Article Content

Sometimes in the next few months, I will be adding some stuff to the forum. There is the directory project that has been discussed in its own sub-forum, of course, and that is still something that will be done.

On top of that, I would like to add a section to the forum for articles. No, I am not talking about an article directory since, while some of them may have some reasonably well-written articles, most of them are SEO scams, so much so that most people don't even read the good ones.

What I have in mind are some stand-alone pages connected to this forum where I can publish various articles that are specific to people fifty years old or older. At this point, I have a few ideas but I don't have specific topics in mind.

I would refer to this area using a word other than "articles" because I do want to differentiate our content from article directories. For one thing, it won't be a directory but, rather, a finite collection of essays that have special meaning for people fifty years old or older.

Yes, I do intend to pay for them, and I would ask that they be published here and not anywhere else, but my intention is to ask those of you who write so well in this forum to contribute your skills, your experiences, and your words to this project.

I don't know exactly what I am looking for at this point, and it's entirely possible that I won't recognize it until I see it, but I would like you to perhaps give some thought to it. Don't start writing anything yet; we're not at that point, and I would rather not be in a position to have to reject something that someone has put work into.

As for the pay, I am not not wealthy, so no one is going to earn a living through this, but I hope to be able to pay a fair price.

I also have no desire or intentions of claiming to have written anything myself that I did not personally write, so these articles may be published anonymously, attributed to your member name, or to your real name, as you wish. If you chose to use your real name, no connection would be made, by me, connecting the article to your member name here in this forum, so you should still be able to retain your anonymity here.

I know some people buy content that they then publish under their own names and there's nothing wrong with that, as ghost writing has a long tradition, but that is not what I have in mind. In fact, I hope to be able to include articles from as many different people as possible.

I would rather not link to any outside sites from these essays (and essays is probably the word that I will use, rather than articles) because linking to outside sites is the sole purpose of the SEO scams that masquerade as article directories and, again, I would like your work to be set apart from these.

With that, I will be open to any suggestions or ideas. It is still at the planning stages, but I wanted to give you a heads up so that you can begin putting some thought into it.

 

There are articles all over the Internet, mostly from government or non-profit organizations, with information for seniors, but most of them deal with topics like finding a retirement or nursing home, determining which assistance programs might be available, or that sort of thing and, while this might be useful information, it's available everywhere and many of us are not at that point yet. So, while I'm open to topics that I haven't thought of, I'm particularly interested in things that would be recognizable as being of interest to people 50, 60, 70, 80 years of age or older. These could be educational or instructional, but they could also be poignant, personal, nostalgic, funny, or even sad; pretty much the kinds of things we talk about here, although perhaps longer and better organized. Right now, I'm looking for ideas, and that's why I decided to post this now as opposed to a few weeks from now. Give it some thought.

 

Exactly, and they don't necessarily have to be instructional. They might also be thought provoking or entertaining, or anything else that might resonate with people in our age groups.

 

I think that I may have just written your first article; but it is added as a post right now, since there is no catagory for the articles as of yet.
It accidentally submitted when I was partway done, and I added what I could but then passed the allowed 15 minutes to edit (seriously HATE that ! ) and lost it again.
I then started a second post, and continued the article. If you want to condense it back into one post, please do so.
If it is along the lines of what you are looking for in the new Senior-focused Essays section of the forum; then please move it there.
It is pretty long for a post, even as two posts; but should be perfect as a stand-alone article.
The posts are in the Reading/Writing sub-forum, and titled "Building Your Online Library".

 

I'll increase that to a half hour. I'd prefer to be able to simply allow people to edit their posts whenever they noticed a typo, or wanted to add something, but I have had some horrible experiences with that. On one forum, someone got mad about something and deleted all of her posts, more than a year's worth, which made everything after them unintelligible, since they were replies to posts that were no longer there. So I decided no to allow deletions but to allow edits, and someone else edited out all the content from her posts, which caused the same problem. She wasn't even angry, but had decided to delete herself from the Internet or something.

They won't actually be in posts. They will be in a special section accessible from an "Essays" tab at the top of the forum; where we currently have tabs for FORUMS and MEMBERS, there will be one for ESSAYS, unless someone thinks of a better name.

 

I try to go through all of my posts and edit them before I actually post them, or go back when I see something that I have overlooked at first. Invariably though, a typo will show up the next time I read that topic, and by then it is always too late to fix them.
I can imagine that having to deal with the situation of people deleting their posts would cause a real problem , and I can see why you want to keep it limited.
For some reason, this forum software(?) is not iPad friendly, at least with my ipad, and it jumps when I touch it to correct a post. If the correction is near the bottom of the post, then when it jumps, it hits the link to post the thread instead.
Usually, this is not a big issue, and I can repost everything before the allowed time is up; but when the post is long, or I have to look for information or a link to attach, then I can't do it fast enough. Having it increased to a half-hour should help a lot; so a big Thank You ! !

I did realize that the "essays" are going to go in their own place; but I thought that when you make a place for them, that this post about the online e-book library would work to move it there.

 

I compose my longer posts in a text editor, then copy and paste them into the forum.

 

I hope to start this soon, as well as the senior directory.