jameshigham's blog

It's interesting how groups take on a character of their own. Bloghounds began fairly quietly but found itself with twenty members not too long afterwards and they were of a type - quieter, sense of humour, reasonable people mainly professional and quite busy in RL.

Gradually, an ethos developed which doesn't much care for what the world says. My friend made a joke that "you're not controversial because nothing ever happens". Well, nothing bad happens, that's for sure and I'm probably the feistiest character in there. The thing about us is that with our systems setup, anyone outside sees a fairly dormant front page because what does happen, happens inside.

We thought about running blogroundups and changing profiles each week and pretending we're highly active but actually we're just a club, a group. As Wolfie noted, we have very few rules but we do like the few we have to be adhered to.

The membership has made its feelings known in many ways but usually we decide things on whether anyone feels strongly enough about something. One idea which has had some support and we're thinking it over now is to run a "Fun Awards". The idea is that in a number of categories, members would vote inside the site and then one day we'd announce it on our front page.

Meanwhile, we grow and have two more pending members at this point, putting us in the area where we'll have to start thinking about number limits ... or not. We'll get around to deciding this amicably one day. Perhaps.

We've been a sleepy bunch, to be sure but recent stirrings augur well. We could have done some inductions better and will do that more professionally next time but there are also some things moving along now.

1. The profile page is looking good but some members still haven't put up either avatars or blurbs about themselves.

2. The poll for the new steering committee has now closed [yes, we really were in a state of flux last week - that was no lie] but now we can move forward.

3. The Fun Awards or Ignoble Prizes are coming up so the blogosphere needs to be ready - you could be the unlucky recipient of a category prize, More on that later.

The Broadsheet Rag is one year old today. Pop over there if you haven't already done so.

Cherry Pie has suggested we put some of our latest moves inside the site onto the front page here so:

Membership policy

It's been stated elsewhere but we work on a method of ALL members requested to peruse a new blog but we have no voting quotas. We wait five days and work on how many objections from members there are. Three objections is the cut off point.

Administrative Committee

We began with an excellent steering committee of seven but as the membership grew, it was time to change that and now we run a "sliding scale" rotating committee. Basically, our list is viewed horizontally and every Sunday, at dusk, the slide of seven names moves one place further across that list. This means that someone retires and someone new comes in. With seven members, stability is maintained as the "tour of duty" is around a month long.

Welshcakes and I have retired and Wolfie is due to and new members have therefore come in. Our turn will come again.

At Bloghounds, we don't get too fussed about power and the division between admins and membership is virtually non-existent. We try to resolve any issue amicably through our forum inside and don't take kindly to "stirring the pot". This might give the impression of a certain docility but we are actually moving forward at out own pace.

You might or might not be interested in this today.

We certainly began in a flurry and though that has now slowed due to summer commitments and holidays, it is still ticking over. Some things have come through quite strongly from members:

1. We want no truck with any sort of personal confrontation politics. We could hardly be described as a genteel society and yet we are interacting on the finally streamlined site in quite a nice way. People are visiting one another, commenting and linking and we are in the process of building a character distinctly Bloghounds.

2. The key seems to be that we make almost no rules. For example, how many times should one member link to another? It's not stipulated. How many times should one do this or that? It's not stipulated. Whether this more freewheeling approach can continue remains to be seen but it has served us well to this point.

Why would you wish to join this group when there are other groups to join as well? It's the atmosphere inside mainly, the feeling of being part of something nice, the absence of rancour and a spirit of fun. I myself am probably the least laid back of all of us and yet there is a good-natured tolerance of most of my missals from the centre [at least I hope so].

In time you'll see more posts from other members, as and when people learn the ropes and see that the site is by members, for members. Remember, if you would like to be part of Bloghounds, there is a two stage process - applying for a user account in the sidebar and sending an email to the bloghounds group [address in sidebar] with your url.