WDG Seeking Blog Authors Options

[John Pozadzides]

Greetings all!

The WDG is preparing to launch the new HTMLHelp.blog which will become a prominent and actively updated part of HTMLHelp.com. The new blog will be extensively hyperlinked from the rest of the site, and we'll be encouraging visitors to sign up for subscriptions and RSS feeds to keep up to date with what all is going on in the Web Authoring community.

A few samples of things you'll find on HTMLHelp.blog:

• Summaries and links to high quality Web reference articles from around the Net.
• Helpful Web authoring related tools and tips.
• Original content including tutorials, guides and cheat sheets.

We are looking for passionate members of our community who are interested in contributing as an author on the Blog. If you are interested please let me know as soon as possible. Some things we're looking for in potential contributors:

• Professionalism
• Integrity
• Excellent written communication skills
• A demonstrated willingness to help others

Once we've chosen the team I'll be establishing a permissions based forum which will only be accessible by the HTMLHelp Bloggers and we will work on the ground rules, details and coordination involved in launching the blog.

I would anticipate that our new blog launch will experience roughly the same rate of growth - if not more - that we experienced with the launch of the new forums several months ago. Needless to say, this is an extremely rare opportunity to be considered for a contributing position that could potentially result in a high level of exposure in the Web authoring community.

If you are interested in applying for one of these volunteer positions here is what you need to do:

• You'll need to have full identity disclosure. Please do not apply if you are unwilling to be identified. We feel it is necessary for subscribers to get to know content authors in order to build trust.
• Provide a link(s) to your personal Web site or blog. We will be making sure that it is generally appropriate for all ages.
• Provide a brief summary regarding your interest and qualifications. (A CV/Resume or other background document would be nice.)
• Be willing to contribute at least a couple of hours a week to providing content for the Blog.

Finally, if you'd like to preview the format for the new Blog, you can find it at http://blog.htmlhelp.com/. It is only a skeleton at the moment, but you will get the idea of how it's going to look and function as it gets populated. Feel free to register, make test comments, and provide suggestions. Unfortunately the Blog requires a separate user registration from the forums, but the good news is that no one actually needs to register unless they intend to post.

You can either send me a PM through the forums, use the new Contact form on the Blog, or send an e-mail to john@ you know the domain name.com

John
HTMLHelp.blog, Editor in Chief

[Effovex]

I'd personally be interested in writing a "Structural web design" tutorial, covering good practices in standards-based web design from the ground up - I intend to write that over the summer (once I finish my last term paper, actually), and if the WDG is interested I'd like to publish it here.

This raised some issues with me since you had mentionned the blog would include tutorials, and I felt tutorials didn't benefit from that format - a blog is good to announce the tutorial to the world, not actually contain it.

So thanks for the clarifications.

I think the best way to accept new blog content providers would be to let people submit articles they've written: if the article is good enough, the person is given an account to publish it and can keep on posting things on the blog on whatever schedule fits them, until they abuse the privilege, at which point they lose it. I think attempting to find dedicated writers who will be expected to write regularly isn't in line with the sporadic nature of blogs, a finding a stable of writers who can write interesting articles when they have something to write about might be better.

I'll see if there are subjects that interest me, and I'm sure I'll have lots of material over the summer as I come across stuff while writing my tutorial, but expecting regular writing is putting me off, personally, especially as there are periods during which I have much less time to spend on web stuff (mid terms and finals period, for instance)

[John Pozadzides]

I'd personally be interested in writing a "Structural web design" tutorial, covering good practices in standards-based web design from the ground up - I intend to write that over the summer (once I finish my last term paper, actually), and if the WDG is interested I'd like to publish it here.

Absolutely. When you finish that let me know and we'll get a few WDG members to proof it and then add it as a featured article.

I think the best way to accept new blog content providers would be to let people submit articles they've written: if the article is good enough, the person is given an account to publish it and can keep on posting things on the blog on whatever schedule fits them, until they abuse the privilege, at which point they lose it.

This is certainly an option available to anyone, and it is indeed one way in which we may add new authors over time. If someone demonstrates an ability to repeatedly refer new quality content then it makes sense to just let them do it themselves.

Along those same lines, there are a number of people here on the forums who have already demonstrated their fitness for posting to the blog (yourself included). So I wanted to give people the opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Indeed, if we get a core group that is fairly active we may not add anyone else for a very long time. And if things go as I expect, being one of the regular contributors to the Blog could become a very high profile position over time.

In addition to that, the approved group of Bloggers will also serve as the steering committee which helps to determine how we are going to run it. We'll have those discussions on our dedicated forum in a "round table" like manner. If we need to redesign the blog, add features, establish rules and guidelines, or even approve new Bloggers, this is how it will get done. Pandy and Christian can attest as they have both left indelible marks on the Forums.

I think attempting to find dedicated writers who will be expected to write regularly isn't in line with the sporadic nature of blogs, a finding a stable of writers who can write interesting articles when they have something to write about might be better.

I'll see if there are subjects that interest me, and I'm sure I'll have lots of material over the summer as I come across stuff while writing my tutorial, but expecting regular writing is putting me off, personally, especially as there are periods during which I have much less time to spend on web stuff (mid terms and finals period, for instance)

I partially agree with you regarding the nature of blogs being mostly sporadic. Certainly personal blogs are low on the totem pole of people's priorities, but there are many people and businesses for whom Blogs are now considered core to their operation. In my opinion HTMLHelp.blog must be the latter rather than the former if we are to make anything substantial of it.

Having said that, I also don't have tons of time to dedicate to posting articles to it, so I can't do it alone. If you are in the same boat as me, and there are 10 other people as well, then together we could easily accomplish that goal so long as everyone just does a little work periodically.

Not only do I understand your hesitation about making a commitment, I appreciate it. It tells me that you (and anyone else reading this that feels the same way) take this seriously. But it is possible that you are slightly over estimating what it would take to be a contributor. So let me put it to you a little differently. How long would it take you to write a short response to any of the following questions, and do you think you could do it once every week or two?

• What is the most useful Web authoring related site you find yourself using (besides HTMLHelp.com) and why?
• How can I monetize my Web site?
• Have you heard any interesting Web authoring news lately?
• Are there any Web related seminars/conventions coming up soon?
• What are the top 5 things you think new Web authors should do first?
• Have you seen any cool scripts, plugins or other Web site add-ons lately?
• I need a new Web host, but I don't know how to pick one. Help?

I could go on all day... but if I had to guess I'd say that you could answer one of those questions pretty well in a couple of hours.

Now, if you did that once every two weeks, after one year you would have contributed about 25 articles. If 10 of us did this we'd have 250 articles, or almost one a day. And I'm sure there are some people who'd like to contribute a little more frequently than that.

Finally, let me ask you a question. Do you think it would change the way you look at prioritizing writing for the blog if you knew that the articles you write would be read by thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people? HTMLHelp.com will serve 30 million page views this year, and the blog will soon be hyperlinked from every page of the site...

John