{"id":752,"date":"2006-08-15T20:51:22","date_gmt":"2006-08-15T20:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"\/ifbookblog\/?p=752"},"modified":"2006-08-15T20:51:22","modified_gmt":"2006-08-15T20:51:22","slug":"encouraging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/15\/encouraging\/","title":{"rendered":"encouraging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/mitchellstephens\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/archives\/without_gods_thumb2.jpg\" align=\"right\"\/><\/a> The following was <a href=\"\/mitchellstephens\/archives\/2006\/08\/thanks.html\">posted<\/a> on Sunday by Mitch Stephens on <a href=\"\/mitchellstephens\">Without Gods<\/a> (for those of you still unfamiliar with it, Without Gods is the public work diary for Mitch&#8217;s forthcoming history of atheism, which we&#8217;ve been hosting for the past eight months &#8212; wow, has it been that long?!).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Thanks<\/strong><br \/>\nThe quality of the comments here lately has seemed, to me, extraordinarily high.<br \/>\nOne of the purposes of blogging a book as it is being written is to have ideas tested and, possibly, sharpened, transformed or overturned. This has repeatedly occurred &#8212; although I have not often weighed in with comments of my own acknowledging that. Please take this as a blanket acknowledgement and expression of appreciation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"\/gamertheory\">GAM3R 7H30RY<\/a> may be flashier, and more technically ambitious, but in many ways Without Gods has been a more revelatory experiment in networked writing. As Mitch acknowledges, the sustained activity, and quality, of the comment streams has been impressive, and above all, interesting to read. It&#8217;s fascinating to follow this evolving collaboration between author and reader, and to watch Mitch come into his own as a skilled moderator of blog-based discussion. It remains to be seen how these conversations will end up shaping the finished book, but for some examples of a tangible collaboration taking place, take a look at these recent &#8220;Author Needs Advice&#8221; posts (<a href=\"\/mitchellstephens\/archives\/2006\/07\/author_needs_ad.html\">part 1<\/a>, <a href=\"\/mitchellstephens\/archives\/2006\/08\/author_seeks_ad.html\">part 2<\/a>), in which Mitch asks for feedback on specific sections of the work-in-progress. Whatever the outcome, it&#8217;s clear that this reconfiguration of the writing process is yielding real rewards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following was posted on Sunday by Mitch Stephens on Without Gods (for those of you still unfamiliar with it, Without Gods is the public work diary for Mitch&#8217;s forthcoming history of atheism, which we&#8217;ve been hosting for the past eight months &#8212; wow, has it been that long?!). Thanks The quality of the comments [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170,192,1201,1861],"tags":[2964],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogosphere","category-books","category-mitchell_stephens","category-the_networked_book","tag-the_networked_book-mitchell_stephens-blogosphere-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/futureofthebook.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}