Don't Panic

Don't Panic

Type	Alliance Newsletter
Format	Web Publication
Editor-in-Chief	Rugby
Founded	October 14, 2006
Alliance	Mostly Harmless Alliance
Circulation	43 Editions

Don't Panic is the official newsletter of the Mostly Harmless Alliance. It is published each month by the Don't Panic crew. It has two version each month, the Internal and External Versions. The Internal Version is published on the alliance's private forums, and contains confidential information pertaining to the alliance's workings. The External Version, however, is published across foreign alliance's forums and posted on the Cyber Nations forums (OWF) as a public update of the alliance.

Common Sections[]

In the most recent editions a uniform standard has formed where the main section are: Headlines, Elections, Within the Alliance, Around the CN World, Interviews, and Just for Fun. However, in previous editions the structuring of the newsletter was much less defined and much less standardized. One thing that remains the same throughout all previous editions is the reporting of elections, another common section that has been in nearly every edition is an interview of someone.

History[]

First Editions[]

The first editions were mainly focused on the reporting of current wars, recent elections, and a fun interview. They also were big campaign ads for the Aqua senate candidate that the Mostly Harmless Alliance was supporting. Over time, a new, more frequent newsletter, the Weekly Towel, formed, reporting on wars and treaties which involved the Mostly Harmless Alliance. As Team Senate elections began to be less important on the international scene and advertised in subtler ways, this function of the Don't Panic also began to be phased out.

Intermediate Editions[]

The second line of editions began to focus more heavily on elections, interviews, and vogon poetry. While these editions still campaigned the Mostly Harmless Alliance team senate candidate, there was a new flavor to the newsletter. Because of the decrease in information, the frequency of publications of these editions increased to weekly. At this point, the editions were mostly handled by the Minister of Bad Poetry (Communications), since it fell under that portfolio. It quickly became the primary method of informing the alliance of current events such as the moving of the Mostly Harmless Alliance forums. It was near the end of the second grouping of editions that the newsletter began to be split into the two Internal and External Versions.

Modern Editions[]

Scytale helped to create the first modern edition of Don't Panic by using the current headings system, by opening up the writing and editing of the paper to a less exclusive group, and by increasing the volume of the editions, as well as period of time between publications. The systems, traditions, and precedents that are in use today were established by these first few articles in the modern line of editions which began with Edition 22 of Don't Panic.

Staff[]

The Editor-in-Chief of Don't Panic is Rugby, who assumed the position from Pourquoi. It has been held by others previously, notably Dynasty, Scytale, IYIyth, John Mathews, and Dragonmack. The current Don't Panic staff consists of Dynasty, Pourquoi, Scytale, Rugby, Doctor Oct, Neptunebyte, and Gunther.

Readers[]

Volume of Readers[]

For the first publications of Don't Panic, there were only a few readers for most of the information, besides some for entertainment were already easily available to the public. However, since the start of the modern editions where the newsletter developed staff who were willing to go out of their way to bring information, promotions, and fun, the volume of readers has vastly increased. During the second line of editions roughly only 30-50 people would read an edition, today closer to 75-100 people and beyond might read an edition. Much of this can be attributed to the increase in the amount of content and the publication of the newsletter in more public places like the OWF.

Type of Readers[]

There are all sorts of readers, including Mostly Harmless Alliance members and allies as well as other Cyber Nations Forums readers. As such, it is very hard to give a proper demographic of the readers of Don't Panic.

Different Versions[]

Internal[]

The Internal Version of Don't Panic is larger and more complete than the External Version. It consists of every article in an edition and is published only to the members of the Mostly Harmless Alliance. It generally holds information which is internally oriented, confidential, and more useful to actual members as opposed to foreigners.

External[]

The External Version of Don't Panic is smaller, focused on things that should and can be seen by anyone. It consists of many of the articles in the Internal Version and is posted on the OWF. This edition is also posted in a few of the Mostly Harmless Alliance's embassies across the cyberverse. This version generally holds information pertaining to the Mostly Harmless Alliance's government, foreign affairs, and general information, while it also includes all of the fun articles like hoaxes and vogon poetry.

Previously Lost Editions[]

Due to the massive amount of movement and trauma that came with the shift of the Mostly Harmless Alliance forums, editions 1—8 were thought to have been lost. However, during the construction of the Mostly Harmless Alliance's Library, all eight editions were discovered by toffe.