Technosailor.com

I believe in readers. I believe that they have valid commentary to be heard and thought about. To that end, I’ve created Open Mic Friday. On Saturday through Thursday, I post my entries and talk about what I want to talk about. You, the readers, comment and engage in the conversation that I’ve started.

Open Mic Friday is different though. On Fridays, anyone can start the conversation. Anyone can, and I hope anyone will. It’s your time to talk about what you want to talk about.

Q: But what if it isn’t about what you talk about at Technosailor?
A: That’s okay. We like being well-rounded people. Though it’s true not all topics will get everyone’s interest up, it’s good for all of us to think about other things.

Q: So you’re going to let any joe-blow put anything they want on Technosailor? Isn’t that kind of dangerous?
A: Yes and no. Any joe blow can write an entry but it is not automatically published. When joe-blow writes, the post goes into draft status where I can review it to make sure there’s no hate-speech or other objectionable material, then I publish on joe-blow’s behalf and he gets the attribution. Trust me when I say, I grade loosely. Almost anything gets approval.

Q: What if I already have rights to publish on Technosailor?
A: A handful of writers have ongoing and permanent permissions to contribute without the approval process. For those, Open Mic Friday makes no difference as they can write and publish on any day of the week and at any time on whatever topics they major in. The vast majority of readers, however, will benefit from this enhanced posting permission.

Q: So how do I do it?
A: It’s really easy. First off you need to register for a free account. There’s added benefits for doing this, by the way… For instance, you never have to enter your name, email address or website URL in the future if you are logged in. That’s worth it, right?

Secondly, after you’ve registered for an account, you need to login to the admin panel.

Thirdly, Write. Yep, that’s it. Click on the Write tab and begin composing your entry.

Fourthly, You’ll see a list of links below the edit box. These are tags. If you have a suggestion for tags, click on them and they will get assigned. When I look over the entry, I’ll take your suggestions and add any others that I feel appropriate.

Fifthly, and most importanly, give proper attribution. If you quote somebody, link to the article and find out if the source has a trackback URI (check their site for the trackback URI). If you quote, and they have a trackback URI… enter it below the tag list. This is important because it notifies the original author that they have been quoted. On a similar note, do not quote entire articles. This is the equivalent of plagiarism and is not acceptable here. Your entry will not be approved.

Finally, some extra notes. Everything you write is attributable to you. It’s yours. However, I own the data and it cannot be reproduced in full elsewhere for up to 30 days. It is also released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

So there it is. Easy right? :)

Pick up your copy of the WordPress Bible, a wildly popular resource for beginners and experts alike.

Written by Aaron Brazell on January 7, 2006

Popularity: 1% [?]