The Lotus Journal showcases the most professional Lotus content as determined by a panel of distinguished community editors. Article submission is open to all; the role of editor is reserved for established Lotus bloggers. The Journal will make use of social media, RSS and email subscription to publicize published articles as well as the latest in search engine optimization. To start things off a limit of one article per day will be published.

Getting Started

Authors: How to Submit An Article:
Register, login and click “Add New Post”. Article submission is open to the public. Once completed, submit your article for review and the editors will vote on it, if they like it, it will be publsihed, and live at this site. You own your material and can cross post it to your blog if you wish. You will also show up on the authors page.

Editors: How to Vote:
Login and click Editors Only / Voting Booth on the left hand nav. Read all the pending articles of your choice and vote by clicking on the stars at the bottom of the story. Also provide in the voting booth is an rss feed that provides notifications of new pending articles.

Details

Article Submission Process
The submission of an article is open to any registered user. All articles start in a private state of draft until submitted by the author for approval. This is an irreversible action. Draft articles can only be viewed by the author and the editor-in-chief. Once “submitted for review” by the author, it becomes visible in read-only mode to the editors. In this state editors will vote and comment on the article. The articles url in this state is tempoary and is public, meaning the author and editors can pass it along to those out side the review process. Articles are only published to the site when they are approved by the voting process.

Review Process
The process of publishing an article starts with the author changing the status of their draft article to “Submit for Review”. This will enter the article into the voting booth. Editors will be notified of new entries via RSS feed and can be viewed in the “Editors Only” area that is visible at login. The responsibility of an editor is to read the article and rate it from 1-10, editors can not actually edit the content of the article. All votes (the number of stars you choose) are private and final; you cannot change your vote. All editors rating an article 7 stars or higher will be listed in the footer of the article, the actual vote (the number of stars chosen) will not be published. To be published, an article must have an average of 7 or higher and has had to have been voted on by 1/3 of the editors. Authors are asked NOT to edit articles when they are in the review stage; edits are logged.

Editors as Authors
All editors are welcome to author content however they will be omitted from the voting process.

Voting Privacy
Anyone can vote on an article however only the votes from editors are considered when determining if an article should be published. When you rate an article from 1-10, that rating is kept private, the fact that you voted is not. One exception to this is if you vote 7 or higher on an article, you’re name (with out your actual rating) will be attributed to the bottom of the story (coming soon). Yes this was all mentioned above but its worth repeating.

Article Ownership
Submissions will not be edited by the editors and the author will own their work and retain copyright. In the future a formal review (for edits) process will be evaluated on an optional/volunteer basis, meaning after an article is approved by the staff the article can work with a volunteer editor to tighten up the writing.

Editors
To start, experts from the Lotus community will be offered the role by invite. The initial editorial staff was selected based a myriad of qualities including, activity level in the community, quality and quantity of their Lotus blogging, writing, and some based on their expertise of a given technology, (i.e., Symphony, Connections, etc.). Additionally, if you work at IBM, for partner, a Lotus customer, all factored in to give the editorial staff a very well rounded view to ensure the quality of the content being published. Over time the role of editor will extend to other community bloggers via request in the authors dashboard, (to be developed). The Editors page will showcase all editors, their bio’s, website and a break down of their edit activity; how many articles they’ve voted on, etc.

Registration Process
The information provided at registration; and stored in your profile, is published to the site, so make sure it’s how you want your name represented. You are encouraged to use your real name and not an alias. Since the only reason to register is to get your article published suspicious looking registrations will be removed.

Site Marketing
The Journal will take complete advantage of all applicable social media avenues as well as RSS and email subscription/notification. Posts will be automatically posted to Twitter and a Facebook page. All posts will badges to include the post on the external site of the readers choosing. Published articles will also get special treatment at Planet Lotus.

Edits to Published Work
This will be done via email to the editor-in-chief, for now; lotusjournal@collaborancy.com

Content Considerations
Feel free to write about anything related to Lotus Software, educational, informational, commentary, as long as it’s not an advertisement. There is no minimum or maxim length to content submitted. Repetitive articles will be worked out during the review phase. If the editors think its relevant it will be published.

How is this site different?
There are many other Lotus related online publishers out there, too many to name. The Journal is independent and all content is first approved by a panel of community experts, also all posted content is owned by the author, period. Also, content will be served registration free.

When
Lotus Journal is open for business! Click the register link, compose an article and wait for the approval. Are you and editor? It’s the same process.

Languages
Given the international reach of the Lotus community submissions in any language is welcome. The site currently automatically translates 40 languages via Google Translations services.

Links
Once an article is published its link will be permanent. The format is lotusjournal.com/author/year/month/article-name/.

Comments
All articles will be published with comments turned on, no exceptions. Comments made during the review process will be deleted before the article is published.

Privacy Statement
This is in the works however if you’re interested in a preview, all content belongs to the author, and email addresses will not be used for anything other then the occasional site broadcast, but never more then one per month. Advertisements will never be sent to email address that are used in the registration of this site.

Email Addresses
In addition to the privacy statement, authors email address will not be published. Contact information will be left to tracking it down at the blog they’ve added to their profile or they can add it to their bio.

Site Details
The site is meant to be minimal with focus on the articles, speed and, yes looks similar to the New York Times meets Mashabe.com. The site is based on a Wordpress blog, this was done to keep a low overhead as the site expands to reach future social media sites, fend off security vulnerabilities and tap into future enhancements like mass mailing engines for subscriptions. The theme used is Neoclassical, a spinoff of the Thesis theme.

Elevator Pitch
An independent professional journal for the Lotus community, by the community.

Feedback
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Journal: a journal refers to a serious, scholarly publication, most often peer-reviewed. A non-scholarly magazine written for an educated audience about an industry or an area of professional activity is usually called a professional magazine. – Wikipedia.

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