Just now my plan is to have around half a dozen editors, with other regular contributors. For the time being, if possible I would like each of the editors to be in charge of a month. This would include editing a roundup one week, arranging the rota of guest editors for the rest of the month, then passing on to another editor to take over after four weeks.

Beyond that, I am hoping that as a group we can discuss how we should evolve Scottish Roundup for the future. A few really interesting suggestions have been thrown into the mix, and I think it’s worth considering them carefully.

I am thinking about the right sorts of tools to use. If anyone has any suggestions of good collaborative tools to use, that would be greatly appreciated. I’m thinking of using Google tools if possible, partly because I already use them for parts of Scottish Roundup anyway, and also because these are likely to be familiar to most of the contributors.

I will get in touch with those of you who have kindly offered to help out. And if anyone else is still interested in being part of the group, please do email me.

Also, if anyone is able to edit the next roundup (4 July), the door is wide open! Thanks.

Thanks to everyone who has responded to last week’s appeal for some extra help on Scottish Roundup. A few different perspectives have been put forward.

As such, this is a good time to discuss what sort of shape Scottish Roundup should take in the future. In the past year or so I have considered changing the format of this website in a number of ways, and now seems like a good point to consider changing the format again.

Before that, though there is the tricky issue of who to pass the baton to. Going by the comments on the previous post, there is a lot of backing for some kind of group-based effort, where a team of people chip in regularly.

There are a couple of things that make me reluctant about that. Firstly, there is the fact that this is exactly what we tried a couple of years ago — and it just fizzled out. There could have been any number of reasons for that, but one of the most fundamental reasons is human nature — when it’s a group effort, people are tempted to shirk.

My sense is that a group effort can work, but it still needs strong direction. We are not just talking about sharing the responsibility of editing the roundup once every few weeks. There is an email account, Twitter and Delicious accounts to keep on top of, responding to commends, arranging the rota, plus all of the other stuff that is involved in maintaining a website.

Perhaps something can be worked out whereby a small group of people look after these maintenance aspects, the email account, Twitter and so forth, and a wider group can take on responsibility for producing the roundup.

A couple of people have inquired about taking control of Scottish Roundup themselves. It would have to be the right person though. It needs to be someone who can be relied upon to represent the whole of the Scottish blogosphere with an open mind and without any particular agenda to push or axe to grind. Finding the right person would be very tricky.

I don’t know what the answer is, which is why I want your suggestions. I think there is momentum behind a group effort, but it has to work properly. Please discuss away in the comments and hopefully we can reach some sort of conclusion by next week.

As for the format of Scottish Roundup, there have been a few interesting suggestions.

I have thought in the past about taking the site into a different direction, where the focus is not as much on a weekly roundup. I have considered adding different features — perhaps focussing on new blogs, or particularly notable issues that affect Scottish bloggers. I have also considered (and experimented with) featuring fewer posts every week, but more in-depth and with more of a narrative.

One suggestion that I have received in the past week has been for Scottish Roundup to become a group blog. But rather than having a weekly roundup it could focus instead on showcasing others’ content throughout the week. The idea would be for a format more like The Browser, Kottke or Boing Boing.

I think it’s well worth having a think just now about whether this is something we might like to do. And if anyone else has any other suggestions, now is the perfect time to throw it into the mix.

So get commenting and hopefully by next week we will have found a good way to progress. And don’t forget, if you want to edit the roundup for this coming Sunday (27 June) then give me a shout. Thanks!

But I have much less spare time on my hands than I used to, and I find it increasingly difficult to find time to do it. Also, I have realised that I don’t love blogs as much as I used to, and can’t cheerlead in the way I was able to in the early days.

However, I don’t think it would be right to just pull the plug on Scottish Roundup. So if anyone is interested in taking over the running of Scottish Roundup, please get in contact with me! Alternatively, if anyone could work out a good way of spreading the workload among a group of people, that could be a workable solution too.

If I think someone can continue to push Scottish Roundup forward in the right direction, we can make it happen. Just now I think that it is stagnating and I can’t do the Scottish blogosphere justice anymore.

Email me: scottishroundup@gmail.com.

Not really. But the World Cup has been the major talking point among bloggers this week, and we begin with a couple of perspectives on the “Anyone But England” phenomenon.

In one camp, we have this post from Dear Scotland, which was featured in last week’s roundup. Then there is this from Clinically Fed Up. Both are firmly in the “Anyone But England” camp.

Is There a Plan B? responds to both of those posts:

This isn’t about football, or not really. I appreciate that anyone has a right to support whomever they like, and actually I don’t give a monkeys about the football. In fact, there’s a part of me that agrees with pretty much everything Mrs W and Billy Williamson say so well. To be honest I don’t really want England to win either. Can you imagine how unbearable it’d be to have to live with the knowledge of Sir Ashley Cole and Sir Wayne Rooney for the next thirty years?.

But the fact remains that this attitude seems to me to be the acceptable face of an anti-English feeling that in some cases goes deeper than just football.

Because you don’t choose who to support. You feel it.

From a similar perspective, Ellen Arnison adds this:

Ok, you can see how it might be a bit galling that your neighbour is having Christmas and you’re not getting any presents. You probably won’t even get turkey. However, it’s not the festive neighbour’s fault and neither are they munching mince pies to spite you. So really it would be exceptionally churlish to set traps to stop Father Christmas emptying his sack – blocking the chimney, poisoning the reindeer and sabotaging the sleigh are not going to stop him for long.

The grown up thing is to take it on the chin. Santa’s not coming, he doesn’t care about us. We didn’t get into the World Cup, we weren’t good enough. The neighbours have invited us to the party though, wouldn’t it be gracious to accept and, even, join in a little. You never, know it might be fun.

But Flying Rodent writes “in defence of the Scottish cretin”:

I have to explain that our behaviour is not entirely unprovoked. If I wanted to illustrate the Scottish football fan’s relationship with our English pals, I’d point to the following incident, which took place on the day of the play-off draw for the 2000 European Championships, pairing England and Scotland in a head-to-head fight for the one available place…

Read on to find out about the incident.

Following the draw between the USA and England yesterday, we’ll have to wait before we see whether ABE can claim victory.

With a separate take on the World Cup, Gary Sutherland looks back on his memories of previous World Cups.

A brief look at other topics now. Cartside is preparing for life as a mother of two. Lisa Gordon Scott longs to visit the Jura Lodge. And Neil Craig looks again at the cost of the proposed new Forth Road Bridge.

And that is is for this week’s roundup. As ever, get those nominations in either by emailing us at scottishroundup@gmail.com, or nudge us on Twitter @ScottishRoundup.

Update: It seems as though the contact form on the right has stopped working. Many apologies if you have nominated something using the form — but it seems as though it is not actually passing them on to me. I will investigate the issue, but will remove the form for the time being.

Even though the coalition deal was sealed over a week ago now, bloggers are still getting used to the situation. NoYo is optimistic about the situation, pleased at the potential for a new style of politics to emerge. Neil Craig is less keen on the prospects.

Coalition does involve compromise, and Caron has already been made uneasy by the way the government has treated Sehar Shabaz:

Home Secretary Theresa May is imminently deporting Sehar Shabaz and her 8 month old daughter Wania. Sehar was at the centre of controversy earlier in the week after she and her baby were detained at Dungavel after both Tavish Scott and Alistair Carmichael had said that child detention would stop. It has now been confirmed that the Liberal Democrats have been successful in ending this practice and no children will be detained at Dungavel in the future.

That’s all well and good, but I’m not convinced that sending them to Yarls Wood is actually a better solution. I’d have liked to have seen all detention of children suspended while the system was reviewed.

More policy difficulties come in the form of the compromise over the Conservative proposal to repeal the Human Rights Act. As Scott from Love and Garbage pointed out, this was never really going to be on the cards. Nick Robinson comes in for particular criticism for failing to understand the constitutional reality of this matter. Lallands Peat Worrier adds his analysis of the situation.

Meanwhile, Alastair Tibbitt from Greener Leith was invited to 10 Downing Street to discuss “the big society” with David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Of course, there is the kneejerk anti-Toryism for the coalition to contend with too. Dean MacKinnon-Thomson looks at the challenges that face the Conservatives in Scotland.

At first glace, as Prime Minister Cameron entered Holyrood [his first visit anywhere as PM] he could still hear the faint noise of a protest. “Tories, Tories, Tories, out, out, out,” was the familiar cry. Out pumped the traditional battle cries, out flew the red banner- socialism invoked and the elderly Ms Thatcher still treated as the Great Satan.

However on closer inspection this mob of socialists, anarchists, and Bolsheviks turned out to be predominantly teenagers and students- members of the fresh faced Scottish Socialist Youth. They chanted, they hated, they protested…but most of them could hardly remember a Conservative government, and they certainly weren’t around for the miners strike.

You could sense that this wasn’t your traditional anti-Tory protest at all, this crowds opposition, hate and hostility was born from second-hand experience; a borrowed synthetic rage. Borrowed from youtube footage of Ravenscraig, Orgreave and Wapping. Most of it all just names to these student protesters.

And with the Lib Dems now partnering with the party that’s so unpopular in Scotland, what next for the Scottish Liberal Democrats? That is what Planet Holyrood calls the Tavish Scott Question.

In a similar vein, Ideas of Civilisation wonders if the chances of any party partnering with the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament have been scuppered. If so, will this close the door on an independence referendum?

But while Westminster tiptoes its way towards a more consensual style of politics, Patrick Harvie thinks that the consensual atmosphere in Holyrood needs to be turned down a notch:

It was useful to talk of consensus on the issues we did agree on. But it’s time to recognise that we have no consensus on how to reach those long term [emissions] targets, or even on how quickly to get started.

Now that the election is over, Kezia Dugdale presented a series of entertaining stories from the campaign trail.

Peter Cherbi looks into an apparent “anti-client policy” at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

Meanwhile, Planet Politics bemoans the lack of engagement shown by Dundee City Council, following the apparent failure of a community council.

Tom Harris went beyond the call of duty in order to find out about the reality of abusive drug addicts clogging up pharmacies.

Eagle-eyed Will Patterson was apparently one of the few to spot that the Scottish Conservatives had a reshuffle this week, and was straight in analysing Annabel Goldie’s moves.

Dark Lochnagar has a novel take on the deficit situation.

Following on from last week’s closure of The Pop Cop blog, Ellen Arnison is left wondering how she would feel if her blog was shut down.

If you’re looking forward to the Eurovision Song Contest this week, you can probably do a lot worse than subscribe to Ewan Spence’s Unofficial Eurovision Podcast.

Scott Liddel shared his photographs from a trip to Edinburgh Zoo.

That’s your lot for this week! Many thanks to Lallands Peat Worrier who suggested the lion’s share of these posts. As you can see though, we could still do with more blogs about stuff that isn’t politics.

Please don’t be shy! Nominate away. If you see any good blogging that you should be featured here, please use the contact form on the right, or email scottishroundup@gmail.com. Also don’t forget you can now follow us on Twitter @ScottishRoundup.

We’re also looking for more guest editors too. So if you fancy giving it a bash please do not hesitate to contact us!