"Columnist Corner" - read in please

[mouser]

We were thinking about the possibility of setting up a section where we might have a couple blogs related to software.  the idea would be to have like some virtual "columnists", just a few, who might make an occasional blog-like post relating to some new program they found and liked, or maybe just some general comments on some software issue.

we like the idea of having things that are like weekly events so that people can depend on them and come to read them regularly, so it would be like, you'd know that every sunday you could come check out person X's column to see what they wrote about, it might be their thoughts on a specific program or on some issue in general, like an opinion column.  these would be really short posts, just like blog entries.  we would even use blog software in order to make updaing it easily for the "columnists".

thoughts on this? Maybe one or two people on this forum feels like having a column would be something they would be good at?  you wouldnt be doing long comprehensive reviews, just short little entertaining posts on something that interested you in the software world.  could be fun  or could end up being a burden to have to write a column entry each week 

probably i'm getting carried away but i was just thinking it might be fun to have like 7 columnists/bloggers, one for each day of the week, so that every day there would be one (and only one) new post to read.  We could call the section like "Columnist Corner" or "Opinion Central", with a nice hub page showing a lbutton ink for each day of the week/columnist.  heh the more i write about it the more i like it, but that's what usually happens to me at night and then i wake up and wonder wtf i was thinking.

thoughts?

ps. am i the only one who thinks that the Message Icon list needs to have more icons? i'll look into it.  maybe add some more smilies to the [more] list as well.

[mouser]

sample front page for what i was thinking:
https://www.donation...m/Columns/index.html

[nudone]

i think i would be up for it mouser - depending on what you think will be the final criteria necessary.

i've downloaded and tried hundreds (maybe thousands i suppose) of programs found and shellcity and nonags. my first port of call each day is shellcity to see what people have developed, where i'll then download and try the software that sounds most interesting - so, i've got an opinion on most types of utils.

i'm perhaps not completely unbiased as i'll tend to favour the free software. i like to think i've experienced enough to know what's wrong with the windows GUI and programs that run on it, so can probably provide constructive critism in the 'usability' area.

if the structure of the blog wasn't set in concrete then i hope i could fit the bill. perhaps i'm just letting my ego get carried away. 

[mouser]

nudone i've only "known" you for a couple of days so far but i have the impression that you would be perfect for this.

opinions are good.
focusing on freeware is good.

my idea for the "columns" is that they would just be some thoughts on some aspect of software - you could choose whatever topics you wanted.  we wouldn't have any desire to judge or censor or in any way effect what the columnists/bloggers write.  It would just be a little corner of our website where you could write about some aspect related in some way to software, once per week.

the main thing would be that you be able to commit to posting once per week. every week, on a given day, as i am thinking that that would be the theme of the columnist corner, that each column comes out on a specific day of the week, just to make it kind of like "appointment browsing", so people know that each day they will have a new blog entry to read, and so that fans of a particular columnist can know that every monday will be nudone's new column, and every tuesday will be jibz' new column, etc.

[nudone]

sounds great. i have no excuse to not be able to write at least once a week so no problem there.

i best start jotting some ideas down ready for when you give the go ahead.

[mouser]

check the new member group description under your name, and the sample columnist page 

[nudone]

  oh, that is sooooo cool. thanks for that mouser. i hope i can provide an interesting read.

i see that i'm scheduled for tuesday - will that be tomorrow or next week.

[mouser]

def. not tomorrow.
i still have to set up some nice blogging software and get everything integrated properly into the site.
probably next tuesday if you're up for it.

it doesn't have to be tuesday either - you can pick which day of the week you'd prefer (mon thru fri).

[nudone]

next tuesday will be fine with me.

[mouser]

sounds great.

eventually what we'd like to do, if we have more people contributing actual content to the site in a real way (like columnists), is figure out a way for donaters to be able to indicate that some of their donation should go to a certain aspect of the site.  so that maybe a donater would say, 50% of my $10 donation should go to the columnists.  Then 5 columninsts would split $5 and get $1 each from that donation.  its going to take some time to get that set up since paypal is of no use and we will have to write some scripts and figure out how to deal with it all.  when you add the fact that the money coming in so far is probably just enough to cover web hosting fees and not much more, you're not missing out on anything.   but that's the basic idea of what we'd like to set up eventually.  for now though columnists will be paid in love + appreciation + a soapbox
plus maybe a tshirt that says "I'm a columnist for DonationCoder.com and all i get is this lousy tshirt" 

i'm actually really excited about this columnist idea - it will really be nice to have some new content each day that people can look forward to.  like i said before it doesnt have to be anything that takes much time from you, just post some thoughts once a week on something related in some way to software.. might be nice though if each columnist sort of specialized for the most part on some different issue/area, just to make it easier for readers to identify who talks about what, but thats just an idea.

i'm working now to set up some blog systems and get them integrated properly into the site; after that they will be all yours and you'll have complete control over the posting, editing, etc. from your web browser.  I'm happy to provide some additional web space as well for columnists who want to host some additional personal pages etc.

[mouser]

nudone, email me with a desired password for blogging (don't use a password that you use for any other purpose), and also if you would like a donationcoder.com email address i will set that up for you.  it can either forward mail to another account, or you are welcome to use it as a real mailbox with pop3 and smtp support for use with any mail client.  just send me user name you want for it ([email protected]) if different from nudone, and either another email address you would like mail forwarded to or else ill use the password you send me for the blog for the email mailbox.

[mouser]

well it's really taking shape..
i think this is gonna be a really nice addition to the site.

[mouser]

We now have 4 committed columnists.

that leaves 1 space left if we do it every weekday as planned, or possibly 1 or 2 extra spaces if we wanted to do it on the weekend.

so the first columns will come out next week - more announcements as things take shape.

[tenseiken]

Are you looking for anything in particular for Thursday?  I imagine I could come up with something once a week, but it would help if I had a topic to go on.  The only thing I can think of that I'd be able to comment on that isn't already covered by someone more or equally qualified is music, but I'm open to suggestion.

[mouser]

somone suggested we might keep one day a week rotating..
if we have enough people who might be interested in columns we could alternate authors for more days.

if it's something you think you want to do i'd be happy to set you up for thursday and set up a blog and email.  music software would be nice subject.

i dont have specific areas in mind, the main things i think are:
1) the columnists/bloggers should have fun with this - so pick stuff you want to talk about.
2) we are promising people that we will have a new entry each day; columnists can stop whenever they want as long as they give us a weeks worth of notice so that we have time to find someone to take over.
3) it would be nice to have a sort of theme for each column, just so that they would differentiate from each other somewhat.  its ok if they overlap but i think it would just be funner for readers if each blog had a slightly different slant.

make sense?

if you still want to do it email me a desired login name and password for the blog (and nick for the column if different), and whether you want me to set up a @donationcoder.com email for you, and if so whether you want me to have it just forward mail to another account or whether you want a proper smtp/pop login.

-mouser

[tenseiken]

Hmm... music software, eh?  I could probably write a book about the various uses of foobar2000.  Also, I think I could come up with a few other things--pros and cons of various audio codecs and possibly some recommendations about some other pieces of related software.  Since you indicated short pieces weekly, I could break things up a little bit since I tend to be long-winded about, well, everything I guess.  Doing that would give me plenty of material.  Now that I think about it, this is a topic that I am fairly opinonated about, so coming up with something I'd like to discuss should be no problem at all.  I guess you could try me out for a couple of weeks and see how I do.  I'll go ahead and send you an email.

[mouser]

ok great,
we have our 5 starting columnists!

by all means if you want to make long posts go for it
i was just saying this doesnt have to become something that takes up huge amounts of your time,
and while some bloggers work hard to post very frequently like every day, these are really meant tobe weekly posts where people can look forward to reading a new post/column each week.

i guess since we are following the newspaper column model we should say that columns should be available on the morning of whatever day you are responsible for.  the blog software lets you submit posts in advance and scedule them so that is always an option.

this is fun
glad to have you all aboard.

i'm always open to new ideas - if there is someone reading this who desperately wants to be a columnist and thinks they can make a real contribution, we could always do columns on saturday/sunday, or have some rotating thing, etc.  and i'd be happy to give up my slot for someone enthusiastic with something to say.

[tenseiken]

I'm cool with the 9 AM EST schedule you proposed.  I'm a night person as well, but it's no problem for me to write my column on Wednesday and schedule it to become available at 9 AM on Thursday morning.  I think the weekly model is a good idea--it really doesn't put any pressure on the columnists, and I think you have a good point about people looking forward to that week's column.