It’s come to my attention in light of the nasty anonymous shit we’ve been getting that we should reiterate why we do Wesleying.
Xue and I created Wesleying on a whim back in August. We felt that a blog where everyone could post their news bits and events would really benefit the school in creating a community that is accessible anywhere from within and throughout the community. People have been great about sending in their stuff and we want to see more pictures, more reviews, more ideas. Whatever. More, send us more.
But again, on that same note, we created Wesleying on a whim. We do not hold pretensions of journalistic integrity or fancy the idea of breaking out of Wesleyan to become a huge superblog.
We find things that we think are of interest to the school and we post them. If you will notice all the criticism I received about the UCLA post, you will note that I posted that early in the morning. As the article mentioned, the identity of the man being tasered had not yet been revealed, least of which was his racial identity. Nor had BoingBoing covered the story yet. Yes, to ye who have little internet faith, there are other websites out there besides BoingBoing where one might get news.
Please note before you criticize what we do that we don’t get anything out of Wesleying. It is not a student group. We cannot put this on our resume. We are not accountable to the school. We do not get paid. You are basically anonymously attacking people who are doing a service (that you read every day) for not doing something they have never promised or intend to do.
While our site stats say about 25% of the school is reading our website every day and our page views say that they are reading it more than once a day, we feel pretty good. But when all our comments are negatively framed like “You didn’t do this.” “You forgot to mention this.” “You aren’t doing this right.” We start to feel bad. We’re human. We’d like some positive feedback from the other 24% of the school who is reading.
We just want to have fun and let you guys have fun with us. I don’t know what more one could hope to get out of a blog.
Xue adds:
Thanks for the support, guys. I just wanted to build on something Holly said–
We’re not a news source, nor do we pretend to be. We post things as we find them, things that we like, things that we hope you will like, things that we might not like but someone else likes. We don’t have the manpower to run interviews, have features, collect student opinions or even source-check. Here you will find tirades about chalking and breaking news at other colleges along with instructions on how to make skittles vodka and tips on jerking off in your dorm. We want to be fun, light-hearted, relevant, and yes, silly and sometimes opinionated.
We encourage discussion in the comments if you disagree with something we say, and if you point out that we got something wrong, we will change it. But at the point where someone anonymously tells one of our writers to “get a life,” please keep in mind that the reason that we DON’T have lives is because we’re trying to get this thing off the ground.
Some quick notes on the technicalities of running Wesleying: We don’t have editors. We have no assignments or deadlines because we feel that it dampens the sincerity and enthusiasm inherent behind writing for a blog; No limits on subject matter behind the very broad one of “make it sort of relevant to college/Wesleyan,” which is (obviously) broken very, very often. Every contributor posts completely independently. Holly and I change the formatting of posts (punctuation, html, spelling, etc.), but most of the time, that’s it unless we personally contact the writer and suggest changes for them to make as per the content/phrasing. This is because: 1) we want people to get an idea of the raw college experience at Wesleyan on a personal level and 2) encourage the free flow of ideas and facilitate communication among different campus groups, including, yes, different representatives of the administration, who e-mail us with events and FAQs once in a while.
Finally, we are doing this because we love Wesleyan.
And I guess that’s it.
Thanks again, friends.
i’m with julia. i read you guys from france because it’s like a little piece of wesleyan for me to hold on to so i don’t feel completely out of the loop once i come back. plus, i get to be more informed about campus happenings then my friends who hadn’t heard of the site yet. you guys are doing an incredible job, wesleyan needs this resource, so keep it up and ignore the idiots. – maya
i’m with julia. i read you guys from france because it’s like a little piece of wesleyan for me to hold on to so i don’t feel completely out of the loop once i come back. plus, i get to be more informed about campus happenings then my friends who hadn’t heard of the site yet. you guys are doing an incredible job, wesleyan needs this resource, so keep it up and ignore the idiots. – maya
I read Wesleying about two or three times a day, and yes, it’s an excellent resource. You guys are basically the #1 stop to figure out what’s happening on campus for any given weekend (or weekday). Keep up the good work.
I read Wesleying about two or three times a day, and yes, it’s an excellent resource. You guys are basically the #1 stop to figure out what’s happening on campus for any given weekend (or weekday). Keep up the good work.
I don’t even go to Wesleyan and I enjoy reading this blog. It’s nice to see what is going on at other schools. Y’all do a great job of writing this.
I don’t even go to Wesleyan and I enjoy reading this blog. It’s nice to see what is going on at other schools. Y’all do a great job of writing this.
I am glad that you both have created this blog as it is what I consider the most immediate news source available and is easy and enjoyable to read. What I like about the blog is that the issues are very relevant to college life in general and is accessible no matter where I am. Also, your radio interview on WESU was illuminating as well.Thank you very much and write on–MSK
I am glad that you both have created this blog as it is what I consider the most immediate news source available and is easy and enjoyable to read. What I like about the blog is that the issues are very relevant to college life in general and is accessible no matter where I am. Also, your radio interview on WESU was illuminating as well.
Thank you very much and write on–MSK
email holly at hwood@wes or xue at xsun@wespretty simple
email holly at hwood@wes or xue at xsun@wes
pretty simple
How would one go about being a contributer to wesleying, if we too have no life and would like to use our sparetime to be helpful to others?
How would one go about being a contributer to wesleying, if we too have no life and would like to use our sparetime to be helpful to others?
As soon as I found out about Wesleying I started reading it everyday. It makes me feel like I’m connected to the campus. Plus its a great way to put off working! Thanks guys.
As soon as I found out about Wesleying I started reading it everyday. It makes me feel like I’m connected to the campus. Plus its a great way to put off working! Thanks guys.
As someone who was recently similarly flamed on my similarly unsponsored, unaffiliated radio show, I will offer the advice that was offered to me:Once you’re far enough out into the public arena, there will, invariably, be assholes who are not nice and not appreciative and who will want to make you feel bad for reasons that may not even have to do with you. This advice didn’t make me feel much better, and it probably won’t make you feel better, either, but the point still stands and I think it’s a strong one. I, for one, love occasionally contributing to and more than once daily reading, your blog. You guys are doing an amazing job.– Alissa
As someone who was recently similarly flamed on my similarly unsponsored, unaffiliated radio show, I will offer the advice that was offered to me:
Once you’re far enough out into the public arena, there will, invariably, be assholes who are not nice and not appreciative and who will want to make you feel bad for reasons that may not even have to do with you.
This advice didn’t make me feel much better, and it probably won’t make you feel better, either, but the point still stands and I think it’s a strong one. I, for one, love occasionally contributing to and more than once daily reading, your blog. You guys are doing an amazing job.– Alissa
I think you guys are pretty awesome
I think you guys are pretty awesome
yay!!!! <3
yay!!!! <3
I think Holly and Xue are really neat. I wouldn’t prefer anybody else to do this stuff
I think Holly and Xue are really neat. I wouldn’t prefer anybody else to do this stuff
I wish I were friends with you guys :-(–Anonymous senior
I wish I were friends with you guys :-(
–Anonymous senior
yeah — I would not have found out about some campus stuff if it weren’t for you guys. And I think the entries about people’s projects and random sitings are amazing because it really communicates the texture of Wesleyan. You guys are amazing!!
yeah — I would not have found out about some campus stuff if it weren’t for you guys. And I think the entries about people’s projects and random sitings are amazing because it really communicates the texture of Wesleyan. You guys are amazing!!
You could totally put this on your resume…
You could totally put this on your resume…
previous comment — Leana
previous comment — Leana
I’d like to say how very indebted I am to you all for posting events and making the internet so much more interesting. Don’t listen to the haters. It’s a blog, you’re supposed to post your opinions and not be criticized for it. I like reading your take on certain issues, I may not agree sometimes but I would not attack you for it. I just find those who leave negative comments immature.
I’d like to say how very indebted I am to you all for posting events and making the internet so much more interesting. Don’t listen to the haters. It’s a blog, you’re supposed to post your opinions and not be criticized for it. I like reading your take on certain issues, I may not agree sometimes but I would not attack you for it. I just find those who leave negative comments immature.
Well, I think you guys are doing an amazing job, and I’m just going to throw my voice out here and say that I think this is a great and often incredibly amusing blog. Don’t let the haters get you down.
Well, I think you guys are doing an amazing job, and I’m just going to throw my voice out here and say that I think this is a great and often incredibly amusing blog. Don’t let the haters get you down.
Can I just say Holly and Xue, that you guys are doing a great job and providing a great resource. Like everyone else, you don’t always cover what I’m interested in (horror of horrors!) but that’s totally cool, because you’re still a hell of a lot more timely, relevant and interesting than the Argus has been.
Can I just say Holly and Xue, that you guys are doing a great job and providing a great resource. Like everyone else, you don’t always cover what I’m interested in (horror of horrors!) but that’s totally cool, because you’re still a hell of a lot more timely, relevant and interesting than the Argus has been.