishing the submitted stories for the front-page. In terms of publishing, urgency is more important than keeping the majority happy. Keep the tolerance for the comment section.

1. Someone to run the site
   
2. An audience who submit links
   
3. Someone to approve the submissions for publication