I ran a search for "Soap Box" and didn't find anything related to this topic, so apologies in advance if this subject has come up before. What would people think of approved Soap Boxers being allowed to, maybe once a month, feature an editorial done by a non-soap boxer user on their blog? The idea being that it would allow someone who has already been authorized as a soap box user, to help assist the selection staff (whomever they may be) find qualified additional Soap Box users and also allow a wider number of people to have a chance to be featured. Everyone who already has the soap box icon can probably think of one or two people they think would be worthy candidates. For example, if I (a soap box user) thought that the blogs of one of the people I track deserves extra exposure, I could offer to host a piece of their writing on the soap box for them, giving them proper credit of course, so that they could have a crack at putting out a piece and giving us wider variety in this fun feature. Obviously, I would never do something like this without getting permission from the site mods first. Thoughts? Opinions?
Not a bad idea overall....I proposed something related to the soapbox feature not so long ago, '' blogger recommendation thread'', alas to no avail with only a couple of replies. Perhaps it's something most gamespotters don't really care about, but ANY way to improve the search of great editorials alongside good blogs overall is to be commended.
It is possible the community managers lurk a restricted bank of bloggers right now; ANY way to facilitate their search is a good start. A user recommending to them a good blogger/editorialist, inside an enhanced soapbox feature or by any other channel, should be awarded in someway - whether the person is already soapboxed or not.
I'm going to run a search for that thread of yours. I don't come to the forums as much as I used to before I started my blog, so I missed it completely. This is going to sound a bit conceited. It isn't intended to, but it probably will come across that way anyways. The reason why I thought recommendations from existing soap box users would be a good place to start is to avoid adding to the community managers' workloads rather than reducing them. Soap Box users have already, by some screening process I'm not fully aware of, passed a filter or background check of some kind that means that somebody thought that they had something worth contributing. In other words, whomever approved them as soap box users has made a bit of an implicit statement that their writing or blogs are above average in some way. So rather than hundreds (maybe thousands) of recommendations coming in from the general public, you'd have the existing soap box users acting as a de facto initial screening process, assisting in filtering the recommendations, paring them down to a more reasonable subset, and then passing along who they believe to be really worthy additions onwards in the form of a public sample blog featured on the soap box. If the blog in question is well-written, stirs a lot of interest, and good debate, then the guest blogger on the soap box is likely a good candidate for a permanant addition. If it isn't well recieved, well, at the very least it will make the community member had at least a fair shot. As well, the larger community will also feel that they have a better chance of being noticed and nominated. It is a bit like the way a representative democracy works. In Congress (or Parliament or whatever), not every citizen of the entire country in question shows up to vote on a particular bill, but the representatives that have chosen do get a chance to weigh in. On the other hand, you're probably right Master Marcus that simply passing along the name to the community managers would probably work just as well.
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