I'm going to be making some changes to the board over the next week or so.
The big, obvious stuff I have in mind is that I want to add a "safe space / advanced feminism" link list in addition to the Blog Bounce. Right now the Blog Bounce is basically open to anyone who wants in, and that's all well and good, but several of our new readers have asked me by email where they can find other Advanced Feminism sites to educate them or participate in, and so I'm compiling a link list of stuff I recommend.
(Side note: Who is using the Blog Bounce as is right now? I ask because it takes a relatively long time to load, so I'm wondering how many people are receiving benefit from it.)
The other thing I have on my list of things to do is to finally fiddle around with a mobile version of the site, for folks accessing the site by phone. Right now, you can view the site from a mobile device, but there are fewer Disqus options available -- mobile viewers can't "like" posts, for example. So stay tuned to that.
A third thing I am grappling with is the idea of installing a moderation team. But I'm of a couple of minds on that front and I'm not sure what the right answer is.
On the pro side, I'm a member of the Shakesville moderating team, and I really do believe that a crackerjack team of mods is essential to running a genuinely Safe Space board. Over here on Ramblings, we're getting 150,000 page views a month and ~75 comments per thread. Really popular threads like the Hogfather one can hit 200 comments before being closed. I genuinely do not have the resources to correct all ableist terminology, to nudge people on group generalizations, and to shut down flamewars-in-the-making. A moderation team would mean less stress on me and more time to actually create content. It would also mean that I wouldn't have to make every moderation call on my own judgment.
On the con side, the people who I would most want to be moderators are people who I consider to be valuable commenters and familiar with safe space guidelines, and I really don't want to burn them out on moderating and lose them as commenters. Some of these people also have involvement with other blogs, and I hesitate to ask them to take on more responsibility and burden here. There's also the question of whether we would retain the site-name "Ana Mardoll's Ramblings" if we grew to a group blog with a moderation team greater than one and, potentially, more deconstructions than just the ones I write. When I picked a site-name based on my name, I wasn't intending to make the site All About Me so much as just, meh, pick-a-name-and-get-writing.
Anyway, these are the thoughts going through my head at the moment. If stuff starts looking a bit different, that's why.
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