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Hello, Everyone!
Every now and again, the RantRave staff starts to get antsy. We love all of your contributions to the site, but the status quo has become a little tiring. We find ourselves getting into a rut by reading a post, followed by another post, followed by another post. Then we write about something. Then more reading. We find some comfort in the office fish and the occasional Starbucks run, but that will only get us so far. On one rare occasion, we even found ourselves starting an office Fight Club, but we set up so many rules and guidelines, all we could really do is insult each others personal hygiene.
Some people, when they get in a rut, delete everything and start fresh (Welcome back, Siempre!). We, however, do not have that luxury, so we need to find other ways to keep ourselves interested. It's not that we don't love the site or the writers on the site, but even the most happily married couples find ways to keep things fresh.
So, we brainstormed, spent some money and came up with a great list of upgrades, which we think you all will appreciate and enjoy. There are so many, in fact, we are rolling them out in two phases. The first of which is happening right now and the next in a month, or so.
Here are today's new and exciting features...
Get Paid to Post
Okay, so this was unveiled on Christmas, but it deserves more attention. As many of you know, if you have a PayPal account, we allow you to link your Google AdSense to your posts. Previously, we rotated your accounts with ours, which gave you 50% exposure. We decided that you deserve your full share, so from now on, your ads will appear on your posts 100 percent of the time. It's our way of saying thank you for being awesome.
There are other sites that give you 100 percent of your ad impressions, but to my knowledge, no one else can promote you to Google News.
That leads me to...
Donations!
That's right! You can now send us money (beginning Monday)! We are not begging or requiring, just letting you know the option is available. Donations will be used for website maintenance, server costs, and other business needs.
We are hoping to get through 2010 without having to accept a government bailout, and, with your help, we won't have to ask.
RantRave Community Guidelines
Once upon a time, a gentleman named Coloranter suggested a Code of Conduct. Finally, after 9 or so months, we have implemented a short list of guidelines. For all of you who have already signed up, the only real difference is a new link in the footer (which is also linked in the external links), but for new people, they now have one more box to check, stating they have read the guidelines. Please give them a read, so you at least know what the new folks are seeing.
Preview Your Post
This one is exciting. We've added a step to the Rant/Rave writing process. When you complete your Rant or Rave, add your pictures, links, etc., and click "Continue," you will be taken to a "Preview your Post" page. Please read your post carefully, checking for spelling errors (we also added spellchecker to the title), grammatical errors, etc. before you publish your post. This will save you the hassle of having to delete and republish your post, after you discover you misspelled "their." Or is it "there"? "They're"? Anyway...
Comments
Finally, you can now delete your own comments. But please, use discretion.
We made a few behind-the-scene changes, but they're either dull or extremely top secret, so I won't be sharing those. We have a few more surprises up our sleeves, which will be unveiled in the coming month, so stay tuned.
Thanks again to all of our faithful Ranters, Ravers and Readers!
Alex Layton
Site Administrator