Now that I understand the basics of the process of adding to this blog, I want to expand on it by adding additional contributors. I would like to get to where there is at least a new post every day, but I know that I can’t do this entirely by myself.
If you think that you might want to contribute, even occasionally, please email me directly at overton@zerointelligence.net and I will provide you with contributor access. Posts by new contributors will not be automatically posted, but will require editorial oversight until a contributor has “proved” himself through consistent quality posts.
Help make this site’s voice louder and consider active participation. It’s not that hard and has an effect on an important topic. I hope I’ll be hearing from many of you very soon.
The fight against Zero Tolerance policies and the harm they cause many good children isn’t over.
While this site was founded and maintained for quite some time by Jim Peacock, events have overtaken Jim and prevented him from continuing his valuable work in this area. His three children are now home-schooled and as you would imagine, this takes a lot of Jim’s time, much of which was previously spent on this site.
My name is Aaron Overton. I also have three children, although they are still in public school. I became interested in Jim’s work some time ago after reading about some of the cases of zero tolerance gone bad on OpinionJournal’s Best of the Web. I was disappointed to see the site become stale and tracked down Jim to find out what was going on.
I have a lot of respect for Jim’s choice to home school, but I wanted to see this site continue to carry on the fight, so after some discussion, Jim and I agreed to transfer the site to me, in effect passing the torch. There’s a fair amount of paperwork involved in such a thing, but three months later, it’s done.
It will likely still be a couple of weeks before I get this rolling again with the kind of regularity Jim set as the performance bar as I figure out the research and editorial process. In the meantime, I invite you to send your tips in to tips@zerointelligence.net as so many of you have done before with such great value.
This site can and will make a difference. By bringing these stories out more publicly, we can help our children’s educators get back to using their heads when it comes to discipline.
I will be out of town on vacation until May 24th. I will have occasional access to the internet but likely little time to post new content.
Please do keep sending your tips and conversing in the comments.
It looks like most folks are already here viewing the site at its new host. This is far faster than I had dared hope and I’m quite pleased. And yet, there are some problems that crop up in every move and this one is no different.
Do you know how when you move to a new house and after everything is unpacked in the new house how you get that weird feeling because even though it’s all the same stuff it’s all in different places? Well, moving a weblog is very similar. All of our content was moved from the old host to this new one but it is all in different places.
Old hyperlinks will work but they’ll likely take you to a different post than the one you were looking for. Things will sort out eventually but in the meantime you can use the search function if you are looking for a particular post and your old hyperlink takes you somewhere strange.
Links within the site will work correctly and any new links created or sent out will work correctly. The only issue is with links taken when the site was on the old host.
I will be travelling all day today so there will most likely be no new items posted. Keep sending in your tips though - regular service resumes on Wednesday.
Busy life and traveling for work will likely prevent a site update until Wednesday, April 13. Please continue to send in your tips though - I’d much rather post a story a day or two late than miss a good one.
UPDATE: A new notification system has been implemented and is in use. Existing notification list addresses have already been brought to the new system and a welcome message sent to them. New subscribers may join the daily or weekly lists at the subscription page.
This site is growing and as it does it is beginning to get too big for some of its features. The email notification system is one of the items that is becoming less than satisfactory.
Currently we are using the notification system built into the site posting software. Drawbacks include a blind subscription (no confirmation required) and an inability to regulate the number of emails received. As more readers contribute stories as well as follow-up information on archive posts the number of emails being sent is increasing to the point that it is annoying some readers.
I am evaluating 3rd party email subscription/notification systems now. The target is a system that is easy to subscribe to, easy to unsubscribe from (currently I have to manually unsubscribe readers) and that can be customized by the reader to receive instant updates, a daily digest or a weekly newsletter.
Please bear with the increased volume for the time being. I’ll have a new system in place as soon as possible.
Zero Intelligence is one year old, and what a year it has been. In the past 365 days we have:
- profiled 281 stories of zero tolerance abuses and other gaffs of scholastic administrations
- had 2189 comments from readers
- been referenced by 180 other websites
- had over half a million visitors
- Update: have 309 people on the email notification list for new content
This is nothing short of phenomenal and I couldn’t be more proud of this site’s success. It shows me that it is worthwhile to get this information out, that there is a receptive and appreciative audience and that it is making a difference. I couldn’t ask for any more than that.
What changes will there be in year two? Well, there’s no sense in messing with a successful system but there is some room for improvement. Coming up soon will be a site redesign with easier and more intuitive navigation and a software upgrade which will help me to combat an ever increasing comment spam problem. Content will remain the same - I will still be profiling cases of zero tolerance abuses as well as other gaffs by scholastic administrations.
Speaking of stories, a fair percentage of the ones I post are discovered and forwarded to me by readers. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate these tips. If a story is not picked up by a national newswire there is a very good chance that it will escape my searches. Even the ones that do get picked up can be missed if they don’t use the specific search terms I look for. Both the quality and quantity of the posts on this site are a direct result of the participation of the readers. Thank you and please keep up the great work.
I will out of town on business for most of this week. Posts will resume here Thursday or Friday.
If you’d like something to do while I’m away, go check out the 2004 Edublog Awards. Weblogs and educational sites are featured in 10 different categories.
Zero Intelligence is a candidate in the Best Resource Sharing Blog category.
You may have noticed a sharp drop in the number of news articles profiled here over the past few months. The reason was that I lost my job (company acquired by a multi-national, my position was eliminated during the merger) and the time I had previously devoted to ZeroIntelligence.net was used to hunt for a new employer.
I am happy to say that I am once again gainfully employed and looking forward to a return to a normal schedule. For ZeroIntelligence.net this will mean a return to my target of at least one news article profile a day, Monday through Friday.
You can help me return to this level of coverage by continuing to send article tips to tips@zerointelligence.net. During the recent non-productive period this site was saved from abandonment by dedicated readers sending topical tips. You keep up the good work and I will strive to do the same.
