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.

I am wondering about the separation of political and non-political roundups, which has been running for about a year. Originally I decided to separate them in an attempt to ramp up coverage of the wider blogosphere. In that, I think it has worked. But the flipside of that is that it has been ghettoised into its own corner. Perhaps it is time to go back to having one roundup per week, covering the whole blogosphere.

I can think of some advantages and disadvantages.

The separation between political and non-political is artificial in many ways, and it is difficult to know where to draw the line. Moreover, I feel that leaving a month between non-political roundups is too long. Sometimes great posts get nominated when the next roundup is not due for four weeks, which is quite a long time.

On the other hand, when a roundup has to be produced every week and only a few nominations come in, it usually falls to me and whoever is editing that week’s roundup to find interesting material to feature. I only have a limited amount of time to do this, which is why the roundup ended up often focussing on the same few blogs over and over again (something I promised I wouldn’t let happen when I set up Scottish Roundup).

It is so easy to fall into the trap of covering mainly politics. The news cycle normally provides a major focal point or a couple of major topics to cover. That allows the roundup to demonstrate the thinking of bloggers and the connections between blogs, contrasting different viewpoints with one another. That is a lot more difficult to achieve with non-political writing, because few writers will tackle the same subject in a week.

But I think these days we get enough nominations to help avoid that. Plus, it seems to me as though we have made good traction in reaching out to the wider Scottish blogosphere, not just political bloggers.

The idea behind Scottish Roundup was never to focus exclusively on politics, although that was always going to be a major part of it. But, by accident, it started to fall into a trap of covering just politics. Now I am worried that it is falling into a trap of a different kind.

That is why I am thinking about moving back to having one weekly roundup covering the whole blogosphere, but with a more conscious attempt at integrating issues outside of politics. Perhaps one idea would be to have a special roundup when there is a major news event (such as the recent release of Megrahi).

What do you all think?

Another idea I am thinking about is to bring in more features, so that the website is not just about roundups. (Obviously the name of the website is a bit of an issue, but we can think about that later.) I am considering making this a website about Scottish blogging (and podcasting / citizen journalism / etc) in general, perhaps with articles about issues affecting bloggers, profiles of bloggers and so on. Is that a good idea?

As you can probably tell, I am quite confused about what to do. But that is why I wrote this post. So please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment or by emailing me at scottishroundup@gmail.com if you prefer. Thanks!

We will be meeting in the Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh on Thursday 27 August from around 6pm onwards.

Some people have suggested Pleasance Courtyard may be too busy so there may have to be a Plan B. In case we need to change plans, I will try my best to keep everyone updated on Twitter — @doctorvee. Likewise, if anyone needs to get in contact with me the best way is probably to direct message me on Twitter. Also keep an eye on my blog for any other news.

To help people find us, I will wear a green long-sleeved t-shirt. Look for a young-but-strangely-jaded-looking person and chances are it’ll be me.

Everyone is welcome and based on the feedback so far it seems like we’ll get a relatively good turnout. So I hope to see you there!