Welcome to New Authors
If you are reading this page it is because you have just agreed to join Global Voices. Thank you!
This document will explain our community and goals and talk about some of the things you should know before you get started. For a general expectations for Global Voices authors please read the Author Guidelines carefully.
Contents
Hello New Author!
We don't have an office, so we operate virtually. With more than 200 contributors, it can be a little hard to figure out what's going on.
Most of the activity revolves around the main website in English (globalvoicesonline.org), but we also have more than a dozen translation websites that have their own editorial teams and translators. Global Voices Advocacy and Rising Voices function as independent projects too.
Getting started
This is the basic information you need to understand what Global Voices is.
What authors do
Your role as an Author is to inform a global audience of some of the most interesting conversations that are taking place in the blogosphere and citizen media of your country, language, or subject. We expect that you follow as many blogs as possible and keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on.
Logging in
Your editor will send you a login username/password for Global Voices. The first thing you should do, is edit your profile, add a photo, and change your password to something you can remember.
Writing your first post
It's best to discuss your first post idea with your editor before writing. Make sure you read what has last been written about your country or topic. Once you are done, save the draft, and send the link to your editor. These are some GV Tutorial Screencasts (videos!!) on how to write a post and upload images.
For much more information, visit our Author Guidelines. This is reference guide you can return to regularly for advice on formatting and style, and your role as an author.
Please feel free to ask lots of questions.
Mailing lists
Once your first post has been published, you will usually be added to two Google groups email mailing lists. One, is the regional email group with other bloggers from your own region. The second, is called the "GV-Authors" email group. Everyone at Global Voices is included in the conversations on the GV-Authors group, and we discuss both editorial and organizational issues here. As you can see from the diagram there are numerous conversations going on at once. Together, we are Global Voices.
Being a part of a community
As a Global Voices community member you help decide what happens to the website, what our priorities should be, and what the future of our project is. You should always feel free to suggest ideas or raise concerns. We also try to connect to each other through Social Networking sites. Global Voices Board of Directors also has two elected members, one for volunteers, and one for the staff.
Welcome to the family!
What to expect
It is hard work being a Global Voices author, but it can be very rewarding and often leads to many new friends, and even professional opportunities. Bloggers you link to will gain an international audience, and at times of crisis you may be contacted by foreign media if there is breaking news in your country (just let your editor know if you need to remain anonymous).
Additionally, your posts may be translated into dozens of languages by volunteer translators of the Global Voices Lingua websites. Everything on Global Voices is published under a Creative Commons license, so be prepared to see your best posts appear on other news websites and blogs too.
For more information, visit our Author Guidelines.
Global Voices meetings
Every year and a half or so, Global Voices holds a Summit (so far in London, Delhi, Budapest, and Santiago) where we try to bring as many Global Voices contributors together as possible. In the past, we've been able to invite some our most active volunteers to travel to these Summits at no cost. We will always strive to bring as many people as possible.
At other times, Global Voices authors and editors who live in the same cities or continents have managed to organize their own, smaller meetings. Feel free to reach out to people in your own region. You may also be invited to blogger events or conferences where you meet other Global Voices contributors.
Author badge
Now that you're an author, make sure the whole world knows by adding this badge code to the sidebar of your personal blog or website (Hint: Change the link in the code to link to your personal author page).
<a href="http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/" title="I'm an Author for Global Voices"><img alt="I'm an Author for Global Voices" title="I'm an Author for Global Voices" src="http://img.globalvoicesonline.org/Badges/general/gv-badge-author.gif" /></a>
The badge displays like this:
