Drawing The (Guide)lines: Part 1 by didic

utopian-io · @didic · Oct 13 '18

$49.83

Drawing The (Guide)lines: Part 1

As Part of my new role as Utopian's Chief Content Officer, I am responsible for our new guidelines. This is going to be a pretty big change. Up until now, we've had a fairly comprehensive set of guidelines for contributors, whereas moderators relied on the questionnaire for the most part.
![#iamutopian](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmZMCkDT4g6KoT6qEw7ZLwrECoRDXqkAmDnpCqx3TEvLSx)
We're kinda flipping that.

The new guidelines for contributors will be much more flexible. We want our contributors to create a variety of posts in a variety of formats. We know that many of the most significant posts related to open source use our tags as an afterthought, and we **love** that. We want to provide incentives for you to do your thing, not to be the sole reason you're posting.

The new guidelines for moderators, on the other hand, are about to become much more robust. We're going to ask them to use their judgement a lot more, and we want to give them the tools to do so. You may have seen the #iamutopian series of posts by @rosatravels, in which she shares the work she's been doing researching to help her formulate the Translations category guidelines. That's the sort of thinking we want to encourage community managers to engage in. We plan to make the moderation guidelines public, but that's mostly for transparency, and for contributors who actively want to know. If all you want to do is write your post about whatever contribution you're making, we want to stay out of your way.

My plan is to use this platform to help formulate my own thoughts on the guidelines, both for the Blog category - which I am writing - and for all other categories, where I'll be editing and providing assistance and guidance as needed.

## What's a blog post?
The first thing I have to tackle, as I write the guidelines for the categorym is this very basic question. I've had multiple blogs, been blogging for nearly 20 years. But the definition of "blog post" has changed a lot over time. Theoretically, any post to Steem could be considered a blog post. So we have to narrow the scope.
<center>![Blog](https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/06/01/09/04/blog-793047_960_720.jpg)
Image credit: [Firmbee on Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/en/blog-seo-internet-web-marketing-793047/)</center>
I wrote a [fairly simple guide](https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@didic/how-to-write-a-great-utopian-blog-post) on how to write a Utopian blog post a few weeks ago, which people have found useful. So that's a pretty good starting point. I'm going to quote myself, here, in the hopes that y'all forgive me:

>We are not interested in duplicated content. If all of the information you're presenting in a post about an open source project is available at their website or Steemit account, you aren't bringing the kind of value we want to see, unless it's your project. What do we want to see? Your views, and how your experience has informed them. We want opinions. We want personal stories of your use of the project. We want to know how it affected your life. You think it's awesome? Great! Now... why do you think it's awesome? That's what we want to know!

>You might think "but people want to know about the project! They don't care about me!" And you'd be wrong. We can find out about the project from its creators, we can google. We're on a blogging system built on a blockchain. The human, personal, element is what will make your post truly shine.

Here's another way of thinking about it: A blog post is a story. The author has something to tell the readers, and they're telling it in this format. It needs to have a point of view, which all stories have. And it needs to be the poster's point of view, because blog posts are about self expression. And, yes, this is all true when the story is about an open source project. It's can be the story of the project's creator(s), or that of one of its users. It needs to be more factual than fanciful. And it needs to be yours.
<center>![A blogpost is a story](https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/05/24/17/40/book-2341083_960_720.jpg)
Image credit: [Trixieliko in Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/en/book-story-fairy-tale-2341083/)</center>
The tricky part is going to be formulating these thoughts into a list of guidelines that is useful to moderators and then formulating those guidelines into metrics that can be used to score posts. Because our questionnaire, right now, is only useful for some posts. And we want a more comprehensive solution.

## Your Thoughts
I also want to hear from the community on this. While work on the guidelines is an internal process, we are as much of a community as we are a company. Specifically, I'd like to know how you would define a "proper" blog post. Not necessarily a great blog post. That's for later. Right now, I just want to know what you think should, and should not, be included in the category. This is particularly important to me, as some folks seem to think that "blog" is a category for "none of the other things," and I strongly disagree with that.

👍 utopian-io, steem-ua, techslut, grzesiekb, miniature-tiger, ruth-girl, nikv, didic, nv21089, holger80, steem-il, pibara, nomad-magus, yairdd, amosbastian, treasurebeach, arcange, minnowbootcamp, iamstan, sbi3, saarinout, pataty69, espoem, jingis07, duarte9sousa, sunrock, knowledges, poet, roj, mrlightning, irelandscape, arnavlavan, lovenfreedom, cicisaja, josedelacruz, cryptosludge, vegan.niinja, codingdefined, curbot, headcorner, portugalcoin, uv10, ameliabartlett, futurefarmers, raphaelle, bhaski, tessaragabrielle, paps, ronabar, isleofwrite, lionne, inbarbd, osazuisdela, filipino, greenorange, perspicaz, ladiesofsteemit, isabelpereira, crazyartist, bluengel, chombo, tov, woq, siq, and 16 others

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@knowledges · Oct 13 '18

$5.81

Hey @didic. Nice write-up. Well said and nicely constructed. Personally, I love how you have reasonably defined "blog." This is indeed beneficial to people who are aspiring to submit a well written and acceptable blog post via Utopian. I also appreciate that you are engaging the community by asking for inputs from them. This will for sure open up different ideas to improve the category guideline from the community.

Your contribution has been evaluated according to [Utopian policies and guidelines](https://join.utopian.io/guidelines), as well as a predefined set of questions pertaining to the category.

To view those questions and the relevant answers related to your post, [click here](https://review.utopian.io/result/1/11331214).

---- 
Need help? Write a ticket on https://support.utopian.io/. 
Chat with us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/uTyJkNm). 
[[utopian-moderator]](https://join.utopian.io/)

👍 utopian-io, mightypanda, hakancelik, iamstan, futurefarmers, statsexpert, codingdefined, organicgardener, zapncrap, curx, amosbastian, fastandcurious

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@utopian-io · Oct 19 '18

Thank you for your review, @knowledges!

So far this week you've reviewed 2 contributions. Keep up the good work!

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@steem-ua · Oct 13 '18

#### Hi @didic!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your post is eligible for our upvote, thanks to our collaboration with @utopian-io!
**Feel free to join our [@steem-ua Discord server](https://discord.gg/KpBNYGz)**

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@ruth-girl · Oct 13 '18

$0.11

Hi there @didic! 

I agree that a blog post should contain your views, your comments and thoughts on the specific project. Re-phrasing without adding anything personal brings no extra value. 

On the other hand, presenting a project and your review on it, ways on how it could be used or "evolved", thoughts that will bring discussion  or tools that you could make of the project or for it, could surely be included in a blog post.

The blog category post, IMO, should present a more personal aspect of what the contributor's been doing. For example, I work on translations, I submit translation contribution posts but I can write blog posts on how I work there, problems I face, strategies I use and ask from others to throw in any tip that may be useful to me and other contributors in the translation category.
Also, sticking to your own writing style and not having a strict template is a must (as blog posts are more personal, right?). Having the freedom to use any medium you like is a plus and adds to the post's "originality"; gifs, graphs, videos, why not voice recordings or even memes (if you want to make your post funnier and more "appealing").

I can't think of anything else right now, but I'd like to see more people dropping ideas in the comment section :)

👍 stempede, didic, pixelfan

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@didic · Oct 20 '18

$0.02

These are all good points. Thank you!

👍 ruth-girl, pixresteemer, cheneats

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@steemitboard · Oct 15 '18

Congratulations @didic! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

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@iamstan · Oct 16 '18

$0.02

> Chick article I learned a lot of interesting and cognitive. I'm screwed up with you, I will be glad for a reciprocal subscription.

Hey @didic How are you doing? Here is my take.

> We are not interested in duplicated content. If all of the information you're presenting in a post about an open source project is available at their website or Steemit account, you aren't bringing the kind of value we want to see, unless it's your project.

Why even say this? Why not just tell people what to do and leave out what not to do. There is a endless amount of common knowledge and man do we have to rear(retrain) everyone again? Why not tell them to bring their A game, and send them to places like the Hemingway app that will help them accomplish that?

> You might think "but people want to know about the project! They don't care about me!" And you'd be wrong. We can find out about the project from its creators, we can google. We're on a blogging system built on a blockchain. The human, personal, element is what will make your post truly shine.

This is on point and I think exactly what we want for the future of this project. We need to let everyone know they have the potential to shine. Then if they believe in themselves and act upon that belief they will succeed.

One of the things I think most blogs lack is a good introduction. Something that will entice readers to read it all. Next thing needed is good subtitles just like the chapters of a book.  Page breaks are pretty, but good introduction followed buy great subtitles for following chapters is better. It makes for a quick peruse and a quick understanding of the content of a post. 

To many blogs try to be click bait with the title. I think it leaves readers with a sour taste in their mouth. I think titles should be concise and truthful. 

I am a picky reader and I don't open my eyes to everyone's words. Those things help me to want to read what I find. 

Don't we want them to gain readers and learn to blog better? 

Tell me what you think about my ideas?

👍 futurefarmers, googlybot

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@didic · Oct 20 '18

$0.02

The thing is, the way the new guidelines are constructed, we are not going to tell people what to do (or not to do). We are going to tell moderators what to judge a lot more. The post I quoted from was not about the guidelines, but did try to deal with some of the common issues I deal with as a moderator.

👍 iamstan, pixresteemer, cheneats

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