Site FAQ Updated

Just in case any established developer.* readers are interested in checking it out, over the weeked I update the developer.* Blogs FAQ. The message is crafted primarily for new visitors to the site who are interested in learning more about what's going on here. Suggestions welcome, including suggestions for additional questions for the FAQ.

Regular readers may also notice that I rearranged the blocks that appear in the two right-hand columns. I added a new block that highlights the "Specialty Blogs" (maybe there's a better label for these?) within developer.* that have their own pages/feeds apart from the main blogs page/feed. I also changed the "Active Bloggers" block to use a dynamic query to select the names of anyone who has posted a blog post in the past 60 days. I also changed the name of the block to "Recent Posters."

The idea behind these changes is to slightly adjust the presentation of developer.* Blogs somewhat to more explicitly support the idea that people are welcome to post here without making some big blog commitment. The site has evolved into a kind of bulletin board, where an ecclectic mixture of people post an ecclectic mixture of things. This seems like a cool thing to me. To quote from the new FAQ:

On the Blogs side of the site, posts are not edited or orchestrated. People post when they want to and write about what inspires them. Many of the people who post here also post on other sites or even run their own blogs and sites.

Some people post one time and never again, some people post every once in awhile, some people post every week.

Some people mostly contribute comments, and some people prefer just to hang back and read.

Some people register for a free account, some people do not.

All of these arrangements are just fine by us. The idea behind the developer.* Blogs is to be a welcome space for ideas and information. We strive to keep the discussion respectful and civil, without people being shouted down or shunned.

Also check out the question from the FAQ, "What if I'm not sure I want to commit to blogging on a regular basis?"

So how are we doing? Feedback, public or private, is always welcome.

Thanks for reading (and writing),
Dan