Do You Have Info?

There’s been a lot of recent press about high profile bloggers getting re-assigned, fired, quitting, and resigning. None of this press has been good, and it’s contributed to nothing but a view of AOL’s bloggers being a bunch of unprofessional drama-causing writers.

To me? This view is sad.

I started freelancing at AOL in January 2008 for their WoW Insider property; it’s a gaming blog dedicated to the massive online RPG game World of Warcraft. Since then I’ve become an editor at the site, then a senior editor, and have written things that’ve appeared on other AOL sites like Joystiq, Massively, and Big Download. It’s been a great gig and I love my work with our staff; I hope to continue with them for a long time.

In my years with AOL I’ve ran into lots of different people — just like anyone does with any other job. However the vast majority of the people working for AOL are professional, kind, caring, and upstanding individuals.

The AOL writing and reporting that I know has never had a question of editorial independence. There’s the standard editorial oversight; people in charge saying what is good content and bad, but there’s never a question of someone on high coming down and saying “don’t publish this” or anything like that. The people that are hired as editors and managers know what the site’s voice is supposed to be, and they’re able to manage and execute strategies to achieve that voice.

The AOL blogging that I know is obsessed with ethics. There is no room for unethical behavior. Gifts are not accepted and kept (they’re always given away), close contacts are always disclosed, and anonymous source stay anonymous; no matter what the situation might evolve into (and many in the WoW blogging community will know the heat I’ve taken over such anonymous sources).

Finally, the AOL blogging that I know is professional and always has an open mind. Change is not frowned up, but looked at as a way to grow audiences. Internal disagreements happen and are even encouraged; disagreements are necessary to achieve the best result possible. I’ve had heated arguments many a time with my fellow editors. But they stay internal and don’t go out onto the rest of the internet. Everyone who works at a site long enough has dirty laundry — the AOL blogging I know washes it themselves and doesn’t leave it out to dry.

But to each their own. Everyone is different, and maybe there’s sites out there on the AOL net that don’t have the same standards I was “brought up” in. Which is too bad really, because overall, AOL bloggers just arn’t like what’s being portrayed.

It’s no secret that I’m a freelance employee — I make my living by having two very fleixable and awesome jobs. One is at WoW Insider, working as a Senior Editor over at that well known junket of WoW news, and the other is with Tecca. Tecca is a startup that’s focused on consumer electronics and providing a site for the more relaxed techonerd.

There’s been a lot of back-channeled discussion of freelance employees these days. This is in part because of the bleeding at Aol, and in part because every six months or so another “omg freelance sucks!” week hits. These last few weeks have been particularly bad, however. A lot of great writers, editors, and content producers have lost their income. That’s no fun for everyone involved.

I hold a precarious situation though. On one hand I am a freelancer myself. All my income is sent right to me as contract work. I’m doing quite well, but still, I get to cover every cost and tax on my own. So that’s one hand.

On the other, I’m tasked with leading freelance teams to get their jobs done. I can see, perhaps better than some, the problems that happen when freelance payments are a day or two late. I know what it’s like, I’ve been there. But I also understand the other end of things — there’s a reason sometimes freelancers have to get the shaft.

And that brings me to this post — how to handle freelancers. A lot of people are doing it wrong, and while they won’t change how they’re doing it based on what I say, at least I can try to do my part.

Adam’s Tips for Handling Freelancers

1. Communicate
Is there something that the freelance employee should know? Will they be getting their check next month? Is the payment date getting pushed back or up? Tell the freelancer as soon as you know, even if you don’t know for sure. Keep them in the loop, let them be able to plan for eventual problems, and never stop talking to them.

2. Honesty
Don’t say something that isn’t true. If you have bad news, give it to them straight and don’t lie. Don’t make the situation seem better than it is, don’t try to placate fears — be honest. Honesty should be the first thing on this list, but to be honest you have to communicate (and that seems like a hard thing to do).

3. A Path Forward
Always tell the freelancer what their path going forward looks like. Even if it’s “keep trying to improve your writing” or “keep doing a great podcast,” at least tell them what they need to be doing to stay in your “good graces.” Nothing is more frustrating for a freelance employee as not getting feedback and not knowing where they stand (and where they need to go).

4. Don’t be too busy for them
It’s not hard to answer freelancer questions, especially with the distributed virtual workforce of today. Granted, 9pm on a Saturday night might not be a time you’re available, but 11am on a Tuesday? Even if you’re in meetings, have time to answer the freelancer’s questions, or at least tell them when you’ll be available to help them more. Blowing the freelancer off for extended periods makes them think that the next paycheck might not be coming, and that leads to substandard work (because all the freelancer is doing is thinking about putting food on the table).

5. Life comes before work
Freelance employees are pretty cheap for a company to maintain. There’s not a lot of overhead, and there’s no taxes to be paid. When people employ freelancers, they need to realize that the freelancer’s life is going to come before work sometimes. Unless it’s written into the contract (and made crystal clear) that the freelancer is expected to be around all the time, don’t expect it.

6. Don’t be impersonal
Nothing leaves a worse feeling in the mouths of freelancers than impersonal communication. Have bad news? Call them up and tell them first; then send the to-the-facts email. Need them to work at 11pm on some assignment all the sudden? Don’t send an email saying they’re expected to show up, toss ‘em an IM and ask if they can be there. They’ll probably say yes, because they most likely enjoy working for you (or else they’d go someplace else).

At the end of the day it’s all about treating freelance employees well. Give them the space and attention they want, and you’ll find that they can produce amazing things. I’m blessed to be part of two teams that understand this mentality — as a leader of freelancers, and as a freelancer myself, I’m really quite happy with the way they’ve handled us.

The Team & The Drink:  A one act play of posting request
By Adam Holisky
October 2010

ADAM

Hey team!

THE TEAM looks up to ADAM, disinterested.

TEAM

What…

ADAM

Wanna relax and drink this weekend?

ADAM takes a sip of a gin and tonic.  He motions forward with his glass, nodding towards THE TEAM.
THE TEAM perks up at the mentioning and display of alcohol.

TEAM

Yeah!

ADAM

Cool!  A couple of you want to write a post this weekend?  We’re on an every-other hour schedule through Monday, so we need all the regular columns plus a couple more posts.

THE TEAM is now excited to write posts for this weekend.

TEAM

Sure!

ALEX can be seen nervously holding his bottle of Tanqueray, not sure he wants THE TEAM to drink it all in one shot.

ADAM

Thanks! I love you all.

Adam makes the <3 sign with his right hand pointer finger.

Oh, so who wants to write a post this weekend?

_______________ (your name here?)

I do!

~fin~

In a new personal blog series, I’ll be posting parts of this story every Wednesday evening.  While I’ve written short stories before and even taken a crack at creative writing on other sites, this will be my first real serial attempt at writing a story in the public eye.  For now, feedback is turned off, but feel free to let me know what you think on Twitter (@adamholisky).

The McCanter Treatment

In a world of confused morality and longevity exists The McCanter Treatment, the cause of and solution to, all of life’s problems.

“It is through this mortality that humanity knows moral bounds.  Thou shall not kill, because ending’s one existence prematurely is one of the ultimate wrongs.  Thou shall not covet another man’s wife, because creating existence forbiddinly is just as inappropriate.” The professor recited his prepared lecture as he strode across the front of the auditorium.  Back and forth from one wall to the other he walked, always eying his pupils.

“Now, what happens when these boundaries on Human life are removed?  What then becomes of the morals that we humans posses?”  He paused for a moment to let his words sink in.  “Do they become less important or more?  For if human life has no end, and only a beginning, does establishing that end detract or add to existence?”

“Assume for a moment that our existence as a species is most full when we realize we have a finite amount of time to accomplish our goals.  We achieve great things in that finite time – we build civilizations, wage wars, explore the heavens – all in the span of about 75 years.  If we knew we had 500 years to do it all, would not Human progress be delayed?  Why accomplish everything in your first 75 years of existence, what would you do for the rest of your life?”  As the professor said this he noticed student move nervously in their seats, understanding perhaps for the first time that this course on the Ethics of the McCanter Treatment would truly challenge their thinking.  He smiled to himself and chuckled.

“Now that we’ve established, at least in our example world, why life is the fullest when it has boundaries, when is it okay to impose those boundaries on others?”  He raised an eyebrow, pausing for a calculated dramatic effect.  “Yes, imposing a boundary on someone else’s life would be murder – but in doing so you’d help them realize their full potential, exist as a full human being.  And if existing to our fullest in a short amount of time is what makes us realize our morals, does murder in-and-of-itself not become a means to and end of great morality for humanity?”

The professor stood still and silent for several minutes and the students took this in, that with some slightly twisted philosophical logic murder became acceptable.  Knowing this viewpoint was important for the class, it allowed them to argue against it – to begin to see both side of the ethics involved in the McCanter Treatment.

“For your homework this week, I want you to refute why murder would not be a logical step towards restoring ethics in humanity’s existence.  Class dismissed.”

Devon Anders grabbed his notebook and filed out of the auditorium along with the rest of the 100 person class.  He wrapped his jacket around him tighter when he got outside, the cool air of autumn reminding everyone that winter was not far away.

As he walked to his next class, Devon began thinking of how an evil act could lead towards a righteous good.  If Humanity did not value the moral life, wasting it away on pitiful and self indulgent activities, then anything that restored that moral value of life would be a worthy action.  If it was just as simple as flicking a switch, no one would argue; but what if that switch killed off a million random people, thus ensuring that those remaining would live in fear that the next time the switch would be flipped, they would die?

Devon pondered this, asking himself if the means of such an action would justify the ends.  And every time he asked himself, the answer he came up with was no – the means of killing could never justify the ends of morality.  They were so inherently contradictory that such paradoxes of morality be best left up to theological debate and not to actual ethical practices.

Then again, Devon thought, living forever was always a religious idea before the McCanter Treatment.

The McCanter Treatment is a simple process by which biological molecules, and thus biological structures, are replaced with their non-biological counterparts.  Where there once was a cell wall made of biological material, there now exists a cell wall made of metallic nanostructures.  However the trick of the Treatment isn’t that the cells themselves are replaced, but that they are emulated to such a high degree of realism.

It’s virtually impossible to distinguish between non-McCantered flesh and McCantered flesh.  Only upon microscopic examination do the differences become noticeable.

Of course, the other difference is that biological organisms which have gone through the McCanter process do not age – at all.  They exist in the perpetual state in which they were first McCanterized, sans any direct modification applied to them after the Treatment.

The process was developed fifty years ago by Kara McCanter, an English scientist who stumbled upon it one day while working with nanomachines to deconstruct a cell wall.  While having the machines temporarily destroy part of a cell and then reassemble it, she noticed that the nanites would fill in for parts of the destroyed sections for a short amount of time, simulating their functions as to avoid the cell’s immune system from automatically isolating and destroying what it considered to be a faltering cell.  This was an odd automatic behavior which wasn’t programmed into the nanites, it just was something that happened.  However with a little bit of testing and work, Kara McCanter was able to make the nanite’s work permanent.

Kara McCanter created the fountain of youth, giving humans eternal life.

The Treatment had been around nearly 200 years now, and at the age of 21 every person underwent the process.  The process was started by going to one of the world’s McCanter Centers for a nanite injection.  About five million nanites were injected into the blood stream, which were more than enough to handle the conversion of any human.  The process was painless and took 28 days to complete.  After it was done, the human was practically immortal.  No disease could kill it, no severed limb or decapitation could stop the brain from functioning.

At the age of 20, Devon Anders could do nothing more than think about his body slowly being destroyed and rebuilt by millions of small nanites.  It both excited and scared him at the same time – after all, who in their right mind looks forward to their body slowly being ripped apart by unseen forces?

—

He thrashed against the restraints, throwing his weight around in hopes to break the straps holding him down.  If Devon were in a better state of mind he’d have realized that the straps were beyond his power to break, but even then, he probably wouldn’t have stopped trying.  So he move left and right, his body curving against the cold metallic bed.

The needle containing the nanites was laying on a table near to him, just out of his reach.

I need to set some goals for myself for the next year, and what better way to do it than to publicly say so and let the internet be the judge of me.  Some are cryptic and don’t make sense, but that’s because there’s a backstory to them that I’m not sharing.

1.  Earn 15% more than I currently am.  This should be doable, one way or another.

2.  Branch out writing / managing an area I’m not currently heavily involved in.

3.  Spend more time in the editing process and be more self-reliant on editing decisions.

4.  Absolutely no working after 10 pm.  This includes IMs and Campfire discussions.

5.  Don’t bite off more than I can do in an eight hour day, and learn to say no to things that I don’t need to take on.

Perhaps the internet isn’t the best place for such a list, but really I work in public enough anyways, so what harm could it do.  People that care will care, and the people that don’t won’t be reading this anyways!  All is good, amirite?

I think part of being a good writer is understanding your faults.  And what better way to correct my faults than to yell them to the world?  So without further ado, my top five writing mistakes.

1.  It’s vs. Its

While I know the difference between the two, however when writing I’ll often times mess it up somehow.  When I go back and proof my work, it doesn’t always get caught either.  I also find that this is one of the most common mistakes missed by editors.

2.  One comma too many

I have a tendency to write long and drawn out sentences, often times I’m not content to write in the short bursts that have become common place in modern writing.  That’s just part of my writing style, and while I oftentimes find myself trying to change my style in this regards, when I do write the longer sentences, I tend to use too, many, commas.

3.  Forgetting to edit

I’ll write a sentence like “The Vikings are one of the best teams in the league.”  Then I’ll edit it to say “The Vikings are the best team in the league.”  But, I’ll forget to take off the “s” at the end of “teams,” so my sentence ends up saying “The Vikings are the best teams in the league.”  More fail.

4.  Not connecting disjointed topics

Say I’m talking about how great the Twins are for couple sentences, and then in my mind I’ll start thinking about other great baseball teams of the past twenty years.  I’ll then just launch right into other great teams of the past, not writing a connecting statement to join up my two thoughts.  This has a tendency to make my writing a little more spotty than I want it to be.  This problem becomes particularly obvious when I’m writing a more conversational piece where I need to be entertaining and present unique and insightful thoughts.

5.  Weather/Whether, Affect/Effect, Week/Weak

Those are the top three groups of words that I always have to stop and ask myself “I’m using the correct version, right?”  I’ve gotten better at these mistakes, but I still make them often enough.  When I have weeks like this last one where I write over 10,000 words, I’ll inevitably screw up and let these mistakes negatively affect one of my articles or writings, whether I pay close attention or not.

So what can we all learn from this?  Having another set of eyes on your writing, hopefully by a professional editor, is an awesome thing.

I have a secret – everything that you see is not always what it seems.  This secret is probably pretty hard for some folks to stomach.  They see things like an article being edited or a change in format and immediately assume the worst.

“Oh no!  Adam is only writing the post two days a week instead of three!  He must be in trouble…..” Be sure to say “in trouble” like you did back in third grade when someone got called to the dean’s office, because that’s how I’m saying it as I’m writing this extrapolation.

This situation presents an interesting conundrum in that what is reality is far away from what the public perception is.  In the case of one of my daily columns, we’re just moving around resources to allow other talented writers chances to shine.  No evil or negative intent what so ever.  In fact, I was the one to suggest the change.

But herein lies the crux of the matter – how do you correct such a public perception without coming out and sound like, well… like a whinny little three year old?

Part of the way you can do it is provide excellent transparency in all public processes.  But often that opens up such processes for public input – people think because we’re telling them about internal workings they can influence and change them.  That’s hardly ever going to happen (infact, I can’t think of a time it has happened).  More so, it often leads to points where you have to say “But we can’t go into that, because it’s a private matter.”

So how else can public perception in the mass media world we all live in be changed?

More and more communication, even if it’s not all transparent.  Letting people know what’s happening, answering even the most mundane and ridiculous questions with the same cool and collected answer can quash even the most abusive perceptions.

In my day job it’s become apparent that this level of communication is necessary in order to keep things running smoothly in the public arena.  Daily interaction with comments and community figures allows this level of consistent communication.  Not only does this lead to better public reception of changes, but it also leads to growth of the site and overall buy in of our ideas and direction, which is a good thing (one that will eventually lead to even bigger and better things).

In my previous job, working as a manager of a symphony orchestra, my boss and I would often have to work day and night to get the orchestra and its various factions to buy into our ideas.  The group was much smaller, about 150 people at most, but the same concepts apply when dealing with numbers in the millions.  The key is not to change the nature of your decisions, which are hopefully well thought out and hopefully correct, but to change the perception of such decisions through directed communication and overall message shaping.

It takes a lot of work and practice to become proficient at that level of communication – it’s something that I am no where perfect at yet, and might never be.  But the key is to recognize this point of importance and be mindful to always take care of it.

There have been two stories that WoW.com has broke under my name in the past week:

• Patch 3.2 Going Live
• Cataclysm races leaked

Each story relied on anonymous sources (well, anonymous to you) that had information pertaining to the facts which were being reported on.  Each story was cited as such, with the words crafted in a way to express the source’s validity.

But yet here we are, the evening of the big Cataclysm leak, and the crying over WoW.com not revealing its sources has reached the worst levels I’ve ever seen.  People seem to think they’re entitled to the same trust that individuals place in myself and fellow editors at our site, and feel that without their personal seal of approval we have nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors.

Well, okay then.  I’m fine with people questioning or holding up a skeptical eye to our news, especially with something like this.  But when people shut their brains off and just start yelling, it tends to get to me. (Same with the “town halls” going on right now).  And while most of those people who are yelling are getting banned from our site over the next few hours (there’s so many of them), there are some facts I think are appropriate to put out there:

First, we would never stake our reputation on posting news like this if we were not supremely confident in our sources.

Second, the sources are not just one person saying something.  There’s a lot of stuff we’ve got with only one person saying it.  We have no idea if it’s true. It could be false.  But like a good journalist, when more than one person says the exact same thing, and are in a position where they’d know the facts at hand, it becomes valid enough to write about and bring to the public.

Third, no one will reveal their sources.  This is a founding principal of modern journalism.  Anonymous sources stay anonymous.

If I were to reveal the sources, I would likely be fired from my job at WoW.com.  I would be untrustworthy and show a clear lack of decision making capability.  I would be a person who cannot handle confidential information, and thus would be someone who could jeopardizes the welfare of the site on a daily basis.

If I were to reveal the sources I would likely not be able to get another job with responsibilities and tasks which I enjoy spending my life doing, and would be forced to be a burger expert at McDonalds.  And I’d be lucky to even be able to land that job in this economy.

I’m not going to reveal the sources under any circumstance.  If I did, I would be ruining the lives of people who put their trust in me.  That is something I will not, cannot do.  It goes against every ethical fiber of my being.

I know I have a flare for the literary.  I was a big reader as a kid, my nose always buried in some book.  As an adult I’ve carried this tradition on, spending too much money at Barnes & Nobel every month.  I figured that someday I’d write an article for a magazine or SciFi novel, but it was never at the top of my list.  I thought that I’d end up working in computers somehow, probably with stuff on the internet.

I never thought I’d be editing other peoples work.

You see I have two faults as a writer.  The first my grammar – it isn’t really up to my standards.  I have a good persuasive and conversational tone, and can meld the two together with ease.  But my skills in technical and “100% proper” grammar have never been my strong point.  Not the basic stuff like you’re and your, or their, there, and they’re.  More “advanced” stuff like use of – or; or my, penchant, for, comma, usage.

If the above paragraph doesn’t get me fired I don’t know what will.

The second fault I have is my spelling.

I had a teacher in the fourth and fifth grade named Mrs. Davidson, at Otter Lake Elementary School in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.  I stayed in touch with her throughout the rest of my public education, and did some work with her classes for a college course later on.  She was a great teacher to both my brothers and me, and she always gave me shit about one thing: I couldn’t spell to save my life.

I was in an English class of hers in 2003 helping out and observing for a large college honors report I was doing on power structures in the classroom.  She chuckled and motioned for me to come over to her desk, giving me the dreaded two fingered summons.

You know.  The kind every teacher can do.  Raise their hand above their head, look right at you over their bifocals, put their pointer and middle fingers together and give you the “Come over and receive punishment” motion.

I pop up from my seat at the back of the classroom and walk over between the rows of students, reminiscing that I once led such a simple life of worksheets and crossword puzzles.  I take a seat on the chair next to her, smiling.  She hands me a spelling test and says softly, “Make sure you know how to spell the words before you tell the class.”

A grin and a chuckle later, she reminded me after first teaching me over 10 years ago that I still didn’t know how to spell worth a damn.

And she was right.  One of the words was italicize.  Z and not S?  News to me.

So this brings me to today, a full 16 years after I first had spelling lessons given to me by Mrs. Davidson.  I’m now working as a full time editor for WoW.com (formerly WoW Insider) and amongst other things, every day I correct people on spelling, grammar, and other subtle nuisances of the English language.

It’s absolutely the last job I ever thought I’d have.

If you’re reading this site then you know what I do for a living; I write and edit posts at WoW.com. Some of these are true blog posts, others are news articles, and still others are encyclopedic features that take months of work. I want to ramble for a minute about diversification in blog posts.

Here’s a bold statement for you all: talking just about World of Warcraft is very boring. One of the great things about the game is that it lets you combine many other aspects of your life into it. Have a bunch of friends that play it? You’re probably going to spend the majority of your time talking about non-Wow related stuff while you’re in game. This isn’t a bad thing, indeed it’s a great thing. The inclusion and ability for non-game related material in game will, and might have already, extended the lifetime of the game many times over.

That same diversification should be taken into account in blog posts about WoW. Note that I’ve made a distinction above of the different types of posts WoW.com has. Blog posts are very different from encyclopedic reference posts. You shouldn’t include a Monty Python joke in a 50 page knowledge dump about in-game mounts. But you should include a Monty Python joke (or two) in a blog post where you answer random questions.

An example of this was The Queue that I wrote today.

I’ve reached this conclusion about diversification and inclusion of external non-game content based on the feedback we’ve had to The Queue. When something like Hawaiian Pizza is mentioned, we’ll get 75 to 100 comments talking about Hawaiian Pizza. Post some music or comic reference, guaranteed to get lots of comments on those references too.

Last week my fellow editor Alex Ziebart included some music to listen to while reading The Queue. People loved it, and we’ve continued to include optional reading music. The music doesn’t have a damn thing to do about WoW, but it’s still a piece which people seem interested in and want to comment on. That helps build a community, which means the site gets more traffic and will be around much longer.

Now on a scale of WoW.com, where the site is already well established, has been around a long time, and will be around for a long time to come, it doesn’t have an immediate impact on community building and traffic numbers (however we do see popular and well written articles have increased traffic, of course, just like anything else). But when everyone at WoW.com suddenly starts building communities of readership around their posts and columns, the site’s heath sky rockets. This is true for any long established blog. Just because you’re big, bad, and are pulling in billions and billions of visitors a day doesn’t mean you can’t improve. And that improvement, is, well, awesome.

This might seem like a justification for including off-topic content, and in some ways it is. But it’s also a recent epiphany of sorts on pulling in readers and keeping them here.

Anyone can have a blog, but only the special blogs will make a reader raise an eyebrow at their content.