Meta: Scheduling IV

Admins, Contributing Editors, and Guest Bloggers please pay attention!

I want to take this opportunity to remind all of our Admins, Contributing Editors, and Guest Bloggers about our norms for Front Page posting as previously outlined in-

• Scheduling
• Scheduling (Reloaded)

and

• Scheduling (Revolutions)

First of all, you have to join the DocuDharma Admin forum.

When you initially join you will only have access to the ‘Contact Us’ forum.  … buhdy or On The Bus or I will have to give you the right permissions.  This is the only way to get good security and it will happen within hours.

There will be diaries for each day, about a week’s worth.  Each diary will contain the schedule for that day as best I know it, including the available slots.

Feel free to volunteer.  …

Please do this as far in advance as you are able to plan.

This is what a day’s schedule looks like-

The empty spots are times we are looking to fill.

These are the abbreviated rules as posted in each day’s schedule-

Please check here before publishing. Please leave a note that you ARE publishing. Please be ready to tend your essay for 90 minutes. Please give the previous author at least one hour at the top of the Front Page. If you have committed to a time please publish on time. If you are promoting an essay please note the time of promotion in the promotion comment. If content is lacking (especially morning/noonish) please consider the 9 am or noon Pony Party for promotion. Maximum Graphic Width 500. NOW WITH TIMED PROMOTION!

Let’s review them one at a time-

• Please check here before publishing.  Log into the DocuDharma Admin forum Scheduling Dharma.  Find the Day and Date you want to check the schedules.  I usually put up a week at a time so check the DATE.
• Please leave a note that you ARE publishing.  Post a Reply to the schedule.  Tell us (and by us I mean ALL of us, ALL the Admins, Contributing Editors, and Guest Bloggers) what time you want, ESPECIALLY if there is a conflict.
• Please be ready to tend your essay for 90 minutes.  Regular Users and Community Moderators are free to post and run.
• Please give the previous author at least one hour at the top of the Front Page.  The very least courtesy you can give your fellow Admin, Contributing Editor, or Guest Blogger who has written that last story and expects (probably) that it will be at the top of the page for 2 hours.
• If you have committed to a time please publish on time.  Blogging is just as much by appointment as TV.  I am extremely out of sorts if TDS/TCR is not up at 11.  If you can’t make it please notify the Admin Forum, otherwise pressing content will feel free to bump you after about half an hour or so.
• If you are promoting an essay please note the time of promotion in the promotion comment.  First of all, promotions are interchangeable with your own diary- you are proud to have scouted this content and think it’s good enough to be the face of this blog for 2 hours.  You should NEVER turn off the promoted by signature unless you’re promoting your own work.  Also YOU MUST INCLUDE THE TIME!  The next Admin, Contributing Editor, and Guest Blogger is going to want to know how fresh the page is so they can either start writing new content or scouting some.
• If content is lacking (especially morning/noonish) please consider the 9 am or noon Pony Party for promotion.  You are bad bloggers.  This place is usually pretty dead from mishima’s 7:30 Docudharma Times ’til 2 pm.  SLACKERS!  Until now I’ve hesitated to use auto promote (see below) to cherry pick the previous night’s content, but unless I get some volunteers I’ll be forced to do that which won’t leave much space for spontaneous outrage and breaking news.
• Maximum Graphic Width 500.  Don’t break the page.  Don’t promote anything that breaks the page.  Use your editing powers to fix it by adding width=”500″ to the <img src statement.  If you feel guilty ‘fess up in a comment.  You need not comment about your promotion in the essay provided you have signed your promotion anyway.
• NOW WITH TIMED PROMOTION!  Admins can set an essay to promote at any time.  Contributing Editors and Guest Bloggers can request that service in the Admin Forum.

I’ll be charitable and not point out the many ways in which we all fall short of perfection.  The key factors are communication and courtesy.

But ek, my content is BREAKING!!!

So post away.  I do it on the right side where my essay will wait for a break in the action and/or at the same time I’m working things out in the Admin Forum.  It can be promoted at any time.  Yes I do know that it’s easy to forget that the default is Front Page, but if you promote, even if it’s on the Front Page already, you can demote.  If you don’t see a modify promotion button, promote and it will magically appear.

If you can’t stick around waiting for an opening communicate that in the Admin Forum and see if someone can’t help you out.  I can’t guarantee instant response but it will eventually be seen.  I keep it bookmarked and check in every couple of hours when I’m online.

You too have a positive responsibility to monitor the Admin Forum every once in a while for new messages.

We are already approaching a time when competition for Front Page space will become quite intense.  Yet it is undesirable to introduce too much ‘programming’ of our content, your muse strikes when it does and we also need to retain access to the Front Page for worthy content by other people.  If we communicate and exercise courtesy it should not be to hard to accommodate almost everyone without unnecessary squabbling and hurt feelings.