Ever heard of 2600 Magazine? If you're in the hacker scene the answer is defintely yes, but what about Blacklisted 411! ? They had the same format as 2600 Magazine but they didn't do nearly as well. Why? The simple answer was finances. Whereas 2600 gives you nice swag for your articles, BL411 was
paying people for their pieces and got really backlogged in their paying out
of what they owed the contributors. The thing is, with the hacker scene, is people really like doing things for free and may actually take offense that
you want to "buy them" for some work. Its mixed, I mean cash is cash and
that can get you some gear or kit, but other times the authors just like the idea of being in print.

So what can we learn from the BL411 failure? First off is delegate and encourage free contributions. Second is to make the time to do your
editing and compilation. If you've got a great project and not enough time
to commit to the project that project is not going to do well.

I have to take this advice to heart myself. I've been suffering from exhaustion and having lots of other stuff on my plate, like school and work
and church. If I don't get back into editing for the Sp00knet I'm going to
get an earful from my friend Pequito. Trust me, you don't want that, loosing respect from a friend is not cool. So I have learned that I need to spend a good amount of time every day or two on the Sp00knet rather than leaving it
to some time in the indefinite future. When you get stuff done asap its a
lot easier on you in the future; cramming = migraines or even more exhaustion.

So, BL411, will we make the same mistakes? Well, not if we apply what we've learned. History is so important because if you don't know your history you are bound to make the same mistakes as your forefathers, but in understanding history you can see where things are getting choppy and avoid the coming
storm. One of the worst things about the BL411 disaster was how awesome the magazine really was. If it sucked it wouldn't be much of an issue, but its content was really intriguing. The same thing is (at least I believe) the
case with the Sp00knet, its highly entertaining but it needs tending, commitment, and dedication. Lets keep the articles coming! I've learnt my history lesson.

Cheers!
-wf

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