I SAT DOWN to brainstorm a post three and a half hours ago and am only now actually writing anything.

The last few hours have been spent uploading photos, blogging and updating my Matador Community page, reveling at the powerful new engine that makes the entire platform faster, slicker and more holistic.

I can’t help but smile as I type photo descriptions.

I had a blast spitting out a free form blog on my profile, it felt a little like cheating on my main blog. I didn’t judge or edit what came up and out, I just wrote. I remember this is how it used to feel before I cared about retweets, staying on topic and blog stats.

Polyblogamy, having or keeping more than one blog, is safe and can actually bring you closer to your personal blog. I discovered this at 3am to my great delight.

Sure, you have your main blog, the blog that brands you as a writer and traveler, but who says you can’t have two, three or four blogs?! The fresh new face of the Matador Travel instigated me to consider going polyblog long term.

Reconnecting with the Community, dropping a few comments, adding new friends and hoping for some requests in return, I had a giddy feeling of stoke I hadn’t experienced online in a long while.

Reading over my new blog I realized it was the kind of thing I used to write on my Joshywashington blog and that somehow I had deemed such writing as off brand or not interesting enough to enough people. I used to write because I loved it, now I try and craft titles that will retweet well and try to stay within some nebulous niche that even I don’t understand.

If you are pursuing a niche audience and hope to monetize your blog, creative freedom can be stifled or pent up in order to stay on topic. A second blog that allows you to let loose, yammer, free flow and rant about your travels and life without worrying about your readership or page rank can be a god send.

Going polyblog can help you get ideas flowing, flex your creative spontaneity and connect with your writing process without any pressure.

Just don’t try explaining that you have gone polyblog to your parents, they won’t understand.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

The Titan theme by Themefoundry.

So I’m assuming most of you have WordPress blogs or are thinking about switching over to WP.

For a long time I’ve hesitated really playing with my blog because when I look at code in backend–html and php–I always think the same thing–”I’m gonna kill my blog if I mess with this.”

The thing is, I’ve really wanted to change the typography and look of my blog and make it my own, not just a standard theme. This weekend I found the answer: you make a “child theme.”

What is a child theme?

A child theme is basically a super-miniature theme (it just has a single component, the style.css sheet you create–instructions below) that borrows all the code from a “parent.” This allows you to mess around with whatever elements you want–fonts, colors, spacing, images–just by copying and pasting little snippets of code to your child theme and experimenting with them.

No matter what changes you make to your child theme, you can always erase them and start over, or just save your changes, then switch back to the parent theme so it’s the one that’s “live” after you’re done working. You can then go back and play around on your child theme again later as a work in progress.

I learned all of this from a very good pictorial introduction to making child themes that takes you through how to set one up step by step.

[Note: there's one stipulation for all of this--you have to have FTP access to your WordPress blog to do this. You can't create these if it's just a WordPress.com blog.]

Here’s an outline:

1. Find the directory listing name (caps sensitive) of your theme. For example, my theme is “Thematic” however the directory listing (the listing that’s on my server uploaded via FTP is “thematic”).

2. Copy and paste the following into a text editor (with the blanks filled out according to your info):

/*
Theme Name: name your child theme whatever you want, for example, ‘your remix”
Theme URI: put the url of your blog here
Description: put a description recognizing this as a child theme, ex: ‘child theme for thematic’
Author: your name
Author URI: put your blog url here
Template: the directory listing of your parent theme, for example ‘thematic’
Version: put whatever you want here. ‘1.0′ is a logical first version
*/

@import url(“../thematic/style.css”);

In this example I’m using thematic as the parent theme. For your own blog you have to put in whatever the directory listing is, for example, let’s say your theme is “kubrick,” then the bottom line would read:

@import url(“../kubrick/style.css”);

This bottom line is basically the only code in your entire theme. It’s simply telling WordPress to import all of the styles from whatever the parent theme or “template” you’ve listed.

3. Once you’ve completed this doc, save it as exactly this: style.css (it has to have a css or Cascading Style Sheet extension).

4. Create a new directory in the themes folder with the name you’re giving your theme, for example “your remix.”

5. Upload the style.css into this folder via FTP.

6. Go to the backend of your blog, then Appearance>>Themes, and, if you’ve done everything correctly, you should see your new child theme (there won’t be a screen shot, but you’ll see the name / info you put in) listed under available themes. Click activate.

7. Because your child theme is simply importing everything from your parent theme, it will look identical. Now you can have fun. Open the Appearance>>Editor, then choose style.css (you should see exactly the same doc you created.) Now go back to the stylesheet of your parent theme (you can download it onto your desktop or just view via FTP) and look for things you want to change. Copy those, then paste them into your child theme stylesheet open here in the editor.

8. If you’re like me and stylesheets just seem like impossible to follow jibberish, you can download a sweet tool for Firefox called Firebug that enables you to click on the elements of a page and then it gives you the corresponding CSS code. This allows you to look at your parent theme in a different window, click on parts you want to change, then copy the CSS code it gives you and paste it into the editor.

All of this stuff is very time-consuming at first, but it feels good to begin modifying your blog and not worrying that you’ll ruin anything.

Please comment below if you have questions or advice.

Photo: Stu Willis

FINDING THE CONFIDENCE to approach strangers for their story, their photo or permission to film can be a challenge.

There are many emotional and mental stumbling blocks that can prohibit you from approaching strangers for your travel media.

You may not want to be rejected or bother anyone. You may not want to interfere or draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you are questioning your ability to assert anything meaningful.

These are some of the foibles I may encounter when creating media that involves interacting with other people on camera. But they can be the same fears that are associated with shooting photography or gathering a story.

I had to face some of these feelings of uncertainty head on while filming this video for MatadorTV.

Some tips to help overcome fears of approaching people

THE APPROACH

Have a pitch. Know what you are doing, what you hope to achieve and how. Practice explaining it out loud a few times before you talk to any strangers.

If you want to film, photograph, or interview someone and are not feeling particularly confident, my advice is to approach everyone and do it with as little deliberation as possible. That’s not to say don’t know what you are going to ask this person. Rather, don’t give yourself time to get in your head and let the moment slip. The more you randomly stop strangers and the easier it will become until you can’t be phased.

Sometimes I am feeling sheepish and that is when I know I need to jump in feet first. What is the worst someone is going to do? Walk away and leave you alone? That isn’t all that bad.

I will stand and either wait for someone to see me – ‘Excuse me, can you help me with my video?’

Or approach everyone person that passes – ‘Can you help me with my travel vlog?’

DON’T BE ASHAMED

Don’t be ashamed or apologetic for your project or craft. Don’t apologize for stopping someone or for taking their time.Instead, thank them. Don’t denigrate your project or creative process; praise it and get people excited about what you are doing.

Your article, video or photography is something to be proud of and thinking this way can allow you to feel more confident approaching your subjects.

I think people want to believe you are an amazing artist or are working on a compelling project. Move with courage and grace and you will be given the benefit of the doubt. Everyone knows it takes a certain gravitas to interact with strangers in pursuit of a creative endeavor, I think you will find people to be overwhelmingly supportive.

YOU’RE IN CHARGE

People are good at following orders.Once you have your participants in your sway you are in charge; step off the curb, into the light, hold this mic, you’re doing great. One more time, a little louder this time, don’t be afraid to smile…thank you very much.

Know what you want from people and let them know as confidently and succinctly as possible.

“ I am going to ask you one simple question, whatever comes to your mind, no matter what it is, is OK. Are you ready for the question?”

or

“I am really interested in what you are doing. Do you mind giving me a little explanation on camera?”

Once they agree to participate they will be looking to you to help them give you what you need.

LET IT BE

People are compelling. The way folks think and act across individual and cultural lines is the stuff of endless tales… don’t think you can ever improve upon the perfect synchronicity of life. Sure, you can try and point it in the right directions, but at the end of the day, heart breaking truth and profound joy or subtle courage comes with perfect grace from nature and the nature of humans.

Let people be themselves. Praise and celebrate their individuality and they will perhaps open up and share some of themselves with you and your art.

THE FEAR OF EXISTING

As strange as it sounds, many people are afraid of their own existence. Documenting a person’s existence through film or photography plays to that fear. Many people fear that they will not like how they look, sound, act and respond on camera. They don’t want that mirror held up.

I think the easiest way to dispel the this fear in others is to give them permission to be exactly how they are. You must make sure they know you are coming from a place of non-judgment. Tell them that how they look and sound are perfect, and assure them that you will not make them look stupid on camera.

Easier blogged than done, I know. But in order to get more confident approaching potential subjects you have to practice! So get out their and start today!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Image: Gumster1

BE CONCISE

Brevity is indeed the soul of wit, especially when you are hosting your travel video.

Your online viewers have short attention spans so be concise.

Fight the compulsion to ramble on. Honestly, nobody finds you as interesting as you do. Remember that and you will do well. When filming your intro keep it at two short sentences or less.

Or if you want, cut away from the shot of you and use your speech as voice over, giving your audience something fresh to look at.

SPEAK UP

Square your shoulders, take a breathe and speak up. Deliver your lines with clarity and confidence. Even the most amateur, humble travel video host can command due attention by speaking like a seasoned pro.

ADD TO YOUR VISUAL EVIDENCE

As a host your job is to not only interact with the camera and the subject of your video but to explain the context of the visual evidence you are presenting. What don’t we see that is important or interesting? Enlighten us.

As the host we expect you to be the authority on the subject of your video. We can’t be there so we rely on you to supplement the visual evidence with your commentary.

LOOK GOOD

Frame yourself with an interesting background, but not distracting. If possible, your background should relate to the subject of your video. If you are shooting your host elements after the fact, resist the urge to film in your living room with your half folded laundry in the back ground.

Light yourself well. You probably aren’t packing lighting with you so search out a location that has great natural light. Too bright and you will be washed out, too dark and we loose you to shadows. Too dark / light screams “amateur” and is easily prevented, so double check your lighting.

Part of looking good is sounding good. Be sensitive to wind, music and crowd noise, these cacophonous distractions can ruin your on-camera presence. If you can, use a mic (starting at $20, they are cheap). If you suspect sound pollution, review your footage before you move on. Taking a few moments to watch what you just filmed marks the difference between a host who is invested in the final result and a n00b with shitty sound.

KNOW YOUR VIDEO

Knowing your video means you not only know what you want to say and capture on film, you know the story structure of your vid and where you need to add your two cents as a host.

Shooting your hosting elements during the action of your story may make sense but often you will have already shot the rest of your footage before you go to film your shots as a host. If you have already filmed, review your footage and create a rough outline for your video, penciling in shots of you hosting that add to the story and our enjoyment of your travel video.

Don’t just blindly turn on the camera and start blathering, no matter how interesting your environment is you can hardly sustain your audience without a little pre planning.

BE INTERESTING

This is a tough one. You don’t have to be stunningly gorgeous or have a massive facial scar to be interesting. The key to being interesting is being interested. Even if you are interested, if you don’t present with palpable, interested energy, your enthusiasm may not shine through. So bring your energy up two levels, slap a smile on your face and speak like you are compelled if not thrilled. Also, engage in interesting behaviors that takes you out of your comfort zone and lets the audience live vicariously through you.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

What do you think makes a good travel video host? Good looks? A sense of adventure? Willingness to try anything? Who is your favorite travel host? Describe your perfect travel host in the comments.

SOCIAL BUTTONS, icons that facilitate the sharing of content on your site or blog, are now a mainstay of social media.

It’s not enough to simply produce content, you must have the tools in place to allow your fans to share to their Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc.

THE TOOLS

Sharethis is a useful and popular option for websites and Wordpress.org sites. Notice the green Sharethis button on this page, expanding to reveal social buttons, Sharethis opens new windows to your social sites to share content you like.

Grab social icons at My Social Buttons in a variety of styles and sizes. These buttons are for you to link yourself and will not automatically open a share window.

For more social icons, visit Open Source Hunter for 128 inventive and free buttons.

While you can add Sharethis to a Wordpress.org site, you can’t add them to a Wordpress.com blog.

A good option for .com’rs is Get Social Live. I use this one on my blog and I can vouch. Simply copy and paste the permalink and title of your content and viola!, Get Social whips up code to copy and paste into your blog. Sound easy? It is.

Another great site for icons, images and textures is Webtreats. Tasty and free!

Community Connection

What social media buttons do you like? Let us know in the comments, por favor.

For more blogging tips and resources, please check our Focus Guide to Blogging.

Photo : Patrick Ng

STEPPING OUT to shoot the latest MatadorTV vlog I realize just how important it is to have my creative tools readily available.

It sounds simple, and it is, but it takes discipline. If I step out to go on a ride or a walk, I know if I don’t bring my camera there will likely be something I want to film (the guy doing back flips for a dollar). If I forget my notebook and pencil, I will be struck with some phrase or inspired idea with nothing but my leaky-bucket of a brain to contain it.

Besides being prepared there’s also a way of going through your day as an opportunist, basically being open to and allowing yourself to physically be present where your creative “sparks” usually occur. I find them outside, under rocks, in bars and graveyards, and on my mountain bike.

Being prepared and being inspired are two totally different things. But preparing to be inspired can leave you at the right place and the right moment, when the light is perfect or some heartbreaking truth is unfolding across the street.

Being a creative opportunist is simple. Remember:

BRING THE TOOLS.

A small camera, a paper and pencil at the very least. A sketch pad, harmonica, your favorite book, journal, guitar, water colors and a laptop is even better.

GO WHERE YOU ARE INSPIRED.

For me this week it was Mrtyle Edwards park, with all its crabs and yawning views of the Olympics. Next week it could be some old smelling coffee shop. The point is plant myself where I can marvel, where I can come out of my head and watch, prepared for inspiration.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

What environments stoke your creative fire? What do you carry with you; a notebook, laptop, a camera? How do you prepare yourself to be inspired?

THE IDEA for this post came from a question at Matador’s forums earlier this week. A discussion was raised about how to migrate your blog from Blogger to WordPress without losing content.

Below are a couple resources that show you how to do this, and then after that is a bit more on why I think this is worth doing. Earlier this year I wrote a very general overview on Which Blogging Platform is Best for Writers , and I still think it’s valid, however, after looking at a few more things about SEO and “ranking” (which I’ll explain below), I’ve changed my mind somewhat about Blogger.

How to switch

WordPress has an easy to follow page that explains how to import content from Blogger (or other platforms) to WP.

Or you can watch this video:

ANNOTATIONS allow you to display messages, thought bubbles and most importantly, add links to other YouTube videos. Adding links lets you guide your visitors to other videos and create interactive games, improving your viewer experience and getting you more views.

Anyone with videos on YouTube can add annotations to their vids. Annotations come in three flavors; Notes, Speech Bubbles, and Spotlights. Spotlights can be used as links that allow viewers to go directly to the video you link to. Annotations can be layered and placed anywhere in the viewer with multiple annotations appearing on the screen at once.

Annotations are free, easy to use, and well worth the little time they take to implement.

NOTICE MY USE OF ANNOTATIONS IN THIS MATADORTV VLOG.

WATCH THIS VIDEO FOR A TUTORIAL ON ANNOTATIONS

Now that you know how to use annotations, start experimenting on your videos right now. When it comes to using annotated links to create an interactive game, their is virtually no limit to what you may create!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Image: HikingArtist.com

AT MATADOR we usually avoid bigging ourselves up too much, but there have been some hardworking ninjas behind the scenes creating some great resources for writers and bloggers. I wanted to share some of the following:

How to Write

This page includes everything from how to write narrative essays using scenes to techniques for writing bilingual dialogue.

There are also lots of resources as far as magazines and websites you should know about.

Blogging Tips

Blogging tips is probably our fastest growing section of articles. There are resources here that can take you step by step through how to start a WordPress blog and finding a good WordPress theme.

If you’re already have a blog, this page also has good info on how to deal with content scraping and what to do with out of control comments.

Social Media

This page still has a lot more to add, but there are some really good resources here already on things like how to promote your photography online and utilizing retweets to become a twitter ninja..

Additional Resources

I also wanted to mention just a few of the other resources and communities outside of Matador that I visit at least on a semi-regular basis:

*New Pages – comprehensive listing of calls for submissions and literary magazines
*Practicing Writer – blog and site with focus on academic opportunities / discussions, and good market resources as well as interviews. Good newsletter.
*Brevity – blog on ‘creative nonfiction’, has good commentary, essays and news in the nonfiction ‘world’.

Community Connection

These are some of the resources out there for writers. What other ones do you use? Please let us know in the comments below, and thanks for visiting and sharing our focus pages.

View from author’s window on perfect day.

I WAS pre-coffee tweeting one morning when I saw a tweet on winetasting in South America, a story I had submitted a few days earlier.

Oh good, I thought, my story is published.

As a freelancer, especially one who writes for the web, even with Google alerts it’s hard to know sometimes when something of yours is going live, and you have to keep your finger on the pulse (or watch your blog traffic) to see what’s up.

Five minutes later, stovetop espresso in hand, I clicked through the link I’d sent my followers. The whole story was scraped. The story which I had pitched, had accepted, researched and written specifically for publication had been lifted, wholesale and placed elsewhere. For free.

Scraping is stealing someone’s content and posting it as your own. In the past I had seen bits and pieces of what looked like my stuff, and even photos I’d taken posted elsewhere. I would write a little, hey, you-know-what email, and usually get some satisfaction, a link at least.

But this? This had my editor messaging me asking if I’d double-submitted, a major no-no in this incipient industry. It also had me wondering just what had gone wrong. It happened that the site which had scraped my article belonged to someone who had recently asked me to do a guest blog post.

I hesitated for a minute, wondering if I’d somehow given permission for him to steal the content. Classic blame the victim mentality.

In the end, my editor contacted the offending party, who removed the content. I retweeted the real URL, and I sat, and fumed, downing more coffee, waiting for an apology that never came. I contacted some people with thicker skins and more years on the job than me, and came away with some different perspectives, and posted my frustration on my blog, where I knew the scraper, my editors, (and every other visitor, and maybe even some of you) would read it.

The question of when content scraping will happen to you is not so much if, but rather when. Do something out of the ordinary, or achieve a small amount of notoriety or write something clever and sit back and relax. Anyone, anywhere can lift your work and pass it off as their own, without so much as a credit, link, or thank you.

So what’s a creative, prolific person to do?

You could not publish anything, anywhere, keeping it all for yourself and under lock and key. Ick. You can watermark photos, or use Flickr’s “all rights reserved” stamp, (though this amounts to nothing more than a “pretty please don’t steal my photos, thanks”).

Writing is trickier. The written word is easily cut and pasted, or retyped from print onto a blog. South African infertility blogger Tertia Albertyn found several entries from a published book she’d written (So Close: Infertile and Addicted to Hope) posted on another blogger’s website.

Julie Schwietert, managing editor at Matador and one of the people who held my hand through my scraping experience, told me about a Cuban photographer friend of hers whose photo she’d seen in a gallery in New York.

He doesn’t follow up on these cases, he says, because the energy required exceeds the benefits he would reap. It’s not that he necessarily throws photo licenses into the wind, just that he knows that realistically, he will make himself sick with effort at trying to track all of these infringements down.

David Miller, Matador’s senior editor, has another take on artists’ rights, which he explained to me over Spanish tortilla one evening in Santiago. He believes Creative Commons licenses are the way to go.

CC defines themselves as “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” CC has gained popularity via Flickr, where users are allowed to specify that the works can be used with credit, for financial gain, or not, etc. Artists using CC have the benefit of increasing their internet footprint, with the possibility of remuneration coming via special projects. A good example is Trey Ratcliff, the most popular travel photographer on the web.

6 Thoughts on Content Scraping

1. Expect it. If you’ve got it out there, expect it to turn up somewhere else.

2. Prevent it. If it’s important to you to prevent it, take steps to do so. Hide it, watermark it, post it as an un-copyable PDF.

3. Find it. Go out and troll likely thieves, search uncommon character or word strings or check your Flickr referrals and see where people are coming from. Often, someone has linked to your photo from Flickr, and not rehosted it, which makes the theft easy to track.

4. Defend it. If you’re irked, set your editors, your blog readers (like Tertia’s), and other bloodhounds you have working on your behalf to storm the castle. Ask politely for the content to be removed. Grow steadily more insistent if they refuse or ignore.

5. Accept it. Take a page from Julie’s photographer friend’s book, and realize that it’s more important to hone your craft than it is to chase down wannabes.

6. Do an end-run around it. By marking your work Creative Commons, you increase exposure. Consider that disseminating your work (even freely) does not cheapen your ability to express yourself, and if you develop your craft and to the point where you have your own voice and vision, no one will believe that anything you create belongs to someone else.

Personally, I’m working on moving towards step 6, but I must report with sadness that I’m still in the capitalist grabby mindset that what’s mine is mine, and it’s not yours to show, publish, make money from or claim as yours unless I give you permission. Let’s see how far that gets me.

Community Connection

Matadorians, where do you find yourselves? Has your content been scraped? Did you follow up? Are you ready to go Creative Commons all the way?

Photo: Rutger de Moddertukker

IF YOU HAVEN’T HEARD YET, new FTC guidelines will be going into place beginning Dec. 1. These guidelines include, among other things, a mandate on disclosing any and all paid sponsorships or endorsements.

From the FTC Guide:

“The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. . . . Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.”

While many bloggers such as Marty Dickinson are bemoaning the impending regulations, some of us in the travel writing are looking at them as a step in the right direction. With full disclosure now being federally mandated, there seems to be more of a chance that current industry policies forbidding travel writers from taking comps will be revised, giving travel writers more freedom in looking for / accepting stories, and perhaps more to the point, earning a living.

How you answer Dickinson’s question about the regulations–”why would it be important for people to know that you’re getting a commission payment for a referral?” will probably determine how you feel overall about the issue.

The point is less about money and more about about transparency. After looking at this issue (or at least trying to) from all sides, I came up with a manifesto of sorts called Material Transparency.

I argued that bloggers and writers not only embrace the impending FTC regulations on material connections, but expand the concept into an overall aesthetic of transparency in their other connections, their crew, their companies, all as a way of defining and helping exhibit / promote their personal brand.

In what ways, if any, will these upcoming regulations affect your work as a writer or blogger? Please let us know in the comments below.

Image jiruan

Twitter Lists is a brand-spanking-new feature that allows you to follow groups of Twitter users that are compiled in various lists. This lets you to follow segments of Tweeple that share an affinity and create your own Lists for others to follow.

You can create a List for your fav bloggers, your family, your jilted ex’s…you name it. Because the latest tweets of everybody on the List are displayed in real time, Lists is a great way to get an overview of what a group of related people are talking about.

One of the beautiful things about Lists is that by following a list you are not actually following every person on the List. You are following the List itself. This means you don’t have to add the individual to your main tweet stream, you may simply check in on the List as often as you wish.

I invite you to follow a Matador Team list I have created. By following this list, you can readily see what all of Matador ninjas are tweeting about.

If you don’t follow Matador on Twitter, crawl out from your rock and click here.

Img: Torley

BLOGS ARE REALLY just points of entry for conversations. Even the simplest post can lead to comments that build on one another and go in unexpected directions. Something as innocuous as a landscape photo essay can transform into a religious debate.

It’s a stoke to see (and moderate) the evolution of comments around a post when this happens. But when a piece either gets popular enough, or if it’s thought-provoking enough, or even if you get one person with hurt feelings (or someone just plain out of control) in the mix, the whole conversation can devolve into a shitstorm. People begin attacking each other or the author personally. Some take the ultimate ‘weak-ass’ route and threaten to sue. It’s ugly and tedious to deal with, but it’s also something you can take a kind of pride in dealing with–you know you’re being read.

With that in mind, here are some thoughts our whole team had on dealing with comments:

Have a stated moderation policy.

As Andy Hayes notes, “There is precedent for bloggers being successfully sued for comments on their blog, so clearly reserve your right to remove or edit libelous, profane or otherwise unacceptable content.”

At Matador we have a liberal policy towards letting voices be heard. We let most comments stand unless they’re outright hateful or spam.

As Julie Schwietert notes, there’s a distinction between censorship and fostering good conversation. “I don’t view deleting inflammatory, hostile, or non-productive comments in the back end as censorship, especially when those comments are made by someone who wants to hide behind the relative anonymity that the Internet can provide.”

Shut down comments if necessary.

If it’s your site, then it’s your territory. Some people may view this as censorship, but it’s still your right to take down comments if a conversation has devolved completely. A good idea is to simply leave a note stating what happened as clearly and transparently as possible.

Address mistakes or issues that people bring up.

Make a mistake in the article? Fix it. Were you wrong? Admit it. Everybody makes mistakes, so take it constructively (even if the commenter is less than professional about it).

Community connection

How do you deal with out of control comments on your blog while still trying to maintain and promote good conversation? Let us know in the comments.