This is it!
Whether you imagine an anime character with motion lines coming down from his body, one leg in the air, one fist raised in triumph, eyes closed, mouth open; or an 80's hair band member in the same pose: this is it!
While I hate the silly word "wampeter" that Vonnegut made up to describe a thing around which people come together - usually more randomly than they have done so for the purposes of this blog - it's pretty accurate to describe this coming together of minds I (generally) respect. Okay, always.
So welcome to Soul and Meat, which as you might have seen comes from the following dialogue in Vonnegut's Bluebeard:
"I can't help it," I said. "My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things."
"You and your what?" he said.
"My soul and my meat," I said.
"They're separate?" he said.
"I sure hope they are," I said. I laughed. "I would hate to be
responsible for what my meat does."
So our first order of business should be to establish some guidelines. First, organizationally, it seems best if we comment on new posts until we're done with a topic, and only then will someone make a new post with a new topic. This should prevent interesting comments from being buried. Other thoughts?
17 comments:
Also, welcome, LL, to our pan-blog!
Some concerns with a venture like this: that someone might drown out the rest of the voices, repeat themselves when commenting, or not follow whatever rules we establish in this post. I want this thing to be promoting open, free thought while also being fun, and if too many voices get too loud, there is danger in many of us losing interest. I think we need to reserve the right to vote people off, once it gets out from this "core" group of people. That might sound elitist, but I think it's necessary. I think we'll also reserve the right to delete posts and comments if there is a consensus by a few of us to do so.
I think if people can jot down a comment on how they envision this to work out, that might be a good starting point.
Here's how I envision it... Basically, I think one of our contributors should write a short essay/post introducing a topic. In this essay, they can take the approach of asserting something, or simply enquiring about something. After explaining what their thoughts are, they should indicate what they would like the conversation to encompass, as well as specific things they don't want to include in that topic. for instance, if I were to make a topic about abortion, I might decide to limit the topic of whether a fetus should be considered a human as well as the morality of abortion, but I might restrict the topic by saying I'm not interested in discussing the politics or legality of abortion.
I envision the thoughts and comments on the topic to be all made in the comments section, and for them to be generally on-topic and productive. If there is a situation where an assumption is being questioned that isn't specifically on-topic, then a comment should be made stating the disagreement with the assumption, but the actual discussion regarding the assumption is best saved for a separate topic/post.
Initially I was thinking of one post a week, but I really think we could handle multiple posts being active at one time, as long as we're organized about it. But I certainly agree with whatyuodream that I don't want one person to dominate topics and/or comments.
Based on how I envision it, I'd recommend some of these rules:
1. moderation of comments to being relevant to the topic and productive.
2. when posting a topic, please utilize the label option, so we can organize thoughts. use whatever general or specific labels you think are appropriate. It could be very useful 2 years from now to be able to click one link and have all the topics on politics displayed together, for instance.
3. If you've posted a topic recently, wait at least a couple weeks before posting another (unless there's just been nobody posting topics).
4. If someone just posted a topic right before you, wait a while before posting yours to ensure people have seen the current topic.
Or maybe, anyone who has a topic can do so at any time, but just save it as a draft, instead of posting. Then we can have a moderator publish the drafts on a regular schedule, so that we always have a queue of topics.
Wow, we're taking thing seriously. That's cool. I'm very happy that we're called "Meats." Both of your suggestions-wyd and tcd-sound good and I don't have anything to add at this point. Just checking in.
I have a question and some suggestions.
-Are we all going to post essays on a given topic, or just post a topic and then comment on it? I would rather each person post an essay on a topic within a single post (if that's possible), because it's easier to edit and italicize and whatnot for a post rather than a comment. Are we going to do something like the pan-blog topic, or are you guys thinking of something more along the lines of one person leading the discussion a week, with a starting essay, about which everyone then comments?
-I agree with whatyoudream and thecrazydreamer; I think we should try to keep things as democratic as possible, and not allow one or two people to dominate.
-This may sound a little schoolmarmish, but I'd really like to keep the tone of the blog a little formal. Our posts don't have to be perfect or anything (I want this to be enjoyable, and not seem like a chore), but I'd like to limit internet colloquialisms such as wt r u doin'? lol, etc.
-We should reserve suggestions about good movies, or records, or whatever, to our personal blogs. The same should go for shit like, "I had a bad day today." Obviously, we are going to insert our own personalities into our essays, but again, we should try to keep extremely personal stuff out of this forum.
-Lastly, I volunteer to go through these comments and condense our rules down to a list, which I will then post in the next few days. If someone else wants to do this, or has a better idea, just let me know.
I forgot to mention that indubitably will be out of town for the next month or so, but I know for a fact that he will be a frequent contributor to this blog, so stay tuned!
you're right, writing is a bit easier for posts than comments. i have reservations against everyone editing the same post, because then if more than one person is editing at once someone might end up overwriting/erasing what the other intended on writing.
I'll explore some options to see if there's a good way to categorize posts together like that.
I think it makes sense to have comments as 'comments'. Obviously, if you think what you have to say merits an additional post, then put the comments in a 'post'.
I think tcd's guidelines are satisfactory. Clearly some 'internet colloquialisms' have already snuck in (note: tcd, above), which we all understand, and have the added benefit of being useful. I think we should all feel free to use the terminology we prefer to make points clear (or entertaining).
I have a confession: I'm a complete rube when it comes to web-language. I had to ask someone what "afk" meant two weeks ago. When I said I wanted to limit internet colloquialisms, what I really meant was that I'm kind of a dumb-ass when it comes to the web. I think mia hit the nail on the head when she said our language should be understandable. Just keep in mind that abbreviations and such should be limited to what we as a group can easily understand (ie, "tcd," etc.).
I like the idea that whoever posts the first topic/question also writes their essay/response to that question in the same post. That's my vote, but I'm open to suggestion. As far as tone/style, I do agree that we should be thoughtful and conscientious about what we write, but am willing to let style dictate how each person conveys their point. (And to reiterate, if some random person joins who ends up being an idiot or an asshole, we'll just delete everything they write!)
Good idea to have our first post be the formalized rules.
I'm not sure how well this will work, so let me know if you have a better idea. After a couple of days, I'm going to compile the rules and post them. I figured if we changed the rules, we could do it Constitution-style, and strike through any rules we no longer want, leaving them visible. I'd rather all of us continuously edit the rules in the post itself, and leave the comments section for suggestions. That way, we can wait for a consensus in the comments before we change something. Sound good? Also, please let me know if you are cool with what we have so far, or if you just can't think of anything, that way, no one gets left out.
Good with me, so far.
Last call for suggestions before I start writing the post! We can change things after I write it, of course, but it's easier to make sure we're on the same page now.
Also, would you guys maybe want to give one or two sentences about what you want this blog to be?
Hello everyone! I'm sorry I've not been posting, my excuse is that I've been in Oxford and London (UK) for the last five days at my friend's hen weekend and also for my own fun vacay with other friends from my master's degree course. I will catch up and definitely blog about our new topic soon.
Sammee xx
Hey kids, I've just finished the guidelines. I'm leaving the post as draft until after whatyoudream's topic dies out, so edit as you please. If I don't see any changes in a couple of weeks, I'm just going to post it.
I took the liberty of copying and pasting what you guys suggested, so don't be surprised if you see a familiar sentence or two!
Looks good, Jane.
ditto
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