Creating a NOLA Blogger's Bazaar
In 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote a fascinating essay entitled "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," describing his experiences managing an open source software project. Raymond postulates two models for software development, the Cathedral, where access to development is restricted to just the programmers between releases, and the Bazaar, where everything is always out in the open. CatB works for illustrating a development philosophy, but the two models also apply to developments other than software. Let's talk about CatB with respect to blogging.
We all have our own Cathedrals, where we write about those things that interest us. We've also found that there is a great deal of value in coming together as a community, either on an ad hoc basis or as a regular group. For NOLA bloggers, the e-mail listserv has proven to be a successful tool. Maitri originally suggested that we develop some sort of aggregated site for the group. I'd like to carry that one step further and suggest we form a Bazaar.
Unlike the Cathedrals that are our blogs, a bazaar would be a true community effort. I propose we do the following:
1. Choose a new "brand name" for the community. This will help promote a sense of ownership amongst participants.
2. Implement a proven community-blog platform, such as Scoop, Drupal, Slash, etc.
3. Each member of the community has their own blog on the site. Members will be allowed to make one blog post per day. Site editors will choose blog postings to promote to the site's front page. Set up a phpBB-style forum to discuss the mechanics of this.
4. The community will be as self-policing as possible. Use a system where blog posts can be recommended by other members, and comments to posts can be rated, either recommended or "troll-rated," when a comment is deemed by the community to be inappropriate.
5. Set up an implementation timetable and stick to it. If we're going to do this, let's do it. While having coffee today, it was mentioned that today was the second or third discussion of this sort that took place. I'm willing to take some of the initiative here to get things going.
What say you? Will y'all participate?
We all have our own Cathedrals, where we write about those things that interest us. We've also found that there is a great deal of value in coming together as a community, either on an ad hoc basis or as a regular group. For NOLA bloggers, the e-mail listserv has proven to be a successful tool. Maitri originally suggested that we develop some sort of aggregated site for the group. I'd like to carry that one step further and suggest we form a Bazaar.
Unlike the Cathedrals that are our blogs, a bazaar would be a true community effort. I propose we do the following:
1. Choose a new "brand name" for the community. This will help promote a sense of ownership amongst participants.
2. Implement a proven community-blog platform, such as Scoop, Drupal, Slash, etc.
3. Each member of the community has their own blog on the site. Members will be allowed to make one blog post per day. Site editors will choose blog postings to promote to the site's front page. Set up a phpBB-style forum to discuss the mechanics of this.
4. The community will be as self-policing as possible. Use a system where blog posts can be recommended by other members, and comments to posts can be rated, either recommended or "troll-rated," when a comment is deemed by the community to be inappropriate.
5. Set up an implementation timetable and stick to it. If we're going to do this, let's do it. While having coffee today, it was mentioned that today was the second or third discussion of this sort that took place. I'm willing to take some of the initiative here to get things going.
What say you? Will y'all participate?
Sounds intriguing. I'm interested. Very interested.
Test to see if I can actually post a comment here now.
I'm doing the same as Ashley. I've never been able to comment here before either.
I had mega issues with earlier versions and commenting, but MT4.1 seems to have fixed it. Honestly, I figured most of y'all would pursue this on twitter or on the listserv.
Several of us did pursue this on the listserve without any answer so we gave up.
the current listserv discussion is going strong, though.
Yeah, like I'm gonna install twitter and get even less work done...
twitter is very dangerous in that regard.
I am intrigued, though I worry about how much time this might suck from my life. I'm not exactly drowning in free time these days.
If it takes flight, I do believe I'd like to be on board.