Why is it that so many readers - at least ten just today alone - have thought posts written on ModernMythology were written by me, when the "By" line at the beginning and end of the article was not my name?
I'm actually asking.
Several of those people were also surprised to discover that there are in fact over a dozen contributors to this site; while I do write about 25-50% of the content on here depending on the month, I'm a voice in a chorus. Despite the description on the sidebar or in any of the sub-pages of the site that are quite clear in that, still the idea persists, so I wonder what we could do to be more clear about the collaborative nature of this project?
Or is the truth actually that none of you pay very much attention when you're browsing on the internet?
Also, one is completely insistent that I am Rusty Shackleford. I really am not. But I'm amused someone thinks that.
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James- You are already Agent 139, Frater Gazebo and Dionysus... Why not Rusty? It is pretty logical. In a sense.
ReplyDeleteYOU CREATED ME MAN, TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY.
To people who aren't totally convinced that Rusty isn't James, this exchange is going to seem especially crazy.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it might have something to do with inconsistent by-line formatting. Mr. Metcalf sticks his by-line at the end. You stick yours at the beginning. Mr. VI sticks his just after the cold-open image. Those are three variations I see on the front page, and contributors who post less frequently may have other in-line by-lines or may occasionally leave them out.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, one does not necessarily commit to memory the authorship of a post until one has already read far enough to decide that one is interested, which may well be most of the way down; one may comment on a whim without scrolling around to identify the by-line.
Heh, yes. Well, what I tell contributors is to put their credit in the lede (aka above the fold.) I don't really care where. It's more a question of people sifting through the net and not wondering where the hell they are half the time I think. This site gets several thousand people on a good day lately and a lot of them are coming in off of specific content and just read that without looking at the sidebars or descriptions or anything else.
ReplyDeleteIn theory contributors save their posts as drafts and tell me about it and I double check things like that they have a credit somewhere in the top of the post. But a lot of times they just run them.
(FWIW Metcalf has put his credit at the top of at least the last 2 posts.)
Anyway, I just think it's funny that everyone on this site is clearly ME. ALL ME.