Writers' Block Update, Direction and Future
Gatlinburg
If you have been following my feed you will no doubt be aware of my recent trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Although I had a great time sampling Americana, the main purpose was for key personnel to meet @instructor2121 and discuss plans to create a new frontend, to our specifications, with an eventual inclusion of all creatives. Obviously writing is our wheelhouse, so that is our primary focus. This will work hand in hand with our publishing house, through which we will produce books, both physical and digital, to the mass market.
Go Big or Go Home
These dreams are well within our grasp with the awesome support that we have from some highly placed and respected members of this community. In addition, once SMTs come out, we will be developing our own currency and integrating that into our frontend. With the plans we have going forward, the currency will also be used to reward key members of the organization who have worked so hard to make our vision a reality. As the currency hopefully rises, so will their rewards. Keep an eye on @thewritersblock account for further details.
Changes
In preparation for this, we have made some changes to our Discord server, shuffling and removing some channels to create a tighter focus on the mechanics of both writing and editing. This induced a bit of a panic among some of our members and caused disruption in TWB's normal order of business. We hope this is behind us now as we organize a solid team of writers, editors, and apprentice editors to carry us forward. We're staying the course with our vision that we brought back from Gatlinburg, and wish everyone well who didn't feel it was the right direction for them.
Welcome One, Welcome All
Previously, we filtered new arrivals according to their writing chops. We have come to realize that as writers, we need an audience and that readers both here on Steem and our new frontend should be made more welcome. To this end, we no longer insist that everybody who wishes to join our community be a writer. The only hard rules we enforce now is that new arrivals cannot be plagiarists on their Steem blogs and that they should source and cite their images properly. Currently, we don't have the staff or resources to evaluate writing in any other language than English. Other than that, all writers and readers are welcome.
Opportunities
We are also aware that with our upcoming projects, there may be opportunities for non-writers to be of assistance elsewhere in the organization. This is a great time for anyone to become part of our community, either as a member or as part of the development team in some capacity. For example, the new frontend will be very much focused on showing quality posts on the front page and for that, we are going to need curators. Maybe a role you could fill?
How To Join?
Click the banner at the bottom of this post. You will be directed to the Welcome Center on our Discord server where one of our hosts or moderators will welcome you to The Writers' Block. If you are on Steem, pass on your Steem name and we'll have a quick look at your blog to ensure you are not a plagiarist and that you source your images properly. You will be asked why you would like to join and, once all checks have been made you will be given the grey Honorary Member role, which gives access to the rest of the server. You will then be welcomed in General, where most of our chat happens.
We are proud to say that there is a lot of overlap and cross server traffic with several other key Steem communities, such as @minnowsupport's PALnet, @SteemitRamble - https://discord.gg/TCV6Hry and @TheAlliance.
A Word About The Witness
Three members of The Writers' Block leadership team - myself, @rhondak and @anarcho-andrei - have joined with @sircork - a key member of our dev team - to create @noblewitness. Any previous witness accounts such as mine, Andrei's and SirCork's have all been disabled, so if you previously supported any of us three, I would ask that you consider shifting your vote over to @noblewitness. The main focus for our witness is obviously to support The Writers' Block, among other personal interests. Naturally, we also wish to support the blockchain and to that end, we currently have a 96GB main server for signing blocks, a backup 64GB server (which will soon be upgraded to 96GB too) and we have plans to introduce a seed node to help prop up the various Steem related services, such as our Busy, dlive and our forthcoming frontend. We currently stand at effective rank 64. To vote, either visit https://steemit.com/~witnesses and find us listed there, or click HERE.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://www.muxxy.co.uk/2018/07/11/759/
Hi @gmuxx, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
Join us on Thursdays for Pimp Your Post Thursday at 11am EDT or 7PM EDT in the Steemit Ramble Discord or:
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord. If I use the post, you earn a portion of the rewards.
Pimp Your Post Thursday is a live curation show where you get to know others and they you. You can promote your post or someone you think needs more notice.
It’s amazing how change always creates ripples with people. Why do we become so accustomed and attached to current places and process? As you mentioned, it sounds like the upgrade/changes will help the group and allow for more non writers to participate. That is awesome!
I believe @thewritersblock has a great future and have seen the positive effects of the changes already.
I was thinking about that this morning, @GMuxx, how I'm starting to feel some of that old energy we had in the early days, when we were eager to write and create and experiment until we found what worked. The Editing 101 workshop yesterday was fantastic. I was shocked at how many people attended. And the enthusiasm! That's exactly what we need right now in the Block.
first too much handsomeness in that pic at the end, second so awesome that the organization is opening up to non writers! that way maybe it would be easier for curators that know other languages to work with you and then maybe evaluate writing in any other languages! i obviously support the spanish community and think this is such an amazing project it would be nice to see some good spanish writers be part of it!
Should we have a number of Spanish writers join, we'll be happy to accommodate them.