Editorial Parameters?
One of the things that I’ve meant to do here is have a little chaos now and then, and see what emerges. One type of chaos that I’ve been aiming for is carefully selected guest bloggers. In talking to someone about that, he asked:
What are the editorial parameters? Looking to avoid a possible “I let you babysit my kld, and you fill his mind with all sorts of insane ideas!” situation.
So, to be honest, I’m not really sure. So I’d like your thoughts.
My parameters are:
- Don’t do stuff to get my nice hosts in trouble. Some friends host
this blog. Don’t make them angry by posting copyrighted stuff,
obscenity, etc. Keep it work-safe. - Stay mostly on security, privacy, economics, liberty and pink bunnies on mountaintops. Chaos doesn’t do well under really strict rules.
- Say interesting stuff. If you can’t say interesting stuff, post in categories, like “breaches.”
- Emote. There are threads that run through here. I think they’re important threads, and sometimes, even when I have nothing to add, I link to people spinning new threads. (I often feel this way in linking to Rebecca MacKinnon, who I think is doing terrifically important stuff, and I often don’t have a lot to add, except pay attention to what she’s saying.)
I’d love feedback from my readership. How do you perceive what I’m writing? Is that a good list? Permutation is both dangerous and useful. Change helps get us out of routines, and can help or hurt. So please, as I we experiment, please, give us, or me, feedback.
Adam,
I think you post too frequently. I like your longer posts (the Star Wars idea is awesome) where it is more than a link-quote followed by a one-liner. The short ones just push the good ones down to oblivion way too early to give them a chance to be discussed thoroughly. Of course, frequency relates to amount of regular readers. The idea is to maximize exposure to good posts. I don’t know how many readers you have and perhaps you are running at the right pace.
Here’s One For Jon
Emergent Chaos is mulling over a nearly freeform epistemological skunkworks, with pink bunnies on mountaintops.
I disagree. More is good. Though I do understand the desire to split links from essays.
I’ve considered going to a group blog before. And I managed one at Deus ex Culina. It’s like hearding cats, a lot of work getting consistent posts. Plus, when I had a guest blogger when I took an extended vacation, people thought I’d moved, because the fact that someone else was posting was lost on them.
Frankly, it’s very difficult to find people who are good enough writers and who agree with you enough to want them to post on your blog.
Regarding subject matter, your blog is excellent, at times a bit technical for me, and I enjoy the occasional diversions. Then again, my blog has come to be more diversions than content, something which may happen to you one day when you suffer from teh inevitable blog burnout.
But until then, keep up the good work!