Introducing AwakeNetwork Magazine

I would like to introduce you to another aspect of the site I have had on my mind, the AwakeNetwork Magazine. The idea here is to provide a blog space where our members can write stuff periodically of general interest, in a format that is longer than a forum topic. Now, some of our members have personal blogs, and this is not meant in any way to override that or encourage them to switch. But many folks don't have a blog because, frankly, it is really hard to keep one going that is relevant and current. I hope that this vehicle might be a way to solve that dilemma.

My model for this is medium.com, an awesome "casual blog" that operates along these lines. My hope is that over time we collect a bunch of articles that are related to what we all practice here, that can be read by a wider audience and, thereby, bring more folks into our discussions.

Please be aware that there is no privacy on this part of the site. It will be publicly visible, so if you contribute, do so with that in mind. Again, if you have your own blog, then feel free to cross-post content that you think may be of interest, and feel free to link back to your site. The intent is not to exercise ownership here of anything, just to help foster discussion.

To get started, just click on "Read" in the main menu, and check out the "Author Guidelines" in the sidebar. I'll leave the rest to you. Over the coming days, I will be tweaking the look and feel a bit, and so right now it is pretty stripped down but that is consistent with the trim layout we have site-wide.

A couple of other points that I forgot (I am kind of rushing this out because I have had it baking a while and just want to share it).

First, you don't need to "do" anything to get rolling. All of you are automatically authors. Obviously, the outside world cannot write anything, nor can they comment. Second, everything you write and publish is published. There is no editorial step at this point. I toyed with making it more heavily curated, but for now I am erring on the side of us being all like-minded grown ups that won't abuse the system. That may change as we grow, or if it becomes a problem, but since we are curating membership, I think this is pretty safe for now.

May I make a suggestion? Can we replace "Read" with "Blogs"? I think that's more descriptive of what's behind the link. I think I'd be more inclined to click on the link knowing that it was a series of members' blogs as opposed to something more general.

No biggie....

I hear you, but I am kind of a fan of "functional" menu titles, as opposed to "objective" menu titles. "Read" is consistent with the other titles (which you may also not prefer) as actions to perform: "I want to read something", "I want to discuss something", "I want to share something". The "Events" menu is currently a bit of a bastard, until I get a nicer way to display what is upcoming.

So, I am not saying "no" to your suggestion, but my choice was not totally random.

And "Blogs" would be, to me, a bit misleading because the intent is not a multitude of blogs, but a collection of writings from various contributors. "Blog" would be the correct label.

I'm not sure which is better, so I'll think about it some more.

I am bumping this thread, partly for the recent new comers, and partly to remind others that the magazine is there for the using. I know how hard it is to blog regularly, and the magazine removes that pressure. In the same vein of everyone having a book inside them, I figured everyone would have at least one blog post in them.

No pressure, just a gentle reminder.

You first, Tom