by Gary Farber
The "Email Me" link under the kitty at the top left of this blog is now open for business and listening again. That's obsidianinfo at yahoo dot com.
If you wrote to obsidianinfo at yahoo dot com in recent years, and received no answers, which has happened to many of you -- in fact, there was nothing personal about it, I assure you -- you weren't being singled out to be ignored.
Honest. It wasn't you. It's me.
I apologize. Blame me.
But now you have an answer as to why you didn't get a response. Just assume it was me screwing up, as usual. But this will only be looked at in emergencies.
Meanwhile, your new mail will at least be read. If you wish to resend old mail, do so. No answers promised, nor any promises made as to when your new mail will be read, let alone responded to.
But efforts will be made, and it's now possible. We'll try our best.
If anyone would like to volunteer to help work on ObWi in any administrative ways, your applications may not be turned away. Send email to the kitty, or to gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com.
Eric has great writers here -- and also my prolix crap -- and I think we all hope to see even more great writers here.
Again: guest posts solicited. Also suggestions for people to guest post. Suggest away below!
*You* are invited to submit. See same addresses, same story as above.
Got any complaints? Send them to either the kitty mailbox, or my personal email box. If you have to pick, use the kitty, but either will work for now, until you hear otherwise.
All praise, send to Eric, and Slarti, for all their amazing and unsung work, and particularly to Eric for administering the blog, and to Slartibartfast for endless invisible scutwork that none of you have any idea how much work he does on it; praise to Jacob and Doctor Science and Russell and Sebastian for their posts, and to Sebastian for his years here longer than any of us still left, and for all he has done to build Obsidian Wings into what it's become. There's a lot more than just writing involved in running a blog.
Complaints? Make them at me, publically or privately, and I'll do my best to respond as best I can, when I can. Or complain to whom you will at the kitty.
Have fun: that's what blogging is all about.
Almost all.
The rest is all of us building a community together. We can't change the world, but we can change our tiny bits of it, one moment at a time.
This is an open thread!
Me.
But you.
Talk amongst yourselves!
And remember, if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly Berkeley/Oakland, on Saturday, come join us in person! And spread the word on other blogs! Remember, if you read this, you are invited! And your friends!
Be there or tee-square.
But if anyone would like to check my work, if you doubt it, please do so.
And personally, I think spreading out the administrative work so it's more than just Slart and me, and Eric's guidance might be more fair to Slart. But these are only suggestions in my role as a commenter.
To be clear: I'm not asking bloggers who just want to write to take on administrative work. I'm simply noting that if ObWi grows, there will be more administrative work, and the answer to that is simple: delegation, and treeing.
This is how you handle an organization of volunteers.
Which I know since I've been doing it since age 13-14. They were and are called "science fiction conventions" and "amateur press associatons," and I'm an historian of them, and then there are all the other volunteer organizations I've worked on.
This is not complicated stuff. It's herding cats. The only troublesome parts are personalities, and the answer to that is to step back.
And be a little less blunt than I am at times.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 20, 2011 at 09:01 PM
Morning's ObWi email now all dealt with.
I may or may not be around today; apologies for being busy, if so. Thanks.
Posted by: Gary Farber | January 24, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Not to endlessly extend an open thread, but I have recently added a whole lot of Ryan Adams to my iTunes library, and this one seemed relevant to the "just stop it" notion:
It's much better, as most songs are, to hear it sung.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 27, 2011 at 10:35 AM