This issue occasionally comes up and will almost certainly come up again in the future. That is, how does one go about getting something they've written on the home page of JoeUser.com.

There is no simple answer to this. Instead, the best I can do is provide some general tips on two basic things: a) How the feature system works and How to make a good article.

How the feature system works today

Right now JoeUser.com hasn't even officially been launched. We've been tidying up features here and there and figuring out things like the revenue model so that the site will be self-sustaining.

The way the featured article system is designed to work in the future is that articles that get a lot of points via "insightful" or "interesting". ratings in a short amount of time will automatically get featured. Each user has their own access level. There are 9 of them between Citizen (1) and Admin (9). The higher the access you have, the more points your "insightful" rating gives. As time goes on, users will move up the ladder in access. Access increases are given by admins. Users like Bakerstreet, Stevenadlous, Jeblackstar and others have already moved up from citizen to "Power user" (1 to 2). Eventually there will be enough users with high access that the aforementioned system will be able to be put into place.

In the meantime, articles are featured by me manually. I don't make any claims of objectivity. I feature articles based on what I think other people will find interesting. The goal, after all, is to attract more people to the site. Based on the phenomenal growth of this site it seems to be working reasonably well so far.

Good writing suggestions

Each day dozens of new articles get written. I don't have time to read them all. So here are some quick tips:

• Make titles that are descriptive. Many articles get passed by because they have titles like "Thoughts" or "Another day" or whatever. The first step to getting featured is getting someone who can feature your article to choose it in the first place to read which means having an article title that is descriptive.
• Use the sub-header. If you want to have a clever article title that isn't descriptive, then use the sub-header to describe what the article is about.
• Write about something specific. Lots of articles I read here meander all over the place and it's not clear what they're supposed to be about. Remember, you can always write several different blog entries rather than have one giant one each day.
• Formatting. I can't tell you how many times I've read something really good only to balk at featuring it because it was unreadable. Wacky font choices and other poor formatting choices can make something visually difficult to read.
• Paragraphs. Paragraphs are your friend. Use them. It's amazing how many people will write a single gigantic article. Doesn't matter how good it is, break up your article every few sentences based on context.
• Don't alienate the featurer. This is the one place where bias does play a role. There are people who write things that are so far out there that I tend to just not read what they write. You may be certain that the media is "government controlled" or that "Bush was behind 9/11" or that the "Democrats are putting drugs in the water." Feel free to write about whatever you want. But I reserve the right to not visit blogs that routinely write what seems crazy to me. Sorry, there's just too much to go through and I would agree that we're all poorer off by not checking in occasionally to see if something more mainstream has popped in there.
• Same as above but in terms of personally attacking me. I'm amazed at the energy some people put into their blogs in attacking me personally. To what end? We're providing you with a free blog. Sure, some of my articles may offend you. They are, afterall, designed to be provocative. I turn up the "gamma" when I write in an effort to make the article more interesting. But the sheer volume of people who write blogs that insult me personally is not constructive. I just end up not reading those blogs which again, because of the way the featuring system works, means those articles won't get featured. Sorry, I'm human. I don't like to read people calling me the Gastapo commander or a "liberal freak" or a "right wing kook" anymore than anyone else does so I avoid those sites. 

So there are some basic tips. I try to spend a few minutes each evening looking for things to feature. The more stuff other peopel write, the less stuff I have to write.