Stuff To Do @ Your LISNews, Part 2: Writing

This is part 2 in our ongoing series of things you can do @LISNews: “Writing.”

Part one covered reading. In part one you learned you can read LISNews content via your favorite RSS Reader (https://lisnews.org/rss.xml), email (https://lisnews.org/node/28182) , or even Twitter (http://twitter.com/LISNews). I’ll be covering “reading,” “writing,” “playing,” “networking,” “customizing,” “finding” and whatever else I can come up with in this series. Here in part 2 you’ll learn how you can help us create interesting content!

Adding your voice to LISNews is quite simple. There are currently 3 main ways to “write” at LISNews:
1. Comments
2. Your Blog
3. Story Suggestions

1. Comments are the quickest and easiest way to add your voice to LISNews. Every story and blog post should be open to comments. Since authors have the ability to close comments, you may not always be able to shoot your mouth off, but in general you can comment on most everything you read. You’ll notice all comment forms do have a “captcha” you’ll need to answer. Without that, we’d be deleting spam all day. You’re only required to login when you want to write in your blog, for now, at least, anyone can leave a comment without going through the hassle of registering and logging in. Comments get read. Stories with comments are generally read about 3 times more than those without, so the LISNews readership is interested in reading comments. If just leaving a comment isn’t enough, be sure to check out your blog.

This is part 2 in our ongoing series of things you can do @LISNews: “Writing.”

Part one covered reading. In part one you learned you can read LISNews content via your favorite RSS Reader (https://lisnews.org/rss.xml), email (https://lisnews.org/node/28182) , or even Twitter (http://twitter.com/LISNews). I’ll be covering “reading,” “writing,” “playing,” “networking,” “customizing,” “finding” and whatever else I can come up with in this series. Here in part 2 you’ll learn how you can help us create interesting content!

Adding your voice to LISNews is quite simple. There are currently 3 main ways to “write” at LISNews:
1. Comments
2. Your Blog
3. Story Suggestions

1. Comments are the quickest and easiest way to add your voice to LISNews. Every story and blog post should be open to comments. Since authors have the ability to close comments, you may not always be able to shoot your mouth off, but in general you can comment on most everything you read. You’ll notice all comment forms do have a “captcha” you’ll need to answer. Without that, we’d be deleting spam all day. You’re only required to login when you want to write in your blog, for now, at least, anyone can leave a comment without going through the hassle of registering and logging in. Comments get read. Stories with comments are generally read about 3 times more than those without, so the LISNews readership is interested in reading comments. If just leaving a comment isn’t enough, be sure to check out your blog.

You never know who might read your comment. Take this as both a warning and a reason to write.

2. You have a blog. A blog is another quick and easy way to add your voice to LISNews. If you’re reading this, and there’s a keyboard between you and your monitor, you can write anything in your own blog. All you need is an LISNews account. Recent blog posts get highlighted on the right side of the home page and in the daily email. The blogs @LISNews are quite well read. These blog posts are also frequently promoted to the front page. Your LISNews account is full of other goodies that I’ll be highlighting in one of my future posts in this series.

You never know who might read your blog. Take this as both a warning and a reason to write.

3. Most people come to LISNews to read the news that shows up on the front page, and what ends up on that page is largely under your control. It’s best to use the suggest a story page to get your ideas posted, but you can also use the contact page if something goes wrong, as it tends to do. It’s not uncommon to hit the spam firewall when submitting a story, so unfortunately you might need to drop me an email. We don’t post everything we get, but to say we’re desperate for good stories is an understatement. Not everyone has the super secret and exciting author posters it takes to post directly to the front page, but we’re always looking for more folks to join as an LISNews author. If you’re interested in posting to the front page on a regular basis, let me know.

There’s also several interesting Drupal modules I’ve been looking into that will allow different methods of participation, including forums, lists, groups, and a calendar.