It's a bit strange to think that we started Open Items last summer. For some reason (most likely it was sheer laziness on my part) I thought it would be a good idea to throw up a post that had no point but to let people discuss whatever they wanted. It's been a barrel of monkeys on every Friday since.
And since we firmly believe that too much of a good thing is FANTASTIC, we came to the conclusion that we'd like to offer you Open Items all the time. That's right, not just Fridays. Every. Single. Day.
We're even giving you a special place to do it. Visit the Open Items home page and you'll see the various sections where you can post questions or content that you'd like to discuss. On that page you'll find our community guidelines that govern not only Open Items but the entire site. You'll want to read them; they're riveting.
Why do this? Well, believe it or not, we truly believe that many of you out there have a lot of value to add to this community and we want to give you the opportunity to do that. Open Items allows you to be involved, albeit somewhat indirectly, in the narrative of discussions that occur here. If you have a question that hasn't been answered by one of our writers, you can ask it here. If there's a story that you can add insight to that we haven't covered, you'll be able to write about it. Once your content is published, your peers can talk it out with you.
Our intent is to allow the free flow of conversation to occur and to best accomplish that, we are giving you a bit more control. For now, we'll still have the final say about what appears in Open Items but it is NOT our intention for this to be a manipulated front page derivative of GC. If your post abides by our community guidelines, then we will publish it and hopefully users will comment on it.
Which brings me to the next part. And this part is important, so pay attention.
To post in the new Open Items you'll note that you are required to have a registered account with us. There are several reasons for this but chief among them are accountability and quality of content. We hope that the content created and questions asked in Open Items spur meaningful conversations for the accounting community and for those who want to participate in that, this won't be a big deal. Creating a profile with us isn't difficult or time consuming but it allows us to keep things from getting out of hand and also to recognize the most valuable contributors to the community. Now, if you create an account and want to make dumb jokes and throw insults you can, but they won't see the light of day. And if it keeps up, we'll simply ban you. But, again, that's not the intent here — for us to wage war on your manifesto — it's to offer a place where the best content is created, shared and discussed.
I'm sure there will be questions, so Adrienne and I will try to answer them in the comments or shoot us an email to let us know how dumb you think this is. That's what we're here for
That's all I've got. Now go write and ask questions to your heart's content. Don't be scared, it's fun!
After an exhaustive exercise of pulling names out of a hat, we’re happy to announce the winners of this year’s End of Busy Giveaway, so that you may direct your envy appropriately.