I’m also going to continue with posting a submissions reminder about 36 hours before the submission period ends. I’ve done that these last two periods and found it to be useful for those who might somehow miss the reminders in Twitter (or who don’t use Twitter).  Every now and then I have someone speak up about being unclear on the submission open period, the e[lust] schedule in general or similar. Hopefully these two additions will keep more people clearly up to date on when submissions are being accepted.

I created a Help page for the submission form, as well. If you arrive at the form and find yourself unable to submit a post, see if you can find the reason on the Help page and if not, just send me an email!

38! I must admit that I did not expect 38 bloggers to participate in the first edition of e[lust]. Perhaps since the concept is 4 years old (Sugasm started in 2005) I shouldn’t be surprised – but nonetheless I am.

When I sat down to really think about all that is involved in getting each digest out I knew that it would be hard work. Not so much time-consuming work, because I put out a call for people to help and the response was amazing, but hard work because of my ADD and my ability to fuck-up even the simplest of tasks at times. Did I forget this? Did I do that? There’s 38 links there….are they all accurate? No repeats? etc etc ad naseum. Rules that I forgot, rules that I decided to change, guidelines that I didn’t make clear, assumptions I shouldn’t have assumed….these are the hard things I didn’t count on. So while the first edition did not go smoothly….it still went. It’s here! Please visit the lovely assistants who helped out with this edition, they’re over there in a special category in the sidebar.

I would love feedback if you have it – the site layout, the guidelines, etc. One informal poll that I put out to Twitter was wondering if participants should be able to vote for their own submissions in the voting for Top Three. My inclination is no – I never voted for my own when participating in Sugasm, but I don’t recall if that was specified or not. If I automatically gave everyone a vote because voting for oneself is allowed – then everyone is still just as equal as they were in the beginning. If you have a opinion with a good reason to the contrary, please speak up! I am considering going a different route with the voting, and my thoughts are down there in that poll. I’ll let it ruminate for an edition or two and see what people think.

[memedex: pollid#490901]

I started this project for many reasons but the biggest is that Sugasm was good exposure for new and established blogs alike. Some bloggers are going to say “I could give hang if I have 500 readers or 5″. To that I say: Why talk if no one is listening? I changed a few guidelines that Sugasm had and kept many others. But I really want to know YOUR thoughts – as a reader or as a participant. I know of a few people – some participating in this edition and some still waiting to see what’ll happen – who felt that Sugasm was very “clique -y”. If so, how does one prevent that? My attempt was by including people in the e-vite and following them on Twitter regardless of my personal knowledge or opinion of them.  Looking at the first edition I can see a variety of bloggers and that makes me happy. I hope I can make this “borderless” as much as possible.

Thanks to all who were a part of this!

Your Editor,

Lilly