Most of you will probably agree that the challenges facing UW-Madison today are greater than any time in memory and that we have never needed that free exchange of information more urgently.   The hunger for information is reflected in the record number of unique visitors to this site — well over 2,200 — since the beginning of February.

Time and time again, we have heard privately from readers that they greatly value the service S&W is trying to provide.   This praise is often followed by pleas to post more information about X, Y, or Z.   Implicit in these requests is the assumption that S&W has a staff of dedicated reporters who can go out and actively dig out the stories that other media are not covering.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  S&W is  administered and edited by a couple of extremely busy full-time faculty members who depend entirely on voluntary contributions from those who not only have knowledge, insights, or opinions worth sharing with the rest of us but who also take the trouble to write them down and submit them to S&W.

Some organizations set goals for raising a certain amount of money.   The goal we are announcing today is different:  to recruit at least a dozen new regular contributors this semester who can add new breadth, depth, and timeliness to our coverage of campus issues.

We will publish anything submitted by a member of the campus community — student, staff, faculty, or administrator, regardless of viewpoint, as long as it appears to meet our standards of clarity, factuality, and relevance.  If you think the viewpoints published herein tilt too far in one direction, then you can fix that by submitting an opposing point of view.

While signed contributions are encouraged, we recognize that many campus citizens are reluctant to go public with controversial viewpoints or inside information about the most sensitive subjects.  Anonymous or pseudonymous contributions are therefore allowed provided the submitted content otherwise passes editorial review.

To summarize, we are soliciting

• one-time contributions from readers who have something they want to get off their chest but who don’t have time or inclination for a more sustained contribution, and especially
• regular (e.g., weekly) brief contributions from a select group of campus citizens who are well-attuned to issues of ongoing importance affecting UW-Madison.

To “apply”:

1. first read our information for contributors
2. notify us of your interest and/or simply send in your first piece via email to admin@siftingandwinnowing.org

Your response to this appeal will determine whether S&W lives up to its full potential.  Thank you in advance for your support!

Here is the Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sifting-and-Winnowing/187340228469

Here is the Twitter page: http://twitter.com/SiftandWinnow

Please consider sharing the above links with your own Twitter and Facebook friends.

And happy Thanksgiving!

We have now added a new feature to this site, one that is intended to complement  the main S&W page:   an open community discussion forum for UW-Madison that allows anyone to post informally about almost anything without moderator involvement (except in clear cases of spamming or other abuse).     From the main S&W home page, the link to the new forum is found under “Sifting and Winnowing Resources” in the sidebar on the right.

The full potential of the discussion forum will be achieved when there is enough daily traffic in the form of interesting new postings to keep readers (and posters) coming back regularly.   In the meantime,  we invite readers who think this is a good idea to help get the ball rolling by (a) posting on anything and everything, no matter how mundane, without being too concerned about how many folks are reading yet and (b) forwarding this article to your friends.

If you think you might become a regular poster, we encourage you to register so that readers will become familiar with the personalities behind the posts.  You may use your real name, your initials, or (most likely) a pseudonym.

Have a textbook to sell?  Post a free ad!   Upset about construction?  Post a rant!   Want advice on the best live music venues or WiFi cafes near campus?  Post a question!  Looking for recruits to your campus organization?  Post an announcement!   Want to start a debate?  Post a provocative political, philosophical, or religious assertion, and watch the sparks fly!

All we ask is the following:

• Put your topics in the right forum.   If it doesn’t seem to fit with any of the specialized forums, then it belongs under “General discussion.”
• Be civil, and don’t use the cloak of anonymity to post insulting or potentially embarrassing comments about identifiable people.  Abusive, slanderous, or spammy messages should be reported by clicking on the ‘!’ above the message.   Repeat offenders may be banned.
• Have fun!

-  S&W Admin

There remains, of course, a significant hurdle to be overcome:  For there to be readers, there must be writers.  For there to be writers, there normally has to be at least the prospect of readers.

During the coming weeks, I will  try to break the logjam by  actively recruiting colleagues who are willing to invest in the future of this forum by contributing opinion pieces even before a significant readership is established.  If you would like to be one of those contributors, I urge you to contact me with your proposed topic.

In the meantime, I thank you for your patience, and I look forward to your support.

- the Editor

A long-term solution would lie in the installation of a Captcha plug-in that requires a commenter to prove they are human (by typing the characters in a distorted image) before a comment will even be accepted for moderation.  For reasons I cannot quite fathom in view of the obvious need, the procedure for doing this in WordPress is rather unfriendly, and so I haven’t yet finished muddling my way through it.

In the meantime, I have disabled comments, period.  If you would urgently like to post a comment on an existing article, please send e-mail to admin@siftingandwinnowing.org and we’ll work out a backdoor way for you to get your comment posted.

In the meantime, my apologies for both the inactivity and any inconvenience!  Stay tuned….

- The Editor

Typically, we will post either a solicited or unsolicited article that will lead off a new discussion thread. That article will then serve as the nucleus for an open-ended discussion via reader comments.

With this post, we solicit specific suggestions for topics. Here is a sampling of the kinds of things we are looking for:

• Impacts of the new budget on the quality of research and/or teaching
• Oversight, accountability, and responsiveness in the administration hierarchy
• Faculty recruitment/retention issues
• The future of the tenure system at UW-Madison
• State funding vs. state control
• The tuition surcharge for graduate students in grant budgets
• The utilization of overhead charges collected on research grants
• Infrastructure issues — what is needed, and who pays?

In addition to replying with specific topic suggestions, consider whether you are in a position to contribute a lead article, short or long, addressing any topic of likely interest to our readership. If you are, please see the page Information for Authors.

- the Editors