How does Planetizen get op-ed authors?

[Dan]

I'm starting an op-ed section on Cyburbia. I'm curious about how Planetizen gets op-ed authors. Are there volunteers lined up waiting to write, or are they solicited?

I'm hoping that the addition of op-ed articles will boost discusion in the planning-related subforums. Right now, 63% of all posts in the forum are in the FAC; it's approaching two-thirds of all posts. I think that might be hurting the legitimacy of the site among more serious "blue shirt" planners and the APA. The very people who would write op-ed articles probably don't visit Cyburbia. I don't want to get rid of the FAC, but I would like to see more posting in the on-topic subforums, and make the ratio of on-topic posts to off-topic posts more balanced.

[Planderella]

I think what may keep some people from submitting an Op-Ed piece on Cyburbia is the possible loss of animonity. I wouldn't want to submit something legit under a pseudonym, but I know Cyburbia doesn't allow sockpuppets either. As far as posting outside of the FAC is concerned, most of the time I don't have the interest, the knowledge, or personal experience to comment on some of the threads. I'm certainly not one to post just for the sake of it either and if I feel that I don't have anything remotely profound or significant to say, I'd rather lurk than post junk.

[Dan]

I think what may keep some people from submitting an Op-Ed piece on Cyburbia is the possible loss of animonity.

That's a concern of mine, too. I knew the real name policy would keep many Cyburbians from writing op-eds, but it's the only way to maintain a sense of legitimacy;. After all, what op-ed would you take more seriously, something written by John Smith AICP, or by party planimal?

Let's step beyond the forums. I'm wondering if there's people lined up with op-eds in hand waiting to be published on Planetizen, or if Chris Steins approaches people first? Here's a sampling of people that have written op-eds for Planetizen (I'm copying and pasting):

Carol Colletta of smartcityradio.com
CNU co-authors John Norquist and Stephen Filmanowicz
Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP, is an Instructor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Ricky Mathews, Publisher of the Biloxi Sun Herald and Vice-Chairman of the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal after Hurricane Katrina
Michael Lewyn teaches at Rutgers School of Law-Camden at the State University of New Jersey.

These are prominent voices. I don't mean to belittle those who aren't, but ultimately I'd like to see some authors of the same prominence; not just "Kristin Smith, Planner I - sign permits and business registration"

[Wannaplan?]

I think Cyburbia Op-Ed would have more meaning for practicing planners if they were written by practicing planners. Articles would be a boon to the average planner's career if her or she could place a writing/publication credit on his or her resume. If we wanted polemic, we'd go to the Planetizen boards. Cyburbia needs to carve out it's own niche; duplicating Planetizen's efforts wouldn't get us anywhere. This means tight editorial control, to ensure content is relevant and well-written.

Where does and how does one begin crafting a unique editorial vision to serve the interests of practicing planners? Not having any experience in these matters, I would start at the basics and consider what type of article would have immediate relevancy to practicing planners and stand out from Planetizen and all the other bloggers out there. I can come up an interesting theme, call it "Lessons Learned" or "In the Trenches." Not many of us have the cache that Planetizen contributors possess, but with kick-butt editorial review and attention to detail, Cyburbia Op-Ed can be the place to go for professional planners to improve their craft and practice.

This vision, on its face, appears to be a direct sibling to the APA's Practicing Planner members-only web publication. This is an invaluable resource that has given me many helpful hints in my career. If Cyburbia Op-Ed were to be crafted in this manner, we need not duplicate APA's efforts; instead, the articles would be free to non-APA members and would have real-world immediacy to many practicing planners, since our articles and responses would be seen in real time with no delay. You can't do that on the APA website! Yes, there's a thoroughness in their articles, and by no means does Cyburbia Op-Ed need be "Planning Lite," instead, it would be anecdotal yet insightful, quirky yet enjoyable.

[Dan]

I think Cyburbia Op-Ed would have more meaning for practicing planners if they were written by practicing planners. Articles would be a boon to the average planner's career if her or she could place a writing/publication credit on his or her resume. If we wanted polemic, we'd go to the Planetizen boards. Cyburbia needs to carve out it's own niche; duplicating Planetizen's efforts wouldn't get us anywhere. This means tight editorial control, to ensure content is relevant and well-written.

Where does and how does one begin crafting a unique editorial vision to serve the interests of practicing planners? Not having any experience in these matters, I would start at the basics and consider what type of article would have immediate relevancy to practicing planners and stand out from Planetizen and all the other bloggers out there. I can come up an interesting theme, call it "Lessons Learned" or "In the Trenches." Not many of us have the cache that Planetizen contributors possess, but with kick-butt editorial review and attention to detail, Cyburbia Op-Ed can be the place to go for professional planners to improve their craft and practice.

This vision, on its face, appears to be a direct sibling to the APA's Practicing Planner members-only web publication. This is an invaluable resource that has given me many helpful hints in my career. If Cyburbia Op-Ed were to be crafted in this manner, we need not duplicate APA's efforts; instead, the articles would be free to non-APA members and would have real-world immediacy to many practicing planners, since our articles and responses would be seen in real time with no delay. You can't do that on the APA website! Yes, there's a thoroughness in their articles, and by no means does Cyburbia Op-Ed need be "Planning Lite," instead, it would be anecdotal yet insightful, quirky yet enjoyable.

You know, you're right.

Here's a cross-section of article titles from Practicing Planner:

Technology vs. Aesthetics in Community Planning
Horizon West: Managing Rural-to-Urban Transition in Orange County, Florida
Planning Website: The Farmers Branch Experience
Emergency Management in a Nutshell for Planners
The Worsening National Nursing Home Crisis
Creating Compact and Complete Communities: Seven Propositions for Success
Land Taxonomy: A Set of Nomenclature for Land Development

These are titles to some Planetizen op-eds and articles:

After the Fall: Why City Planners Must Seek Answers About 9/11
New Urbanist Planning Essential To Gulf Rebuilding
Young at Heart: Finding The Key Demographic Needed To Revitalize America's Inner Cities
Thoughts On Rebuilding (And Not Rebuilding) New Orleans
Gentrification Reality Tour: Neither Benign nor Benevolent
LucasWorlds: Urban Planning and Design in the Star Wars Epic
Making Better Places: Ten City Design Resolutions

There is a need for the polemic, I admit, but it would be great to have other practing planners share their experiences. I'm not talking about the day-to-day venting that you see in the Forums, but with themes like "lessons learned" and "in the trenches;" something most planners in the field can relate to. Having more small feature articles about planning practice than the usual op-ed pieces would carve out a nice niche.

The very tight editorial control should help with concerns I might have about inexperienced writers. Without it, I might feel obligated to publish everything that is submitted; the "nice guy" in me and all. Wanna' join the editorial board?

[Wannaplan?]

Wanna' join the editorial board?

Why, yes, I would love to!

[Planderella]

The very tight editorial control should help with concerns I might have about inexperienced writers. Without it, I might feel obligated to publish everything that is submitted; the "nice guy" in me and all. Wanna' join the editorial board?

I would love to participate.

[Dan]

I'll set up a subforum.

[Planderella]

This thought just occured to me....what Cyburbia needs is a street team or amabassadors to help spread the word. The best place to do it is at the conferences - national and local. I actually first heard of Planetizen at an APA conference, so I know it can be effective.

The first street team can be the group of Cyburbians who are meeting up for the San Antonio laefest.

[Dan]

The first street team can be the group of Cyburbians who are meeting up for the San Antonio laefest.

Believe it or not, I won't find out I'm going until tomorrow - the registration deadline. The County Commissioners are taking their time on approving the expenses for me to go. If they give the okay, I was thinking about having some cards printed up promoting the site, and leaving them in strategic places; mainly the exhibitor hall, but also giving them to Cyburbians to distribute. The design of the cards: I'm still thinking of ideas.

One way I thought of recruiting writers is to solicit those with dead planning-related blogs. "How'd you like to be read by a LOT more people?"

[hilldweller]

Let me start by saying that I think Cyburbia currently acheives a perfect balance between the serious, well-informed discussion and the playful banter of the FAC. What makes it unique is that you can argue about planning theory, rant about your job, and bust Stan jokes at the same time. That said, I don't think editorials are neccessary- heck some of the posts are better than most of the stuff I've read on Planetizen in themselves.

What attracted me to Cyburbia in the first place was that it was home to really well-educated, intelligent people who had kind of a rebellious attitude towards professional planning practice. So I think I speak for others on this site when I say that I could care less about what the APA/ "professional" planning crowd thinks.

[Dan]

What attracted me to Cyburbia in the first place was that it was home to really well-educated, intelligent people who had kind of a rebellious attitude towards professional planning practice. So I think I speak for others on this site when I say that I could care less about what the APA/ "professional" planning crowd thinks.

Thanks for the kudos! You do raise some excellent points. We do want to maintain some of that rebellious attitude here; by turning into a stiff blueshirt site, we'll turn off a lot more users than we'll attract IMHO. The FAC and the slightly offbeat, quirky, edgy personality of the site aren't going anywhere, but the mods and I agree that we'd like to see some more planning-related discussion if we're going to be taken seriously. About 2/3rds of the posts in the Forums are in the FAC, and we want to shift it so the ratio of on-topic to off-topic posts more like 1:1. That means attracting more of the blueshirts - the "professional" planning crowd.

One way of attracting more of the "professional" planning crowd is by adding more fresh, highly relevant content on the front page. That mean editorials and features. The front page used to be relatively static; just a list of recent threads, Planetizen news, and that's about it. It didn't do much to get new users to explore the site, most new users came here because they found forum posts through Google searches. (Google loooooooooves Cyburbia. ) We used to get a little bit of traffic into Cyburbia from Planetizen, but when they moved to their new content management system last year, they removed most of their links to Cyburbia; the reciprocal links they had went bye-bye. When other sites link to Cyburbia, it's to the front page, not the Forums.

Wanigas searched the pro-urb listserv, and the results were very interesting. There were only a few mentions of Cyburbia. Planetizen gets mentioned just about every week, if not more often. If someone criticizes NU in a post here, there's no mention of it on pro-urb. If an op-ed piece on Planetizen is somewhat critical of smart growth or NU, that's all the listserv is talking about for a week. When I look at NU blogs, there's a lot of references and links to Planetizen, but not to Cyburbia.

This is the oldest continually operating planning-related site on the Web, but it's off the radar screen for so many. Why? The front page editorials are a way to draw people to the site; to get them talking about that editorial or article on Cyburbia, to get them coming back to see what's new, and maybe explore a bit deeper and see what's in the Forums.

While I'm not about to strip away the somewhat edgy personality of Cyburbia, I do at least want the respect of the blueshirts. There are a lot of planners out there whose online universe is limited to the APA, Planetizen, and some dull listservs. I want to expand their universe just a little bit, and maybe have them expand ours.

One idea for "street team" advertising at the APA conference is printing cards that say "YOU ARE NOT ALONE," which I think might appeal to the majority of working planners; those in the trenches who read Planning magazine, and feel depressed because those cutting edge projects aren't in their communities, because their efforts to make their communities a better place are blocked at every turn, because they see cellular facilities hidden in steeples in California and wonder why it's so hard just to get the usual bare metal towers painted anything but grey in their towns, because they see images of streets with six-foot-tall signs and attractive buildings and work with a board of adjustment who will give Billy Bob a variance to waive all landscaping requirements and put up a 100' tall monster advertising his used tire store in a metal shed. Many young (and old) planners still don't know we exist, because Cyburbia doesn't have the word-of-mouth buzz of their peers. Actually, the buzz is still there, at about the same level of four or five years ago if not a bit more, but the buzz for other sites seem MUCH louder. I've got to turn up the volume a bit, and be heard among the din of the crowd.

EDIT: Not going to national. The "no conferences" policy here rears its ugly head. If I had some equity in my house, I'd start sending out resumes like AOL CDs.

[Gedunker]

Dan: I have been drafting an article on a fantastic (and fantastically difficult) inner-city affordable housing project we are completing here. I think it would be a great article for an "in the trenches" sort of thing. If you think it might be appropriate, I'd love to share it. (It's not ready at this moment, owing to some court appeals, but we expect to be complete in late summer or early fall.) Let me know.

As to the ever-continuing effort to attain and retain members, I've thought that a lot of members that frequent the planning education forum seem to disappear when they get in school, or when they begin their careers. Our retention of these folks seems rather poor, frankly. I've been wondering if we could pass the hat to start some sort of Cyburbia Scholarship that would assist planning (and planning -related) students with a small travel stipend (say $250) in exchange for the opportunity to post on Cyburbia a travelogue or short article about their trip (for example). I think something like this would expose Cyburbia to young planners and give us a chance to get them hooked while they're on the front-end of their career. There may be lots of reasons why we can't or shouldn't do something like this, but I thought I'd toss it out there and see if it has any traction. Am I crazy?

[Wannaplan?]

Dan, have you done a search yet on Google Groups for Cyburbia and Planetizen? There are more hits for Cyburbia than Planetizen, about a 10:1 ratio. Is that encouraging, or is it a function of how old the respective sites are?

[Dan]

Dan, have you done a search yet on Google Groups for Cyburbia and Planetizen? There are more hits for Cyburbia than Planetizen, about a 10:1 ratio. Is that encouraging, or is it a function of how old the respective sites are?

It's mostly age.
262 hits for cyburbia.org, 1 in 2006, 4 in 2005, and 10 in 2004.
112 hits for planetizen.com. 10 in 2006, 13 in 2005, and 12 in 2004.

I was more active in Usenet (Google Groups) before the collapse of alt.planning.urban in the late 1990s. When the vBulletin system came online, I promoted the Forums a little bit, but was reluctant to do more because I wanted to avoid spamming.

Doing a regular Google search is difficult, because a few other sites use the word "cyburbia" as a generic term meaning "cyberspace." In a search for "cyburbia.org," I get a lot of internal hits; links from other parts of the site. Many of the links are old; they mention that we're a part of the University at Buffalo site, or they link to the address of the long-long-gone PAIRC site. Even considering that:

Links to Cyburbia: 1,960
Links to Planetizen: 3,680

I did a similar search a couple of years ago, and the numbers were flipped.

[Dan]

Dan: I have been drafting an article on a fantastic (and fantastically difficult) inner-city affordable housing project we are completing here. I think it would be a great article for an "in the trenches" sort of thing. If you think it might be appropriate, I'd love to share it. (It's not ready at this moment, owing to some court appeals, but we expect to be complete in late summer or early fall.) Let me know.

I'd definitely like to see it. It's late at nightl can I edit this article tomorrow to address the rest of your post?

[Wannaplan?]

Hey Dan, on the front page you have:

New editorials, columns and articles will be linked to a discussion thread on the Cyburbia Forums, where members of our very active online community can post comments, and you'll have the opportunity to respond.

Just thinking out loud here, does it make sense to have those articles be linked to the forum threads? When Cyburbia used to host a Planetizen Sub-Forum, the posts there were few and far between. Furthermore, in attracting the Blue Shirts to Cyburbia, perhaps in the past there was something about the forums that made them averse to signing up and posting. Which leads me to my main point - maybe the Voices discussions should be restricted to the Voices interface, a la just about any blog out there. Furthermore, if the Voices article were linked to the forums, then that's an extra step someone must take, just to post a comment. Therefore, by keeping the Voices articles and related comments together, one does not have to venture into the subversive underworld of Cyburbia forums (ahem), giving Voices (and Cyburbia) more respect and credibility.

I know we want more discourse in the Forums, but for the sake of credibility, maybe once Voices is launched, the Forums should be downplayed (at least for the time being)?

[hilldweller]

Just thinking out loud here, does it make sense to have those articles be linked to the forum threads? When Cyburbia used to host a Planetizen Sub-Forum, the posts there were few and far between. Furthermore, in attracting the Blue Shirts to Cyburbia, perhaps in the past there was something about the forums that made them averse to signing up and posting. Which leads me to my main point - maybe the Voices discussions should be restricted to the Voices interface, a la just about any blog out there. Furthermore, if the Voices article were linked to the forums, then that's an extra step someone must take, just to post a comment. Therefore, by keeping the Voices articles and related comments together, one does not have to venture into the subversive underworld of Cyburbia forums (ahem), giving Voices (and Cyburbia) more respect and credibility.

I know we want more discourse in the Forums, but for the sake of credibility, maybe once Voices is launched, the Forums should be downplayed (at least for the time being)?

This is probably a good idea posed by Wanigas. So will the Voices page be formatted like the comment page on Planetizen (which is pretty bland btw)? Will Cyburbians retain their identity? It will probably need to be policed a bit more than the forums are currently because we've had some trolls lately.

[Wannaplan?]

Thinking out loud again, this time related to the "Plantizen stealing Cybubia's thunder" issue, what are some of the steps that Planetizen did in the beginning to increase its legitimacy? One thing comes to mind, the Top 10 awards they've given for books and planning issues, including Cyburbia's award for being one of the Top 50 Websites. That was certainly good PR on Planetizen's part, wasn't it? I have a few ideas on Top 10 awards that Cyburbia could hand out, but I'm not going to post them here, lest a Planetizen Admin is reading and ready to steal my ideas. (We should do Top 5 awards, a la "High Fidelity." )

[Dan]

Just thinking out loud here, does it make sense to have those articles be linked to the forum threads? When Cyburbia used to host a Planetizen Sub-Forum, the posts there were few and far between. Furthermore, in attracting the Blue Shirts to Cyburbia, perhaps in the past there was something about the forums that made them averse to signing up and posting.

That was a problem, but I thought it was strange considering the hoops you have to go through to register on a mailing list. Some have told me they're reluctant to sign up on a message board because "it isn't easy," but it's actually a lot easier than registering for a listserv.

Cyburbia:
1) Fill out form.
2) Recieve email notice.
3) Click on confirmation link in email.

Listserv:
1) Send email control message to listserv address: "SUBSCRIBE [NAME OF LIST]", with various options like your name, whether you want it in digest form, and so on.
1a) Send an email describing your interest in the list subject to the list operator. (some lists)
2) Recieve email notice.
3a) Edit email notice, and forward it back to the listserv subscription address. (some lists)
3b) Click on confirmation link in email. (some lists)

Regular Planetizen news articles don't get many responses now. However, their op-ed features get quite a few. More importantly, though, the articles get forwarded to colleagues and reposted to other lists and blogs, generating "buzz" and potential visitors for the site.

Which leads me to my main point - maybe the Voices discussions should be restricted to the Voices interface, a la just about any blog out there.

We could do it that way, or link it to the forums. Thing is, people still have to register if they're going to comment. The version of Drupal used here is heavily modded so it's closely integrated with vBulletin. If someone wants to comment using the blogging system, they have to go through the normal vBulletin registration process; whether comments are set up blog-style or passed to a forum thread.

If someone wants to post a response to a Planetizen article, they still have to register on Planetizen; anonymous posting isn't permitted. Planetizen runs straight Drupal, and anonymous responses to op-ed articles and news items aren't permitted. The Drupal user registration process on Planetizen is similar to vBulletin; fill out a form to register, wait for an email notice, and then click on a link in the email to confirm your registration. The only difference, I think, is that Planetizen doesn't have any banned email domains, while we don't permit registation from Yahoo addresses and a few other spam-prone domains.

I'm more inclined to have comments in a Forum thread, so the ratio of on-topic to off-topic posts is raised. If there was a way to have comments displayed blog-style, and also be duplicated in a Forum thread, I'd do it, but I don't know if it's possible. I can look into it, though.

This is probably a good idea posed by Wanigas. So will the Voices page be formatted like the comment page on Planetizen (which is pretty bland btw)? Will Cyburbians retain their identity? It will probably need to be policed a bit more than the forums are currently because we've had some trolls lately.

The articles will look about the same -- hopefully with more illustrations and photos, but that depends on the author -- and Cyburbians will retain their identity, whether responses take the form of a blog or Forum thread. It will be policed quite a bit. There are occasional reponses from alt.planning.urban posters to op-eds there, which I don't want to see here. I don't want responses to consist only of "dittos", but we will keep the trolls and "get off my property/planners suck/zoning is Communism"-types under control.

[Dan]

Thinking out loud again, this time related to the "Plantizen stealing Cybubia's thunder" issue, what are some of the steps that Planetizen did in the beginning to increase its legitimacy? One thing comes to mind, the Top 10 awards they've given for books and planning issues, including Cyburbia's award for being one of the Top 50 Websites. That was certainly good PR on Planetizen's part, wasn't it? I have a few ideas on Top 10 awards that Cyburbia could hand out, but I'm not going to post them here, lest a Planetizen Admin is reading and ready to steal my ideas. (We should do Top 5 awards, a la "High Fidelity." )

The top Web site awards is brilliant, because it gets those sites linking back to them. Many do more than that; a few examples:
http://www.ecocitycleveland.org/abou...zen_top50.html
http://www.smartgrowth.org/misc/defa...rt=38&res=1280
http://www.rppi.org/planetizenaward2003.shtml

NOBODY lavishes such attention on Cyburbia.

With the new Site of the Day feature here, it's really not so much a list of "best of the best sites," but just quality sites that planners will find interesting, many of which are overlooked. It's not really intended as an award program, but rather as a way to keep front page content fresh, and get people visiting every day. That doesn't mean I don't want to see an awards program here, though.

How did Planetizen steal Cyburbia's thunder? They offered a unique service at the right time, and were damn good at marketing it. It started with user-contributed links to planning-related articles in online news sites, a few years before blogs and RSS/Atom feeds appeared on the Internet. The front page was updated several times a day with those articles, enticing surfers to return several times a day to see what was new. The news feed and awards got them incoming links. Planetizen is the public face for Urban Insight, a Web design firm, and there was money to take the show on the road, to conferences and the like. It helps that the base of operations is in Southern California, where there are limitless opportunities to network in person.

I don't want to steal Planetizen's thunder, steal their traffic, or otherwise "beat them." Cyburbia and Planetizen do complement each other, even though there's creeping overlap; they have a link directory now, and we're expanding what was "Perry's Corner" into a full-fledged op-ed/features 'zine. I'm looking for equity in mindshare, some acknowledgement of our existence from the "professional" planning crowd (especially considering how we've been around since 1994), and ultimately a much larger userbase for the Forums, which would hopefully balance out the ratio of on-topic to off-topic messages (NOT eliminate the FAC or dull our offbeat-leaning zeitgeist; just balance things out), which would earn us more respect among the "professional" planning crowd, which would increase the Forums userbase ... you see where this is going. That's not all, though; like any popular Web site, Cyburbia's offerings can't remain stagnant, and that means we have to offer new services like Buzz and Voices. It's in the spirit of giving more back to the planning profession.

Planetizen is as much Chris Stein's site as Cyburbia is mine, but his name isn't as closely tied with his site Cyburbia is with me. Another goal with "Voices" is to increase the role of users in shaping the site, and make it seem less like "Dan's site." 95% of the content on Planetizen wasn't created by Chris or Urban Insight staff, but rather contributors of news, op-ed authors, posters to their tech blog, "partners," and so on. Cyburbia is no different. The Forums users create most of the content, and the mods ensure it's quality stuff for the most part. I do much of the behind-the-scenes gruntwork, and pay for the software and hosting, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't get all the credit. I really feel uncomfortable when reviews or links to this site mention my name.

EDIT. It's possible to display both blog-style and forum-thread style comments.

10th anniversary article as it appears on the front page: http://www.cyburbia.org/
Blog style: http://www.cyburbia.org/node/98?PHPS...4daa006fd16ac0
Thread: http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24042

[Dan]

I'm going to bump this again.

Another thing ... yeah, it's the money issue. I get very little money from the Google ads; maybe enough to pay for the hosting, software, and about $20 to $40 extra left over. I spend a LOT of time on this site, and in terms of both time and finances it's a drain. Seriously, I don't want to do this until I turn 65, still have most planners I meet say "I never heard of Cyburbia", and essentially spent tens of thousands of hours on the site for naught. Yes, it's satisfying that a LOT of people really like Cyburbia, but I'm a poor planner, working for a county that has a policy of "no conferences" and "no merit raises."

Planetizen gets $69 for an announcement or job listing, and a lot more for banner ads. The site takes in thousands of dollars a month in revenue. I make in a month what Planetizen makes in a couple of hours.

No, no donations, no begathons. No. Nobody has expressed any interest in sponsoring a banner. Planetizen gets thousands of dollars a month for their banner ads. I want people to take notice of the site so they can buy a banner ad, and I can get at least make as much in a month as Planetizen makes in a day or two. Enough to pay for getting me to next year's conference, maybe.