A bureaucrat writes...
As we approach the half-way stage of this project, I have a few observations on USH to date which are:
* No-one who has asked to join up has been refused;
* While Alison and me have moderating responsibilities,nothing posted here to date has needed any moderation, which is the way things should be;
* All things considered, I think the standards of postings to date on the site are remarkably high;
* Anyone who does not have a link listed and wants one should let me know;
* Andrew has suggested to me that we could get a book out of this and he's right, though I cannot commit to undertaking that venture personally;
* I think this type of communal weblog renders the traditional mailing list pretty much redundant.
While I hesitate to, in the words of Joe Jackson, "think about the end when it's only just the start*" I have a suggestion re the future. It was always intended that this community would have a limited life, but it would seem a shame to ditch the concept altogether.
My idea would be that after a rest period of a few weeks, somebody else sets up a summer site and takes on the admin role. This gives people the chance to opt out if they wish to and also to attract folks from other communities who might not otherwise be exposed to the site. It also enables those of you who are more creative and design savvy than me to come up with a new format.
If this went well, maybe someone else could then take on an autumn version and so on. In summary, it would be much like the rotating EU Presidency but without the translators, rows about the Common Agricultural Policy and Peter Mandelson.
Comments and suggestions re this idea are welcome.
And that's enough admin rambling for this evening.
* "Is she really going out with him" for those of you apart from Alison, John B and Paul M who were wondering...
P.S. David, Eric and Ed are right on the button about f/k/a btw - would have posted this over there but my comments keep following your weathervane south...
As we approach the half-way stage of this project, I have a few observations on USH to date which are:
* No-one who has asked to join up has been refused;
* While Alison and me have moderating responsibilities,nothing posted here to date has needed any moderation, which is the way things should be;
* All things considered, I think the standards of postings to date on the site are remarkably high;
* Anyone who does not have a link listed and wants one should let me know;
* Andrew has suggested to me that we could get a book out of this and he's right, though I cannot commit to undertaking that venture personally;
* I think this type of communal weblog renders the traditional mailing list pretty much redundant.
While I hesitate to, in the words of Joe Jackson, "think about the end when it's only just the start*" I have a suggestion re the future. It was always intended that this community would have a limited life, but it would seem a shame to ditch the concept altogether.
My idea would be that after a rest period of a few weeks, somebody else sets up a summer site and takes on the admin role. This gives people the chance to opt out if they wish to and also to attract folks from other communities who might not otherwise be exposed to the site. It also enables those of you who are more creative and design savvy than me to come up with a new format.
If this went well, maybe someone else could then take on an autumn version and so on. In summary, it would be much like the rotating EU Presidency but without the translators, rows about the Common Agricultural Policy and Peter Mandelson.
Comments and suggestions re this idea are welcome.
And that's enough admin rambling for this evening.
* "Is she really going out with him" for those of you apart from Alison, John B and Paul M who were wondering...
P.S. David, Eric and Ed are right on the button about f/k/a btw - would have posted this over there but my comments keep following your weathervane south...
posted by mattm at 1:17 PM
7 Comments:
A fair summing up. I suspect there's still a role for workshop style mailing lists, and edited print journals too. I'd say each have a different, but complementary, role to play. However, I do think much creative energy will be going the blog way in future.
I think the blog has been a very good idea.
That it has a finite life of about two months means that the creative impulse can be kept going and sustained. It is not so short as to put pressure on people, but not too long that it runs out of steam.
It is quite different from a mailing list and certainly no substitute. Everything on the blog is published and the whole thing is a collection.
On the mailing list one can post unfinished work for critique and the work remains unpublished to used elsewhere.
I'm certainly enjoying viewing the work here and developing a penchant for haiga with one-line haiku.
Keeping a blog like this going for too long though would alter its nature I think.
Good summation. This is a fine project and the blog format has worked well for it. I was just wondering if this project was going to be archived on some ukku website, but I guess it can become a "permablog" archive itself. Put it with three others, summmer, autumn, winter, and you have a permablog world saijiki !
Anyway, great fun. I, for one, am interested in playing in the next sandbox.
i am very humbled to be part of this project and would love to be a part of a summer solstice celebration project.
go dustin go, do the summer page!
Thanks for the comments, Dustin, the summer baton is yours and apologies to Jason and anyone else whose knowledge of Joe Jackson lyrics I overlooked.
Thanks for the updates Matt, and many thanks to everyone for this Spring blog.
Many thanks to Dustin for taking on the next, Summer, blog, very much appreciated!
I'm really enjoying the community feel of this blog. Would love to be part of the summer one. Thanks Dustin for volunteering to be the admin person!
Sangeet
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