We have over 30 Contributing Editors here at DocuDharma and the reason I won’t list them is that I don’t want to encourage judgement on the basis of activity. Many of them are busier behind the scenes than in front of the curtain. Others have had commitments that have called them away temporarily. Some left to be free to express some rather unpopular positions that they thought would be damaging to the blog (at least that was the excuse).
There are few positions too unpopular to express here.
Most of them I think simply forgot, or lost their muse, or are busy with their own real life thing (fancy that).
It’s something to commit to one piece of original content a month, a week, or EVERY SINGLE DAY WHAT WAS I THINKING!
Sorry. I hear voices sometimes.
And I think that scares people off, thinking that we’re some kind of insane Jann Wenner taskmasters cracking the whip with deadlines and threatening to cut off your expense account. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. Nor does it have to be a masterpiece, but it does have your name on top and maybe I’m just more comfortable churning out crap than most.
Coming soon we’re going to change the table of organization and have more Guest Bloggers and announce some new Contributing Editors.
Both of them have the same special powers, those of posting directly to the Front Page and promoting other essays to it (OTB points out below this is not the way the software works. That is just flat wrong. It’s the way it should work and we will just have to fix the culture instead.) (More thoughts- if labels concern you call them “Guest Contributors”, “Guest Editors” and “Contributing Editors”. The distinction is in the roles we expect them to fill.). We ask them both to join the Admin Forum and participate in the scheduling of the site by observing some common courtesy-
- Please check here before publishing (or promoting).
- Please leave a note that you ARE publishing (or promoting).
- Please give the previous author at least one hour at the top of the Front Page.
- If you have committed to a time please publish on time.
- If you are promoting an essay please note the time of promotion in the promotion comment.
Some shun the limelight and chose to hide it under a basket (how’s THAT for mixing meta4s). They post on the right like every regular user.
Let’s talk about regular users for a moment.
You may have noticed as a regular poster on DocuDharma that regular essays on DocuDharma regularly get promoted to the Front Page. It is a reflection of the excellent content provided by our regular users.
Some blogs are “celebrity” blogs. Just a few voices dominate. Here I think we have a really wide variety of content, and quite a bit of it too. That’s one of the reasons there are so many slots, 14 a day on a consistent basis up to 24 under the 1 hour rule.
There are people who contribute daily. mishima and Magnifico and Robyn are the skeleton that the rest of DocuDharma hangs on.
Also the Pony Party. pfiore8 deserves a lot of credit for organizing and coordinating perhaps the most important part of DocuDharma, it’s heart and soul so to speak. This too is a team effort and that is the essential core of what makes us tick.
We are a team blog.
We don’t have authoritarian structures. We’re not tied down to any particular hierarchy.
I expect the discussion to dissolve into a nomination of this or that member for Contributing Editor but in fact it’s a continuing process. The real question is-
Are you prepared to contribute?
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Talk amongst yourselves.
YOU are really The. Very. Best.
thanks ever so much!
♥~
sometimes i see you ( or buhdy or robyn or….) put up an essay just like anyone else.
what, in your opinion, is the difference between front page material…& just stuff you want to say?
I just logged in as one to verify what options they have.
A GB can only post to the FP. They can’t Promote or Edit essays. It doesn’t look like they can auto-post either. This might affect the plans.
suck as a CE …… the whole real life thing has been kicking my ass lately.
But have I mentioned lately how fascinating and inpsirational you are ekmaster???????? ( I hear that pea under the walnut trick still works….)
…although I have the capacity to contribute directly to the front page, I rarely do that. Sometimes I used to do it by acccident; lately, I’m careful to ensure that no such accidents happen — primarily because several of the relatively few recent contributions haven’t been FP worthy.
Sometimes, I’m simply posting a blurb (or blurbette) about a piece I’d done for ePluribus Media or pointing folks there for a couple of pieces that others had done which I think readers here will enjoy. Those are items I’d ~never~ front page; they’re not appropriate.
Sometimes I’ve posted items here that are crossposted to multiple locations; in those instances, I’ll ~usually~ post only to the right and let others make the call about whether it should be FP’d, as it’s not DD-only in nature.
When time and circumstance permit, I hope to have more DD-only pieces to contribute, some of which I may presume are worthy of FP status, but even then I’ll try to avoid popping something up if someone else has just updated.
I’ve got serious time constraints of late, which inhibit and sometimes outright prevent me from participating as much as I’d like, so until I feel I can devote proper time to DD I’ll almost ~always~ post solely to the right-hand column.
That’s just where I’m at right now, and I’d rather see some of the other great stuff hitting the front page from some of the wonderful contributors who grace this page.
Like ek, fer example. (not that I’m a kissass or anything)
I’m trying to pack up my life and move clear across the country to take a new job. It’s been a little hectic.
But I promised, I’ll be in and settled by mid August at the latest. Then I plan on remedying my really poor participation here. :/
I hereby nominate anyone crazy enough to take the gig.
I think that whomever you CE’s are, you are doing a fantastic job of keeping this place running as well as identifying important essays and promoting them so all here will have an opportunity to “have them in their face” for a few minutes and perhaps take the time to read what lies within.
Thank you to all of you who contribute.
My experience here has been mostly upbeat and comfortable due to all that you do.
are recommends not ‘sticking’ the last couple weeks?
i went to a couple essays yesterday & rec’d comments (& essays)
today some are rec’d some are not….
whats going on?
is this just me?
(I did the f5 thing, no change)
in my hotel room.
I expect, if called upon, a crew of Cabana Boys willing to serve my every whim, and my whims often are of the “clean my house” nature as well as the more entertaining ones.
Oh.
My ponies will only eat first-cut hay, and want no more than 10% corn in their sweet feed.
I suppose if a few Blue M&M’s slip in unnoticed, I would forgive it, but absolutely NONE of those other colors, I say!
I am a Diva, after all.
Buwahahahahahaha.
It’s been several decades since my last confession.
I do apologize, ek, for the way real life has interposed itself upon my bloggery this summer – fwiw, I’ve been dropping balls everywhere, not just here. I think things are settling down to the point that I can commit to my regular Sunday night gig from this point forward, though there might be a rough patch around Labor Day (when a new horde of teenagers barges into my classroom and starts demanding that I give them “A”s).
Guilt gnaws at me like a rat at the toes of a wretch in the Hole of Calcutta at my recent and prolonged lack of participation. It’s tiny teeth stripping away the flesh bite by bite until the bone is exposed. Creating, in the pockets of still living tissue, green, bilious pus-filled…..ok, I think perhaps I have exhausted that metaphor!
Despite your imprecations for more participation, which I heartily support, (despite the state of my toes) I want to thank everyone for their contributions, particularly NPK and the bang up job she has been doing with promotions. (harder than it looks!)
It seems like a whole gob of us have been undergoing ….changes…. that have limited or changed our ability to contribute. Despite that, the blog rolls on!
This place rocks, and even though we are coming up to the first anniversary, we are just getting started!
Apology to Emily for last line. Could not resist.
for missing so many Pony Party slots… Been travelling waaaay too much.
Eek!