I want to jump in to clarify the situation here at Feministe, and it is at the risk of sounding whiny and defensive, but so it goes. I also want to make it clear that I speak only for myself, and EG and tigtog and Echo Zen might be grinding their teeth and locking me out of the system as they read this (which would be their right):
Up until a recent while ago, Feministe was helmed largely by Jill, a Professional Feminist. She was able to approach Being A Feminist as a full-time job, assisted by other bloggers, many of whom could only approach it as a part-time job, but it was generally okay because there was enough work to go around and enough workers for the work to go around to. When Jill was offered (what I assume was) a more prestigious and better paid full-time job as a Professional Feminist, she took it, which was great and cool, and that it left Feministe without any remaining Professional Feminists is not her fault. Regardless, the blog is currently driven by an assortment of people who are professional in other fields, and although you might think that several part-time bloggers should be able to add up to the content level and engagement of at least one full-time blogger, that’s (sadly) not the way the math works. (And that’s not even mentioning when one or more of those bloggers has to drop back for whatever reason and “several” turns into “one.”)
And yes, we do solicit guest posts, and yes, we have approached other bloggers to join as staff bloggers and/or contributors. Our guest post contributions generally run 1:2 people with actual contributions and people who would love to contribute a quality and researched post about email automation software that would pertain to the readers of our blog/website. We’ve discussed in the past problems associated with finding bloggers who want to join the staff. Trust me that we aren’t sitting here dog-paddling because our brand is so teddibly exclyusive that we can’t let just any old riff-raff post their applesauce on our hallowed blog*.
As a result, posting has been down. As a result of that, commenting has been down. Moderation has been spotty. So has guest-post-sifting. Sometimes, it comes down to posting a quick link dump twice in a week because a half-finished post of substance had to be set aside in favor of activities that will actually pay the bills. Sometimes, it comes down to forgetting to post a Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday and then not bothering to do it at all because we only get a handful of links, and they’re almost all by people who never otherwise engage anyway. (Sometimes, it comes down to everybody being legitimately overwhelmed except for one blogger, who had a really long day and has half a season of “Castle” to catch up on and feels really guilty for not doing her part, but not enough to put down the remote and the Chardonnay.)
Again, I can’t speak for any past or present Feministe associates, but I personally would love to have the time to follow the up-to-the-minute news and do primary research and deluge our cherished readers and commenters with hot and cold running content and original insights. There are a lot of things I would love to have in life. (I would love to have not bought a salt-belt car. I would love to drink beer and, like, play darts or something with Anna Kendrick.)
So in the future, when conversations run to “why has posting been down?” and “why are there fewer comments?” and “why is my comment still in moderation?” and “what should we get Caperton for Christmas?” and “you know, Feministe used to be so awesome. I miss awesome Feministe,” feel free to link to this post. The answer is, “Yeah, I miss Awesome Feministe, too.” I remember writing for Awesome Feministe, and it was a genuine thrill. I think Feministe is still pretty good, particularly for what we’re working with. And believe me that writing for Doing What We Can Feministe is still good, or else I would stop doing it. But the blog has changed in the way things sometimes change, and while I really, really, really hope that we can bring it back to its former glory, for now, this is the new normal. And I am sincerely sorry that we are currently unable to provide otherwise. And I hope you’re willing to stick around for what we are able to provide, and I hope we’ll be able to provide more in the future. Thank you for being a friend.
*Re-reading this, I cannot ignore the fact that “posting one’s applesauce” sounds like it should be an inappropriate euphemism for something.