What is the focus and content of Day Two? Before deciding if I should propose a Room of My Own, it would be nice to know that it's not a subject covered in other sessions, or supporting those. Day One seems to be tutorials, but the content and context of Day Two is an unknown. Or did I miss an explanation provided earlier or in another location? Or is the idea that all ROYO's should be tutorial focused?

I'm finding this a bit confusing, or I'm missing some information. Also, the February dealine seems too far out from the actual conference. A five month window is an eternity in blog/web time. Blogher doesn't occur until the very end of July. Why such an early deadline for a relaxed, less formal part of the conference like ROYOs? Can you fill in the wholes for me? Thanks.

Elisa,

I was not at BlogHer last year. But I have a question about a possible "room" topic, if it isn't covered anywhere else.

Is there a "recommendation" about commenting on blogs? When should you comment? When simply read and leave? How MUCH in a comment before you move the talk to your own blog?
When does the blog-owner respond in comment and respond with a whole new blog post?

I get these questions all the time from folk, and I can't find any good guidelines.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Simple Still Life

hi Debra:

You're right that it's a great topic, and one the beginning bloggers often find themselves in hot water over, without even knowing why. I think the thing is that there's a lot left to personal taste. Personally, if I start to leave a comment that exceeds 3 paragraphs, then I change to making it a post, and simply comment that the post inspired me and point to the post. That's me though, certainly not everyone does (or should) behave the same way.

Nonetheless, Melinda Casino is going to do a segment on basic blog etiquette for the Blog in a Box segment on Day One. She'll cover commenting, trackbacks and attribution among other topics. Again, we're shooting for basic good manners and guidelines, not trying to be the arbiters of blog ethics.

Perhaps Melinda should prepare a hand-out to be made generally available, for those who don't attend the Blog in a Box session?

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

That's great. At least I know that replies on this post do in fact work. Any reason you're choosing to ignore my questions? Perhaps you didn't like them enough to acknowledge them. Bummer.

Hmmm, sorry about that wonkthis, not sure why I didn't see the earlier comment...I think if I clicked in to Debra's specific comment from the New Comments section of the home page it jumps right to hers being at the top of the page, and I didn't notice there was more above it? Not sure, but I only noticed now with this latest comment of yours that you had an earlier one, sorry again.

Now, to answer your questions:

Day Two is about the conversation, community and culture of blogging, and the sessions on Day Two are most definitely NOT tutorial in nature. Although we do have speakers and a moderator the moderator's job is to keep the conversation between the attendees and speakers going, not just between the speakers. The spirit of BlogHer is that the people in the room are as smart and have as much to contribute as the speakers. The topics are all over the map, from the personal to the professional to the political...we're really open.

Check out last year's schedule to get a good idea of the range of topics we covered last year and hope to exceed this year!

As for the early deadline: our experience is that it's good to secure our schedule as early as possible for three reasons:
a) get the speakers we want committed to us.
b) many people won't commit to buy that conference registration until they know the caliber of the programming.
c) Sponsors are more likely to come on board once they, too, see the caliber of our programming.

I might agree with you that the Room of Your Own sessions could be more casual, except that demand for them was extremely high last year. Last year we pretty much assigned slots to non-duplicating sessions in a chronological fashion. The fact that so many people have already gotten their acts together to submit proposals made me feel like some people would miss out unless I put a deadline on it that encouraged them to get their ideas in ASAP.

I know this is a looong comment. Hope it helps? Please let me know if you would like further clarification.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

I would like to have a room of my own on Bilingual Blogging, if there were going to be other people there!

Keeping a blog in more than one language is more than just a linguistic problem. There are a host of social, political and technical issues around posting, reading, writing, blogrolling and tagging in more than one language. I would like to explore some of these issues, share some of the practicalities, and move ahead with some ideas for designing for blogs and blogging in two languages.

Hi Bev!

I would recommend two things for people wantingto submit ideas:

1. Email me. And give me as much as you have fleshed out. The description, potential other people who might do it with you, whatever you've thought of.

2. I would also post a forum topic about it and see if you can get other people talking about it and expressing their interest. It's optional, but it would certainly be helpful.

Thanks.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

Hi Elisa

OK I'll email you.

I won't post a forum topic about it yet. I'll wait and see how the little pockets of conversations taking place on my blog and here develop first.