Got a question? Need an answer?

If you are like me, you often have questions about your website: How do I make more money doing this? How do I configure/install/use this software? Will anyone actually sit through this Flash thing I'm about to devote the next two weeks of my life to producing?

Starting today, OJR is offering you another place to go for anwers: The OJR Discussion Board. I'll be hanging out on the board, along with many of our OJR writers and USC Annenberg faculty, ready to offer tips and advice. And, I hope, that you will feel welcome to jump in and offer your two cents when you see someone asking about an issue you've dealt with in the past.

In addition to providing a forum for questions and answers, the OJR Discussion Board will be a place where you and other OJR readers can post news about new hires, new jobs and new features you'd like the world to know about.

Got a position you need to fill? Looking for writing, production or programming help? Post your job listings to the OJR Discussion Board, too. They will be linked to from the OJR home page, and visible to the many journalism students, here at USC Annenberg and at other schools, who read the site.

And if you are one among the growing number of independent online journalists, the OJR board can be another place to hang out online with similar professionals, not only to talk shop, but anything else that comes to mind. (We've all got to go off-topic now and then!)

It's our first day, but I hope that you won't let that lack of posts discourage you from submitting a question, posting some news or otherwise submitting a new thread. We'd love to hear what you have to say. Thanks!

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/discussion/.

[An apology: On another note, I want to apologize for a software glitch that resulted in the OJR e-mail newsletter going out twice to some subscribers this week. I think I've tracked down and corrected the problem, but I am sorry for the dupes.]

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Comments:

From Reg Crowder on January 27, 2007 at 5:36 AM

Fair enough. There IS something that has been bouncing around in the back of my mind: Is there anything, a new online product, type of website, whatever, that REALLY OUGHT TO BE CREATED but for some reason is being OVERLOOKED? Is there some gap or void in online journalism? Is there an online journalism version of "the dog that didn't bark?" I'd like to get the thoughts of the online journalism community along those lines.

REG CROWDER, Citizen of the World
http://www.mediabistro.com/RegCrowder

From Robert Niles on January 27, 2007 at 10:11 AM

Sounds like a great discussion topic. ;-)

I've long sought a variation of a discussion board that would use some sort of user moderation system to transform selected discussions into something like a wiki. That way, particularly useful discussions could become standing, FAQ-like, articles over time. This would help edit an informative discussion into a more reader-friendly format, with the potential advantage of being far more search-engine friendly.

I hate to see the valuable content I've encountered on some boards locked away in the discussion format, which isn't ideal for exposing older content to search engines and the readers looking for that type of content through them.

(And, yep, I fully intend to use the OJR Discussion Board as a guinea pig for this concept at some point!)

Shall we move this topic of discussion over there? Anyone care to submit it? (The discussion board has the advantage that its pages remain open for new comments indefinitely, unlike OJR article pages, which close to new comments after a brief period.)

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Got a question? Need an answer?

Comments:

From Reg Crowder on January 27, 2007 at 5:36 AM

From Robert Niles on January 27, 2007 at 10:11 AM

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