If we’re working off a Kinja model, as @weatherman initially suggested, then I remember, back when I was active on io9, there were often posts on the sub-blogs (the O-Deck, for example) that were promoted to the main blog.
I think that there should be no reason we can’t promote a “guest” post to the blog, as long as it gets approval from 2 or 3 of the main contributors.
Good point, although it might be a bit optimistic to put together a professional full-time monetizable blog with a gang of internet randos like us. 
Boy, do I agree 100%. That’s why I’d prefer to avoid it at first.
Awww, man. I was hoping you’d stick with Grand Poobah.
Mission statement: I’m always leery of mission statements, though I do agree there needs to be an ethos. I do think that we need to keep the element of fun and fascination that has kept discussions lively. I think we need to retain a certain irreverent ethos. I would say that it’s fundamentally an educational website, with a fundamentally noneducational style. I’m with @nimelennar on the importance of an optimistic tone. I think that it should be a place for people who are eager to learn new things, hear new perspectives, and all the while be entertained. I think if we’re expecting “BBS Plus” it’s A) Not going to live up to the kinds of interactions we’re used to, and B) Just fundamentally not work.
Format: Broadsheet? In all seriousness, I like the idea of long form pieces being segregated from both short-form pieces and link-post detritus. Anything over 750 words is probably a “feature,” and I say this as someone who tends to ramble. Everything else is “streamed” through a front page, but longer pieces get pride of place. I don’t know if that might incentivize less frequent, longer posts. I’m not sure that would be a good dynamic, but I don’t think long posts are easily read in most “blog-view” columns.
Decision Making: Again with @nimelennar on this. Flat with a… *Sigh* Convener, I guess. I’m not a big fan of forced consensus, though. I think flat organizations have a stronger tendency to make everyone secretly unhappy than more hierarchical organizations. Can a guiding ethos be, “Agree to disagree but move on?” I think that a lot of times I’ve disagreed with a group’s course of action and been okay with compromising in order to Get Shit Done, but it’s always that much harder when people want you to to be “of one mind.” Fuck that, we can be of twenty minds, as long as we understand that compromise is necessary.
Choice of Technology: I also think Discourse is probably the best, most functional, and fun commenting technology out there. Moderation. We will need it.
I looked at Ghost.io some more and I’m with @japhroaig on this. The less backend maintenance, the better. I would feel better about putting the theme into one person’s hands and then have us approve or work on it. I’m almost certainly not the person to do it, though. Design by committee is… painful? I’ve never done it, maybe I’m wrong.
$$Ka-Ching$$: I think we should all put up a small quantity of capital. I’m far from wealthy, but between hosting and domain names, I’m pretty sure we can cover the first year painlessly just by splitting the bill evenly. If for some bizarre reason we have traffic that needs a lot more hosting for our money, then we’ll probably have monetized sufficiently to be at least revenue-neutral. I say we can cross the monetization bridge, when there’s a bridge to cross. For that, Patreon is promising. How funds get divided can get contentious. Equitably, is preferable.
Participants: I say for now, whoever is willing to buy in. I don’t expect our costs to be above a few hundred bucks at the very most. I think that comes out to tennish bucks a person, so it’s not terrifically cost prohibitive for most of us. I’d be willing to support a few other commenters if it’s a problem for them, and I’m sure that I’m not the only person willing to do that. If it’s just us here in the discussion, and we’re like five or six people, I’d still be willing to go in on a split pie approach.
After that, I think it should come down to post frequency. If you can generate a certain number of posts to “audition,” you’re in. If you can’t keep up with some modicum of post frequency, you’re probably still in. I can’t see the benefit of kicking people out, though it may just affect compensation IF we monetize. I want to emphasize that this may never be a money making or even revenue neutral activity. I’m okay with that and I think we should all be okay with that before we start.
You are eminently correct sir.
What drain? I seem to recall @beschizza or someone saying the BBS amounts to a rounding error when it comes to traffic. Even if we magically took all of our toys and abandoned the site wholesale (which is not likely, I think, I have sunk some of my best GIFs here) it’s not going to hurt them any.
Besides they’re Happy Mutants and this is a grain of an inkling of an idea at this point, while they have what I think any amateur blog would characterize as, “a fuckton of traffic.” I don’t imagine they feel threatened by a new entrant into the Internet ecosystem.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some good MKB reading, but I think that might be a step down for her. She gets paid to write. I don’t know that we could offer that- but I’d be down if we could.
I’ve got my own blog that I use too sporadically for it to be a real thing. I’d be happy to contribute at the level of 1 post/week and could probably discipline myself to do that. I’d also be able to participate in a peer review system for pre-posting for a few posts a week.
I have no interest in a monetization scheme and would actively like to avoid making money. I’d probably be willing to put up some money to fund the existence of the thing.
As for format, how about JSON?
That’s a good starting number, but it’s only a start. We can begin with a low-volume site hosted by Dreamhost or another one of the low-cost hosts. I have a Dreamhost hosting account and I’ll be happy to donate some bandwidth to get us started. But as traffic and volume increase, it’ll be necessary to upgrade the site capabilities, and that adds up. We currently pay about $120/month for a VPS (virtual private server) hosting plan on Dreamhost to handle the mommy-blog (which is maybe maybe a quarter the size of BoingBoing + BBS.) We’re considering a move to a fully hosted dedicated server as volume continues to increase. As I quickly found out, “unlimited” doesn’t mean anything even close to any normal meaning of “unlimited” as far as the webhosting world is concerned.
I have today off from the corp world so let me play around with some options.
Agreed, but you have to have a titular head or set up an LLC or other corporate structure. It’s an unfortunate fact of the online world that you need a specific person or entity to respond to DMCA claims, deal with disappointed trollies who have enough money for lawyers, and law-enforcement types who want to be up in your business. Those things all happen, far too often, and are annoying to deal with.
That must be a popular mommy-blog!
Yeah, that’s just a best guess, it’s really hard to tell. I’m basing that on some of the stats that Jeff has shared with us publicly here. Typically there are 5-10 “news” posts and between 100-400 comments there per day. There’s also a pretty big for-sale/classified section that stays busy and requires constant attention and moderation. 
I am mostly only good at snarky replies… If there is a place for that, I am in.
Either works for me. Just FYI, I’m in Belgium for a work-acation next week, GMT+2, so real time to the USA might be a problem.
What’s the left flag?
I think that’s a beach towel.
@anon73430903’s the person to ask, but from Wiki:
Mean it?! I can hardly pronounce it!
I disagree with the presence of that second flag (even theoretical “anarcho”-capitalism fails to be anarchist), but the rest of it is right.
Anything but TeamViewer, apparently.
I don’t — and can’t — disagree with experts about expert stuff. And it’s @waetherman’s rodeo.
But part of what would attract some to a producer collective blog is the continuing opportunity to Learn New Things.
Having to learn how to configure an Apache server, MySQL database or Python scripts in a supportive mentoring environment that tolerates … nay encourages (!) mistakes?
I think that’s a feature not a bug.
No offense, but if you want to learn LAMP stack related stuff, spin up a system and have fun. Added complexity is detrimental to security and manageability. Wordpress has so many vulnerabilities announced on a weekly basis, you’d have to pay me to maintain it.
Their high quality is quite predictable; it’s their schedule that is unorthodox.
