My first challenge is to the writers of Oped News. I challenge you to write 5 to 10 comments for other editorials for every one editorial you write. Our Fearless leader can be excluded from this ratio challenge since he's already doing way more than one person should do.
If you don't have anywhere near a 5-1 to 10-1 ratio of comments to editorials written, you are exhibiting the normal stage of narcissism that WE ALL GO THROUGH when we assume that we write so that others will read our droppings and revere them for the polished turds we think they are. Get over it.
If the majority of editorials have zero or one comments, then YOU are the ENTIRE reason they have so few comments. If every writer contributed 5 to 10 comments to other editorials for every editorial they write themselves, then logically, ALL editorials would have anywhere from 2-10 comments next to them.- All those ones and zeros I currently see next to the editorials are because of your narcissism. I like using the word narcissism, especially when I can use the word to make others look smaller than me. (ha ha ha). Just because I waited until my own comments to editorials ratio was properly padded before making this suggestion does not make me a narcissist!
But seriously, I recently contributed a comment that I must have revised and tweaked 30 times before I finally submitted it. I was actually tempted to turn it into my own editorial because I had put so much time into it. But why do that?
If my comment adds an additional layer of thought to an existing editorial, then others that come upon the editorial will possibly find the entire read more interesting, and that is the ideal way to grow a website. It's not about getting your friends to visit the site, it's about increasing the quality to the point where people who come upon the site are impressed.
I'd also like to see a commentor perk added. Anytime a commentor writes an editorial, Oped News will automatically send out notification emails to any editorial writer that the commentor has left comments to in the past. (ya gotta admit, that is clever, no?) Editorial writers can be ask to be taken off a list just in case the two parties just don't get along.
The donations thing. JUST SIGN UP FOR A MONTHLY DONATION AND BE DONE WITH IT!- I waited before I started donating, primarily because I didn't believe in donating to any free organization that I just signed up for. But now it's been close to around 10 months that I have been a member and it's been around four-five months that I have been donating 10 bucks a month.
There, I said it. FULL FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE. I now donate 10 dollars per month. If every writer who was serious about Oped News and their own editorials that appear on Oped News donated at least 10 bucks per month, Rob probably wouldn't have to ask for donations every few days. Instead Rob would probably just wait until he wanted an escalade and ask then.
In an effort to encourage more "action" on archived editorials, I'd like to see one column on oped news, perhaps the far right column (ha ha ha), devoted to "bumping" archived editorials to the top of this column whenever a new comment is posted to a specfic archived editorial. What a great way to review past editorials and update them, yes?
For the Writers, I really think we should be allowed to know how many people actually clicked on our editorials, is it ten people, a hundred, a thousand?- I have no idea. I think it's less than a hundred because of the very few comments that are left. Once again, if we don't bother to read other editorials, then the casual observer won't be drawn in if all they see are ones and zero's (comments) by all the editorials.- Perhaps the editorial hit counter idea could be a "perk" for those who make a 10 dollar a month donation. Paid membership has it's priviledges, imagine that!
Ok, make it so. Contact me when all of that is done, I just come up with the ideas, now somebody else, go implement them. (ha ha ha).
