Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Welcome to Oh My Godot! (OMG)

We're glad you're here. This is a community of friends who are fans of actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Austin Nichols. For a while now, there has been speculation that Jake and Austin may be more than friends. There are numerous sources for this speculation, most notably the Ted Casablanca "Toothy Tile" Blind Items in the Awful Truth column at Eonline. Whatever the relationship between the two, this community is made up of fans of both.
Special K and I started this blog to create a community for fans of Jake and Austin. It is our belief that the only way to make a community is to enlist feedback from people and create the community together. We received feedback from several people in the Jake and Austin fandom saying they would like to see a community that did not allow anonymous posters. We thought we understood why people felt this way. Spesh and I want a community that will offer support to these two actors and to each other. The only way we will effectively be able to do this is if we are known and knowable to each other. We came to a decision to try and not allow anonymous posters. The problem is that Blogger does not make this easy. There are only two ways to do this- moderate comments and delete anons, or require everyone to get a Blogger ID. We tried comment moderation and found that it severely impeded conversation and community. We really do not want to make the demand that all posters get a Blogger ID.

We have come to this policy- here at OMG we STRONGLY encourage posters to post with names. Feel free to use an identity you've used before or to create an entirely new one if you wish. Change names as much or as little as you like. It's up to you. Further, if you have a Blogger ID, please use it when you post here.
If you feel you really want to post anon, that is okay. We will accept anon comments. We do not mean to imply that posting anon is bad in any way. For some people that is the only way they feel comfortable. However, not having an identity does not allow others to get to know you, and will keep you out of full participation in this community. We really want everyone posting here to be a full participant.
We are trying to all this out to see how it works. We welcome feedback from everyone about how it's going. Either comment or get in touch with us via the Oh My Godot e-mail in the sidebar.
Enjoy your stay!


11/27/07 UPDATE- After soliciting the feedback of this community and talking, Special K and I have decided we will reserve the right to delete anonymous comments. We have gotten very clear feedback from those who post here that they want to participate in a community where people attach a name to a post and are not anonymous. We have only two rules here at OMG- post with a name and be polite to each other. Spesh and I have asked people to post with names, folks who post here have asked people to post with names, and we have now decided we're tired of asking. If Blogger is acting up and won't accept your name, sign your comment or otherwise indicate that there is a name attached to it. If you can't be bothered to make up a fake name for your post, then this is not the blog for you.
We really do not want or like to delete comments. However, we intentionally set up this community to discourage anonymous posting and we have gotten too much feedback from folks here asking us to enforce this. Luckily, it is quite easy to put a name on your post. Just click "other" and enter a name. Or if Blogger's being ornery, sign it. We anticipate some people might have strong feelings about this change, but it is clearly what most people posting here want.