SFist on SFist
There's a story -- a funny accident of history, actually -- that explains why there is always a copy of the latest New York Review of Books on the shelf next to the commode here at the Office of the SFist Ombudsman, but we focus instead a bit of text that appears on the contents page of every Review (one of the most earnest content engines in the country). The text reads: "Published 20 times a year, biweekly except in January, July, August, and September, when monthly."
You see that? The machine throttles back to 50 percent for the summer! Happily, there's no such restriction on fresh, thirst-quenching summertime SFist content. We had one hell of a July -- we turned a year old and interviewed Charo here, people! -- and it's still hard to believe we're already cruising through August, Labor Day already close enough to smell on the wind. Didn't the summer heat only arrive a couple of weeks ago?
So anyway, a month ended, which means we're supposed to get our feet off the desk and, uh, report on the state of things, especially our interaction with our readers. July makes for a largely uninteresting report. To explore why, take the example of fridges. "The fridge is still working" -- not very interesting. "The fridge exploded and took out the exterior wall" -- more interesting. But here at SFist, our metaphorical fridge is running just fine. The site coughs up cool new stuff; our readers respond with wit, insight, sometimes a little love, and the occassional correction.
The only comment that tripped the response wire at the Office this month came from reader PSA, who, after correcting a factual error in a political post, pedantificated thusly: "Please, if you're going to report on local politics, at least get the political facts straight. And if you can't, stop altogether."
Hey, PSA, let me show you the New York Review sometime. They do this crazy thing in the back where credentialed genius types write in to correct the errors of other credentialed genius types who generate the rag's content in the first place. Sometimes, letters spawn response-letters. Sometimes these conversations are even topped with the quirky, old-school headline "An Exchange." Quaint little comment threads they've got over there.
Now then. The SFist cast of contributors -- now large enough to band together like a bunch of punks and intimidate people on the N-Judah -- contains few, if any, credentialed genius types. And you needn't be a credentialed genius to leave a comment for us, either. So when we screw up, as all human beings (including credentialed genius types) do, by all means, embrace the medium and let us know. But as for the "get it right or quit" speech, lookee here. We spew all our wondrous noise out into the electronic ether because, as SFist Jackson has pointed out, we love to. It's how we embrace the medium. We don't give up when we screw up; we depend on the kind folks who understand what we're doing (and why) to help us along. And we thank those people as much as we can, just like Rita thanked you even when you got a little pissy, PSA, because if we didn't, we wouldn't feel the love that keeps this machine running strong all summer long when the credentialed genius types are taking every afternoon off to play golf or whatever the heck it is they do.
Speaking of time off, the Office of the SFist Ombudsman will have its fabled blinds shut and its door firmly duct-taped shut come August's end, for our entire staff will be frolicking (frolicking? not exactly, but what single verb could say it all?) in Black Rock City. So, barring any emergency ombudding, we'll be back in two months or so to bring you what may well be another report of a blog humming along and its readership being a swell group of people. Happy summerending to everybody, and go Super Fisters!