{"id":401,"date":"2010-11-05T06:06:44","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T06:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/randfishkin.com\/blog\/?p=401"},"modified":"2012-08-24T04:26:44","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T04:26:44","slug":"editorial-guidelines-for-this-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/editorial-guidelines-for-this-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial Guidelines for this Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many have posited that the brilliance of Twitter is in the limitation provided by 140 characters. This &#8220;restriction&#8221; in fact &#8220;frees&#8221; (some) contributors to be uncommonly communicative, creative and profound in the shortened medium, and builds expectations for consumers of the content.<\/p>\n<p>In much the same fashion, I believe this blog can benefit from some ground rules laid at the very start. Here they are:<\/p>\n<p><strong>#1: <\/strong>No underachieving. Every post here must meet a high bar of usefulness and quality. This will likely mean lower frequency.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>#2: <\/strong>The tenants I established at SEOmoz (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.seomoz.org\/blog\/what-we-believe-why-seomozs-tagfee-tenets\"><strong>TAGFEE<\/strong><\/a>) will be represented with equal dedication here. I will strive to be <strong>transparent<\/strong> &#8211; revealing as much as possible without infringing on others or causing harm. Content will be <strong>authentic<\/strong> &#8211; representative of who I am and my beliefs, with acknowledgment of bias or conflicting interests where they exist. I will strive to be <strong>generous<\/strong> and give value in my writing. There will be some <strong>fun<\/strong>. This blog shall be <strong>empathetic<\/strong> to its readers and those potentially impacted by what I author. I will strive for <strong>exceptional<\/strong> posts &#8211; those that are unique in quality and perspective.<\/p>\n<p><strong>#3:<\/strong> 90% or more of the posts must be valuable to professionals in my field(s) &#8211; startup employees, entrepreneurs, investors and marketers. 1 in 10 posts can be off-topic or purely fun, but even these should follow the guidelines above.<\/p>\n<p><strong>#4:<\/strong> This blog is not a plug for my company. My writing should try to remain non-promotional, though some inherent bias may be unavoidable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>#5: <\/strong>No fewer than 1 post every month.<\/p>\n<p>#<strong>6:<\/strong> The comments are meant to be a place for positive, productive discussion. Constructive disagreement is welcome, insults, negativity and personal attacks are not and will be promptly deleted. The web has more than enough outlets for vitriol.<\/p>\n<p><strong>#7:<\/strong> Visitor traffic and metrics for this blog should be updated publicly and consistently. One of this site&#8217;s goals is to serve as a case study and home for experimentation and data sharing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>#8:<\/strong> This list is not final and should be updated as new guidelines that make sense and add value are discovered.<\/p>\n<p>Additional suggestions are certainly welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many have posited that the brilliance of Twitter is in the limitation provided by 140 characters. This &#8220;restriction&#8221; in fact &#8220;frees&#8221; (some) contributors to be uncommonly communicative, creative and profound in the shortened medium, and builds expectations for consumers of the content. In much the same fashion, I believe this blog can benefit from some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Editorial Guidelines for this Blog - SparkToro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many have posited that the brilliance of Twitter is in the limitation provided by 140 characters. This &quot;restriction&quot; in fact &quot;frees&quot; (some) contributors\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sparktoro.com\/blog\/editorial-guidelines-for-this-blog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Editorial Guidelines for this Blog - SparkToro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many have posited that the brilliance of Twitter is in the limitation provided by 140 characters. 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