Thursday, July 24, 2008

Slow Summer Posting

Thanks to Marilyn for agreeing at the last minute to moderate this month's selection. I've been swamped with deadlines, so have the DVD sitting on top of my TV, but I plan to get around to writing a post. In the meanwhile, I'm extending this month's discussion into August to take into account the summer doldrums the groups seems to have navigated its way into.

We've had a rush of folks joining the group, and that's great, but hopefully ongoing we can get more active participation. I've been busy, myself, but I've also enjoyed the discussion here so far and want to see it grow. As always, suggestions for the group are welcome. Consider this a comments thread.

3 comments:

Ed Howard said...

Hey Chris, thanks for putting this up. I've been meaning to e-mail you, since I do have some suggestions for the group, but I might as well put them here instead, open to other input.

- I'd suggest putting together an e-mail list of contributors to coordinate communication about the club.

- My second suggestion ties into the first: use the e-mail list to announce, far in advance, the upcoming films. Pick the moderators well ahead of time and then announce the next 4-5 months worth of films, so that people have time to acquire and watch the films in whatever ways are convenient for them. A few weeks is not enough time to get ahold of a film, find time to watch it, and then discuss it intelligently. Ideally, everyone should have the September film on hand as of September 1, which is possible only if the film was announced well ahead of time.

- Marilyn tells me a comment of hers is awaiting moderation. I don't remember that happening when I've posted comments here before, did something change? I think in a group founded on open discussion it's a pretty bad idea to build in a delay like that. I don't do any comment moderation on my blog, and despite a steady stream of comments I've had relatively few problems with spam.

- Whatever happened to the blog contributors roll call on the sidebar? That was a good idea, it was nice to see who was here. Even better might be a list of links to the bloggers' other blogs or home pages.

Anyway, let me know what you think. If you ever need any help, I'm happy to contribute as well.

Chris Cagle said...

Ed - thanks, great suggestions. I'll set up an email list. Before for these things, I've used Google Groups. Any thoughts pro or con?

I have moderation on because in my experience the spam comes sooner or later. If a blog member is signed with her/his Google/Blogger account, the comment should post without moderation. I can experiment with lifting the moderation for now and clamp down again if it gets necessary.

I'm not sure what happened to the contributor's list. I did not change the settings. I'm trying to restore, but don't see the option now in Blogger. Let me know if I'm overlooking something.

I will also happily add a couple more folks as co-moderators. So volunteers welcome.

Ed Howard said...

Thanks Chris. Google Groups seems fine to me. I think the contributor list is probably an option to add to the sidebar in the layout tab, but I'm not totally sure. Another option might be adding a blogroll/link list item and manually filling it with the contributor links.

If you want a co-moderator to help out, I'll happily volunteer. I know I haven't been in the Club long, but I'm excited by the possibilities of this group and really want to see the discussion flourish here.