If there are people interested in doing it, I can make the back-end stuff happen to support it. (FOLKS: Please take that as an invitation to contact me if you're interested in blogging on the R-SPEC site.) It's actually one of the things I envisioned when I first took over the site a couple of years ago. I'd like to see the redesign through first, but I'm flexible on that.
Another thing that Jonathan, Dave and I tossed around was the idea of "promoting" stuff out of an aggregator feed. Might work something like this: 1. Go to an aggregator page on the R-SPEC site. Say, for Technovelgy. 2. See something that inspires you to send it to others, or makes you want to say something. 3. Click a button to "promote" that item to a blog post. Add any comments or editorialization you want, re-format, etc. 4. Post would appear on the website. Another thing we can do is add sharing widgets to aggregator items, like the ones we have on all the stories now. (Pretty sure I can make that work....) So you could share directly from our site (it would still point to the original site when it got to Facebook/Twitter/etc.). On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Pat Rapp <[email protected]> wrote: > Maybe rather than a feed aggregator, you could *somehow* encourage people > to put up occasional blog posts when they come across something of interest > to the group. Dave Henn has been great about doing this, but we all have our > own individual sources for cool and interesting stuff. How do we get others > to do what Dave has been doing? Is it possible to send invitations > individually to R-Speckers with login information? Maybe people don’t know > that they can post to the site, or they don’t know how to do it. > > > > We’ve got a broad range of spec interests within the group. Dave posts a > lot of tech/science/space stuff. Steve frequently posts to the email list > about the business/publishing stuff. Sarah is very involved in VR. What are > the fantasy people up to? > > > > Can we get people to use the blogging component of the site? An aggregator > would pull in headlines, but I think there is more value in having people > write a paragraph or two about why a link is interesting. A link by itself > doesn’t draw me in – I need to be told why I should take the time to go look > at something. > > > > > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Eric Scoles > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 13, 2010 7:40 AM > > *To:* r-spec > *Subject:* Re: "Industry" News? (And: new R-SPEC.org home page) > > > > I like the idea of having that other kind of stuff (the more primary-source > or inspirational stuff like Science News & Technovelgy) available through > the site, but I'm struggling with the information architecture. Also, I > don't want to replace people's RSS readers. That said, I think a page that > judiciously blended (and perhaps re-feeded) some of the best inspirational > stuff would be great. I forget about it; I never run my RSS reader anymore, > personally, because I have no discipline with it. I'd totally forgotten > about the Long Now podcasts, e.g., until Frank posted that one the other > day. (Those can be fantastic sources of both inspiration and creative > frustration.) > > > > Also have been toying with the idea of aggregating feeds from online > fiction sources -- having a one-stop place where you could get pointed to > what's new -- but not sure that's something R-SPEC should be doing (and also > replacing people's RSS readers, see above). It wouldn't be technically > difficult, but it would have to get added onto the long list of things that > are not individually difficult, but add up. > > > > On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 7:18 AM, Alicia Henn <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I get feeds from technovelgy, Science News, ScienceDaily, Science@ NASA, > and Free Speculative Fiction Online that I enjoy. > > > > Alicia > > > > On Apr 12, 2010, at 11:12 PM, Eric Scoles wrote: > > > > Those are actually comments on posts. I switched around blocks a bit and > that one lost its title at some point. > > > > If you're talking about the "E-Book Queen" search engine, that just looked > like spamming, to me, though there was one above it where the user's site > URL was what looked like a file-sharing site. Those were both posted before > we added a third-party filter to scan comment posts for that sort of thing. > I deleted both of them in any case. > > > > So, any ideas on good feeds for news? > > > > I'd love to be able to think of a way to bring together inspiring stuff -- > Frank's post from a few days ago reminded me that I'd forgotten about Long > Now, which often has interesting speakers and always makes the talk > available for podcast aggregation. > > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Pat Rapp <[email protected]> wrote: > > Oops – I meant to send that to Eric only, not the whole group. Sorry. > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Pat Rapp > *Sent:* Monday, April 12, 2010 10:23 PM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* RE: "Industry" News? (And: new R-SPEC.org home page) > > > > Hey, Eric. I just want to point out a message that needs to be removed. > > > > In the right hand column of the r-spec page, there are blurbs that are > presumably from the google group. The one at the bottom, from eDave, caught > my eye because it starts out, “Pat, I share your fondness for reading…” > Since I’m the only Pat in the group (that I know of) I took a look to see > what the conversation was about. Someone named Pat posted a link to an ebook > search engine and Dave responded to it. The site listed is a porn site. > > > > So, not only do I want to suggest you remove it, but I also want to be sure > you don’t think it was from me! Egads!! > > > > : ) > > > > thanks > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] *On > Behalf Of *Eric Scoles > *Sent:* Monday, April 12, 2010 9:21 PM > *To:* r-spec > *Subject:* Re: "Industry" News? (And: new R-SPEC.org home page) > > > > Actually, I've had to remove all the Locus feeds from aggregation for the > time being. They're displaying with the same URL. I'll get them back into > the list when I figure out why they're not working, but until then the home > page is only showing SFWA and BSFA. > > > > On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Eric Scoles <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Jonathan, Dave Henn & I have agreed that it would be nice to have a summary > of "industry news" on the R-SPEC.org home page. What kinds of places do you > look for news about speculative fiction, SF, fantasy, etc.? Of those, which > ones do you think would provide value if they were aggregated into a single > listing? > > > > To get started, I've created a listing on the R-SPEC.org home page that > rolls up recent posts from several "industry" sources: Locus magazine, SFWA, > and the BSFA [British Science Fiction Association]. See them, along with a > minor reorganization of our home page, here: http://r-spec.org/ > > > > (Note: this is part of a stepwise progression to a new site design. Since > the design itself has been going slowly, I felt it was a good idea to roll > out some of the new easy-to-launch features we're planning, rather than wait > for them.) > > > > > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<r-spec%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. 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