So... I just graduated with my Associate Degree in Engineering. Now, I get to transfer to "real school." :) With that busyness out of the way, I get to write about the blog.

Regarding Blog Admins: I do not think there should be elections, given that there are only 4 people who have even offered to take on that role. Thus, I think those four should be given the position. If people don't like it, we can move on from there later.

Regarding Blog Post approval: For this first set of blog posts (meaning, the set of 9 posts that have been promised by the 17th), as soon as one is finished, I recommend that the author please upload a PDF, Word Doc, or .TEX file to a file-hosting service of his/her choice, and link to it from the meta post.

Upon linking, post in The Blog Room (and here) that you have a post to review. We should establish set criteria for blog entries (e.g. tone, style, broadness of topic, etc) to maintain a cohesive branding. Then, a blog admin (and two moderators, as per Grace Note's remark in the first few hours of the other chatroom) mark it as "reviewed" in the meta post.

After review, the post may be published.

Regarding Name: Right now, we have about twice as many people opting for the "generic" name over the "fancy" name. I think the generic "Mathematics Community Blog" should be in-place for the first few posts (given that it has the most current support), with the "Sufficient Margin" thing as a subtitle, perhaps.

Regarding Timeline: If I am to be a blog admin, I'd like to request perhaps delaying the "start" of the blog by 3-4 days. I will not have reliable internet again until end-of-day May 17th, so it may be best to launch the site a few days afterward. I know that is a lot to ask for just one person's conflict, but I think that it would be a good idea to have all blog admins available the few days preceding launch. It's up to you guys, of course.

Regarding Future System: We will have a "backlog" of ~9 posts at the very start. We should meter these out once every 2 weeks, until we have a large reserve of posts. The thing that makes a blog great (from personal experience with a fairly popular technical blog) is regular, substantive posting. Stopping posting (even for a short while) causes readership to plummet.

Regarding Future System (Cont.): I suggest we lock the current meta thread upon launch of the blog, and treat it as "canonical information about founding the blog." We don't want people editing a meta thread every time there's a new blog entry. Instead, let's make a Google Spreadsheet with that keeps track of who's writing an entry, when it is due, when it is slotted to be published, if it's been reviewed, etc.

General thoughts: Yes, things should be kept as simple as possible--but no simpler! The beauty of simplicity does not justify running into something without a plan. As one of the founding members of the failed Arduino.SE site (newly relaunched after a second attempt), I know that starting something without thinking it through first can set you up for disappointment. As soon as the blog site/interface opens, the clock starts ticking. We want to know what we're doing before it opens.

(oh--miscounted, we have 10 entries that have been promised, not counting my second one that I retracted.)

New meta post: Yeah. I know we don't want to see another meta post on this, but I think it's important. Right now, we have 3 posts. All of these are "founding" posts--that is, they are effectively one-time-use. We don't want new answers or input on the name after the site has been named. We don't want people volunteering to complete blogs by the 17th after the 17th. Even the "what do you want to see" is mainly for input in creating the blog, but not of very much use after...

...the blog has been made.

Thus, I think we need one more question. An "FAQ of the Math.SE Blog." This would serve as the help center of the blog. Each "answer" would consist of some general question area, like How do I get my idea posted?, What is (and isn't) the Math.SE Blog?, Who are the current blog administrators?, etc.

This would serve as a "users manual," and would be a living document, as opposed to the current "historical"/"canonical" posts we have now.

I'm sorry for dumping so much on you guys, but, seeing as I'm not going to be able to participate in general discussion tomorrow, I thought I should take advantage of the time now.

@anorton Are you sure those 9 posts have been written and is in backlog?

@Sawarnik They have been promised to have been written. If we only have, say, 1 post by the 17th, we'll need to delay the blog. We need a (small) "savings account" of posts to live off of for the first few weeks.

Even if we had 2 posts by the 17th, I'd suggest waiting.

(3 posts = 6 weeks, so we might be able to work with that... but I wouldn't like it.)

But, to directly answer your question: no, I am not sure if they have been written and are in backlog.

So we are launching the blog, but we are not sure when the first post would be published, or what it would be?

@Sawarnik We are preparing to launch the blog. First, assume that we have > 3 posts assuredly/confirmed written by the 17th (and that we like those posts). In that case, we would pick one of those posts to be the 1st post, and would publish it, probably by the 24th (a week later).

If we don't have the 3 "seed"/"starter" posts, we'd have to wait.

(That's my opinion, at least.)

The actual blog site would ideally go live on the same day the first post is published.

(My blog post, for one, is basically finished, I just need to add graphics to it, which is taking a little longer than I wanted.)

I'm headed offline. 'night.

@anorton, I like the things you said. A couple things:

- With Blog Post approval, I don't think the uploaded document should be posted to the meta page. I think it should instead linked in chat.

The meta page is already a bit old, and unless you bookmark it it's annoying to keep having to find it.

- FAQ is a fantastic idea; it can start small and be expaded later, but one question I think it's important we have there immediately: How do I write a post for the mathSE blog? I would suggest getting a FAQ page up just for this question.

- We absolutely need a large backlog, ideally 5-6 posts. And our number one concern should be making people write their posts. People need to know this is happening and we need to push people to actually write stuff for it. Without enough community posts, the blog will either turn into a 2-3 person blog, or it will die.

- We're acting a bit like all blog posts need to be exposition pieces, which isn't the case. In particular, "Question of the Week" has a fair amount of support (13 upvotes) and is the most upvoted type of post that doesn't require a community member to write an exposition-style piece about math. Therefore, I think we could start out posting to the blog once a week if every other week were a Question of the Week post.

Alright, let me get caught up on the posts so far.

I take it you have all seen Grace Note lay down some goals we need to achieve. Sounds reasonable to me.

@JyrkiLahtonen I have, and they seem quite reasonable.

I think point 1 is actually quite in line with what I've been talking about concerning administration.

@AlexBecker You mean the part about having 1-2 persons scheduling things and reminding people to actually deliver what they promised.

Yes.

I think I understand why a few users eventually get to dominate the blog and after a while it just becomes tired and dry. They are confident enough that they have something worthwhile to post. Any average user like myself gets threatened by what might others think of us.

@PandaBear I think I understand. You're worried that a blog post has sort of a higher standard than a question or answer, and that as a relatively inexperienced user you're not really ready for that (or at least will always be second-guessing yourself), right?

Yes.

Well, I would say a blog post is expected to be more polished than a question or answer, yes.

But that does not necessarily mean it needs to be higher-level.

I definitely think the blog could benefit from a mix of posts at different levels, including ones aimed at high-schoolers or maybe below.

I think we expect a lot of variety in the blog. Both in the topics and the level. How experienced the author needs to be will surely also vary.

One potential problem is that I think it will be harder for users who aren't very familiar with English to contribute.

However, I see no reason why others could not help them copy-edit.

Should the authors submit their proposed posts to some moderator for approval before publishing?

The idea is to have two or three people with admin control, approving posts.

Not necessarily site moderators, although I've been talking with them and that may end up being the case.

A good question, Ron. I was planning to post a link to a pdf-file either here or in the meta thread. When I am ready that is. Admittedly if I post a link in a public thread, then the actual posting in the blog is kinda unnecessary. May be this is not a good idea :-(

@JyrkiLahtonen I don't think you need to "hide" your post to build up suspense until it's ready for the big reveal :)

I have also noticed that certain questions like in Topology or Linear Algebra get asked frequently. Is it possible to have like a collection of all these questions and their answers in some sort of blog. Like an online reference manual or some sort of solution manual. Or such practice should be discouraged. I know one can easily look up previous questions if one spends more than 10 minutes looking them up. I am thinking of something along the lines of online notes.

@AlexBecker Alex, a bad choice of word; I did not imply site moderator. Could be anyone in charge of the blog.

@JyrkiLahtonen Jyrki: that's a better idea than anything I could muster.

@PandaBear That's what the "frequent" tab is ideally for on the main site.

@AlexBecker I think Google is much better when it comes to that.

@PandaBear: I'm not sure that would be a good idea. If one of those questions makes it to the Q of the week -list, then somebody can dissect it thoroughly. That might be more useful than a random collection of related questions.

tumbleweed........

I hope this is not how lively the blog is. Lol, forgive my snide remarks.

Well, I'm just here in case anyone wants to drop in and ask questions.

@PandaBear Frequent questions to some extent fall under this and this, but I wouldn't say it's anything like an "online reference manual".

@Goos Oh that's answers my question quite well. Thanks for the link.

Grace Note has requested that finished posts be posted or linked to here. Which isn't to say they can't also be linked to in one of the two blog chat rooms.

@Goos Thanks for the link.

I'm not going to be able to write anything by the 17th, but I can write something for a couple weeks after that. Not so much a blog launch comment as a post-launch one.

@MikeMiller I would say a couple weeks after is still part of the launch.

I would be interested in contributing somewhat regularly over time, but I'm not going to put my name down for that (more of a "put up or shut up" thing until I can actually write a few posts that people like on a regular basis).

Are there any math blogs, from which one can learn a few things or too. Like some sort of a benchmark. Something we should aspire to. I know a few, just wanted to know some more.

There are a number

a large but finite number

Terry Tao has a very famous one, but some of the senior users here also do

I've read and enjoyed Qiaochu's

I have some short and long ideas personally

I think having a couple of dedicated admins to schedule posts of varying lengths could really help.