I vote for @waetherman too. Circulate a Doodle Poll to find a good meeting time for everyone? Call a freeconferencecall.com meeting? Share a Google Docs agenda ahead of the meeting for notice and comment? And …
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I wonder how the BB staff will regard the ensuing drain of traffic…?
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Why wouldn’t traffic increase?
If we’re doing it right, we’ll see traffic increase at our blog. And if we’re busting ass at it, we won’t have a hell of a lot of time to spend on the Boing.
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If we’re doing it right, traffic at both sites will increase, the GOP will finish dissolving, the engineers will read Proust and everything will be like Star Trek (reboot)The Force Awakens.
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I’d definitely be down to do some copy-editing per day; fixing any spelling/punctuation that I trip over and suggesting style changes to clunky sentences and paragraphs. I’m not a grammar expert but any fresh pair of eyes can see things an author will overlook, plus I sort of like doing it.
Beyond that, I could contribute content but not really sure what or how frequently. I’m pretty active in the bike thread. I feel like cultural content would be my strength but I’m much better with assignments rather than generating my own ideas, for some reason.
is that not what BoingBoing is presently?
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Since Maggie KB is no longer a BB editor, maybe we can invite her to be involved if she likes…?
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I’d like to put my hand up for this sort of thing, too. I’m a former journalist with some editing (in the sense of traditional sub-editing) experience. And as I’m currently unemployed, I got nothin’ but time to give!
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An exact repeat of the events 35 years ago?
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I will accept that mantle, at last for the time being. Let’s just call me the convenor.
For now, my process is this; let’s keep brainstorming for a little while longer - these comments are bringing out all sorts of new ideas, and I’d like to keep that rolling. At his point, I see some major themes emerging;
- Mission statement; how do we define what the site is about in a way that communicates to both readers and writers what to expect?
- Format; what, if any, standard post format do we encourage? Is there a particular “voice” (style) that we define, and if so, what is it?
- Decision making; what is the structure of the org, how are decisions made?
- Choice of technology; what tech powers the site?
- Finances; is the site monetized, and if so, how and to whom? If not, how are expenses covered?
- Participants; who gets to post, who doesn’t? Is everyone in the same category? What are the expectations? What if someone isn’t meeting expectations?
That’s all I’ve got for now. If I’m forgetting anything, let me know. This is not a complete list either, so bring up new ideas too. In a few days, I’ll start synthesizing comments in to a platform that will help move this forward.
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Mission statement: I’ve already posted some ideas on that.
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Format: Personally, I’d just want a respectful and optimistic tone and a demonstrated commitment to whatever the mission statement becomes; any other guidelines beyond that are, in my mind, unnecessary.
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Decision making: I like a flat organization; certainly, we can have a leader/spokesperson, but I’d like that person to be a “first among equals” rather than someone making decisions by fiat. For what articles get posted, I would suggest that any article can be posted if it gets the approval of three posters (including the author); to block it or take it down, it needs a majority (50%+1) of votes of the contributing posters (“contributing” posters being those who have posted in the last [negotiable period of time]).
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Choice of technology: No opinion, other than that I like Discourse for the comments.
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Finances: I would argue against any monetization beyond what is needed to keep the site up and running. As for how to monetize, my ideas are either Patreon or Pay-to-Post.
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Participants: So, if we use the “pay-to-post,” if the site takes $200 per year to run (to pick a number out of the air), and we have 20 people interested in posting, we get them to contribute $10 per year (which shouldn’t break anybody’s bank). Obviously, if the expenses are much higher than that, this won’t be feasible, but I have no idea what the costs involved will be. I’d suggest a hard minimum of writing one post a week, and peer reviewing one post per week, with a suggested output of three posts per week. If someone doesn’t meet the hard quota, then there will be no penalties (since they’ve already helped pay the bills), but it’ll factor into whether they’re invited back next year.
As for who is invited in the first place, I think it should be an open invitation to start out, and then narrowed down after the first dues period expires, based on who is posting and whether what they’re posting fits into the theme/tone of the blog.
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WP has too many features 
But in all seriousness, you can make behave like anything, if you have the time to hack through their templates. And you end up with a difficult to maintain site that requires semi active administration.
Ghost is simple, and customizable enough.
I for one don’t want to do WP tech support.
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Will there be a “Did Rob Ford die?” section? Because I’m not sure that question ever got answered.
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I seriously hope the new site develops its own in-jokes. Rob Ford and bananas are getting tiresome.
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As a reader as much as a poster—sometimes much, much more so—this is my greatest concern. Brain drain itself is one thing, but an ebb in contributions from the Best of the Best BBers (aka the BBBB, aka the B-4) would be a loss that, at best, would encourage the rest of us to do our best to maintain those high standards and then, once we’ve realized that the tide is out forever, watch in resigned sadness as the BBBBBS is diluted by GIFs and cat memes.
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You serve your master well. 
Isn’t this possibly an idea that could be accommodated within the existing structure of the forum?
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Hell, if it costs somewhere on the order of a few hundred bucks a year, I’ll pay for it myself.
I think it would be great to preserve an amateur/hobbyist level of overall investment in the thing, at least at first. Maybe it would get to a traffic level that would warrant more professional operational standards, maybe eventually advertising and payments to contributors, but at least at first it strikes me that this is intended to be an all-volunteer labor of love. Right?
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I think that the whole idea is that, at this point, we’re currently deciding what it’s “intended” to be.
You have to be careful with advertising. One of the things I dislike about BoingBoing is that, through StackSocial, they promote products that they don’t endorse.
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Could it be a matter of a discussion board for posts- and after a sufficient threshold of likes is reached, that content becomes “eligible” for publication?
Pretty easy to game that, though…
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