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I wrote a couple of articles on the Healthcare.gov software
development disaster, and I'm looking for advice on the best way to
submit them to CodeProject.
I did three months of research, interviewing developers and
whistleblowers, and reviewing numerous media reports. I'm not a
mainstream journalist, but I was a tech journalist for years, as well
as being a senior software engineer. As far as I know, I'm the only
journalist who has done such a thorough technical review of what
happened.
The first article is a journalistic treatment:
** Healthcare.gov -- The greatest software development disaster in history
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.i.hcgov150823.htm
The second article contains "lessons learned" for managing software
development projects, and dealing with project stakeholders who either
are incompetent or who actually try to sabotage the project. This
article is targeted to managers, researchers, and academics, and
contains a lot of technical information that would be useful to both
programmers and managers:
** For academics: Dysfunction, subversion, sabotage and fraud in software development projects
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.i.academic150823.htm
The following is my daily World View column, which summarizes the
above two articles:
** 23-Aug-15 World View -- Fraud and subversion in Healthcare.gov - the greatest IT disaster in history
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/xct.gd.e150823.htm#e150823
I would appreciate any advice on the best way to submit these
articles to CodeProject.
Thanks.
John J. Xenakis
john@jxenakis.com
john@generationaldynamics.com
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It looks like you've done a lot of good research, but the articles seemed structured more like opinion pieces than technical articles. They are also too long to read in one sitting.
I think if you'd like to make a technical article, you should narrow the focus of the document to the technical issues, and then allude to the political problems, fraud, and mismanagement as contributing factors rather than as the main topic themselves. Furthermore, the article should be much shorter.
On a side note, the official name for "Obamacare" is the "Affordable Care Act". Generally, you want your first reference a piece of legislation to be its official name rather than its popular nickname.
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I am not sure that your articles are relevant here. CodeProject is for technical discussions and articles. What you have written is more about bad management in a government department, probably more relevant to a newspaper or civil service journal.
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OK, thanks for your responses. I had thought you covered software
development management issues as well.
By the way, as you say, the "Affordable Care Act" is the name of a
piece of legislation. The word "Obamacare" is more than a popular
nickname. It's the name endorsed by Obama himself to describe its
implementation. My article is not about a piece of legislation. It's
about the implementation, and especially the web site implementation.
Thanks again.
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John J. Xenakis wrote: I had thought you covered software development management issues as well.
Not really, very few people here have anything more than a passing interest in such issues.
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Just out of curiosity I checked out one the first of links... And immediately turned back.
I'd recommend changing the font. Arial Black isn't designed to be used for text paragraphs. At least for me, it's highly irritating to read, as each word was screaming for attention.
I'd also stick to black color for the text.
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This is an interesting issue. I chose Arial Black over ten years ago
because it's the easiest to read. Most of the people who read my web
site are knowledgeable and interested in international and
geopolitical issues, which means that they're older, and their
eyesight isn't always the best. I know from personal experience that
there are many web sites that are absolutely gorgeous to look at but
almost impossible to read because of font and color choices.
Interestingly enough, in all these years, you're only the second
person in all these years to complain about the font.
With all the crises going on in the world, I make a point of spending
all my time on content, without worrying too much about web site
format, since the people who visit my web site every day do so for the
analytical content.
On the other hand, I'm considering digging back into the code in order
to make the pages more mobile-friendly. When I do that, I'll ask some
people whether they think that I should change the font and color.
Thanks for your suggestion.
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I have the following problem: August 22, 2015 I've posted an article using the CodeProject composer and it was successfully approved. Then, the next day, I needed to upload more files to my article and I've updated it and submitted for approval. But, since, there was *NO* approval for this article. Now, in the CodeProject there're two articles available for reading. All article discussions are placed in the article's new revision web page.
Can you approve my article and solve this problem ??
Thanks. 
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Arthur V. Ratz wrote: Can you approve my article and solve this problem ??
We have explained to you a number of times how the approval system works here. Articles are placed in the queue for review and approval by CodeProject members, who do so in their own time (and timezone). Please be patient.
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Thanks for the reply. I'll keep that in mind and never will post the questions like that.
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Arthur V. Ratz wrote: I'll keep that in mind and never will post the questions like that.
Which is precisely what you said last time:
I will never spam the forum with that question.
I will no longer raise the questions like that.
Your definition of "never" seems to be "slightly over a month". 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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You're absolutely right. I've understood, but I've posted this message solely because it seemed to me a kind of strange that it's something wrong with the CodeProject composer, so that it publishes the two revisions of article simultaineously and one of them is marked as "pending". Even more, the new discussions under the article web page are displayed in only one page, in which the new pending article was published. You know, it's hard to find the discussion posts when you've got two seperated pages with the previous and the new revisions.
The other words, I've posted that message because, I've found that something's wrong with the composer.
I promise that again, that I'll never place the question like that, prior to the article was approved.
Thanks for clarification.
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Hello, I've submitted the article three days ago http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1019392/Creating-Complex-Forms-with-Webix[^]
I'd like to know is it ok if the article hasn't been approved yet taking into consideration that I posted it on August, 17.
May be there are some troubles with the design of my article. I am not sure about it. This is my first artcile on your website. Could you please help me?
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Your article is still marked as in "Composing" status; you need to update it to "Available".
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Ok, today I've posted it. When will it be published?
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When the community approves it - you do know that we're all volunteers don't you?
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Please read the article FAQs[^], and maybe even the general CodeProject FAQs. Considering that when published your article will be available to millions of people for years to come, a few days extra wait before publication is really no big deal.
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Ok. sorry for this question.
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Any reason it is marked as deleted now?
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
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Hi guys,
Recently I became a GOLD Author, and I received the privilege to "Approve/Disapprove a pending Article". I have searched all FAQs, but I was not able to find a guide how to do it.
Can you please provide me some guidelines how can I approve and disapprove pending articles?
Further, is this possible process for the minor changes done in my articles?
Thank you in advance for the answers!
Anton
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A list of items that need approval can be found on the homepage[^].
Anton Angelov wrote: Further, is this possible process for the minor changes done in my articles?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but if you're asking whether minor changes also go through moderation: yes, all changes you make go through moderation, unless you are a Platinum Author. Platinum Authors can publish articles without requiring moderation.
The quick brown ProgramFOX jumps right over the Lazy<Dog>.
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Moderating articles is quite simple:
On the CP start page on the right is the section "n items need approval". Hover over it and select an article. It will be opened for moderation. Read it and check if it can be approved or not (hover over the check mark to select the report type). If you have suggestions or questions, you can write a comment using the forum on the bottom. Comments will not be shown with the final version (when using the upper forum for updated articles).
I was just about to do that with your pending article. It was a Blog and is now in the Article moderation. So I reported it as "Wrong type".
When an article is updated, it must be approved again even when there are only minor changings.
This is how I check articles:
- Check if it is obviously spam, abusive, or off topic
- Check for plagiarism by feeding some sentences to a search machine
- Check for copyright issues (images, photos)
- Check if it is in a special section (contest, third party tools, book recommendation) which may have less restrictive approving rules
- Check for external images and downloads (should be hosted at CP if not blog)
- Check if the type matches (e.g. too short for an article)
- Check the formatting
- Skip articles where I don't know much about the topic
- Check the content (poor quality, misleading, incomplete)
Upon one of the first two points I report also the user and post a message to the Spam and Abuse Watch forum if there is none so far.
When not approving an article, I will add a short comment at the report popup.
If necessary I will post a comment to the article forum.
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This answer was so good I linked it in the article FAQ for the moderation entry. Thank you for such a great answer!
Thanks,
Sean Ewington
CodeProject
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Thank you for the detailed answer. I haven't noticed this section on the main page until now. I was a little bit confused because I was not able to find this is the FAQ.
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