"The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry"
- Scottish Poet Robert Burns
When we recently unveiled our new & improved private BETA version of Localism, we implemented an editorial review/approval process to ensure that whatever content was approved and published to the respective Localism pages met some basic criteria. These measures were employed primarily in response to the input of our membership. Back when we first launched our initial version of Localism, a substantial majority of you expressed concerns that this new & exciting consumer-oriented portal, if allowed to go unchecked, could become populated with a lot of sub-par content, and bear a poor reflection on our network. The editorial review/approval process was intended to ensure a consistent level of quality articles for our growing consumer readership.
Unfortunately, as we all know, this process has met with some significant and frustrating challenges. This has been especially true for those of you who have worked so hard and diligently to contribute valuable consumer content to Localism in the past. As a result, it has become very apparent that we need to re-evaluate our intentions/goals, and modify/change our process.
One of the ActiveRain founding principles states:
ActiveRain does not stand on ceremony or hierarchy. ActiveRain is a two-way street. We believe that a continual conversation with our community is critical to our continued growth and vitality. We are fully committed to incorporating member feedback and ideas to improve ActiveRain.
This is one of those times when this principle clearly applies.
After careful consideration to the concerns and opinions of our membership, we've decided to remove the editorial review/approval process, and allow ALL articles categorized for Localism to show up and remain on their relevant geo-targeted pages.
However, this step is going to place a significant measure of increased responsibility on you, our valued ActiveRain Members, to ensure that whatever content you contribute/publish to Localism reflects your commitment to offering the highest quality information for consumers.
Also, keep in mind the temporary request we made of you a few short weeks ago. Allow me to repeat that request:
Initially, we're asking our members to focus their writing on content that isn't specifically 'real estate related.' Our goal in preparation for the Public Release of Localism is to provide good, local content that is engaging and informative, and will serve to attract consumer readership/participation. In order to achieve this goal, we need to offer a wider variety of consumer-oriented topics, and not just real estate content.
Once we haved gained some traction from consumers, we would expect our members to re-direct their localism posting efforts more towards real estate.
As I have shared on numerous occasions, ActiveRain is truly a collaborative effort. Our continued success depends heavily upon our mutual cooperation and ability to work together in helping Localism achieve its full potential!
