Frequently asked questions about the Toaster:

What are the comment guidelines on the Toaster?

The general guidelines are here.

Mostly, it means don't insult each other. And if you do, apologize.

Some blogs don't allow cursing and such, others do. If you violate an individual blogs' guidelines, you'll probably be warned. Apologize, and then don't do it again.

How do you make something bold/underline/linked in the comments?

To make something bold, surround it with *asterisks*.

To make something underlined, surround it with _underlines_.

To link to comment 31, surround the link number with brackets, like this: [31].

That's all you can do, for now. You can't link to another site, you can only post the URL. If you want to post a long URL, please use tinyurl.

Can I get the full blog entry in the RSS feed?

At this time, no.

Will you post my article on your site?

You'll have to convince an individual author that it fits on their blog.

Can I put an ad on your site?

Most of us are not in this for the money, and most of us are pretty lazy. If you want an ad on the site as a whole, make an offer to support2007 @baseballtoaster.com. If you want an ad on an individual blog, contact that blog's author.

But make a concrete offer. Don't make us make an offer, don't ask us to contact you if we're interested, because if you leave it up to us, we won't follow up.

Can I get a blog on the Toaster?

We rarely add new blogs. We're not really looking to build a huge blog empire. We're more interested in creating a site where a group of friends get together to write and read each others' stuff.

So, in order to get into our little group, the following helps:

• Be a nice person.
  It's a group of friends. A bad seed can ruin the chemistry of the group, so we're careful about this.

• Be original.
  This means two things: One, don't cover the same topic we're already covering at the Toaster, or if you do, have a unique style or point of view on that topic. Two, don't write the same stuff everybody else is writing.

• Write compellingly.
  Most important of all. We don't want to add a blog for Team X just because we don't have a blog for Team X. We want to add a blog that we would all read anyway, even if we weren't a fan of Team X, just because the writing is that good.
  
  This also means you should have a history of compelling writing. Either on a blog, or in print somewhere. We can't just take your word for it. There has to be a body of work we can judge.

When are we going to get feature X added to the Fairpole software, Ken?

The software has taken a very circuitous route. The software, as originally designed, didn't scale well. I learned from those mistakes, stopped working on the original design, tore it apart, and started rebuilding it in a different way from scratch.

Along the way, I joined a startup company, and we're using the basic original approach of Fairpole to build something quite different. The new product based on Fairpole will be released this winter. Once that new product is stable, we'll probably transfer the Toaster over to the new platform. Not sure when that will be, maybe in the spring.

What do I do if none of these questions are my question?

Send an email to support2007 @baseballtoaster.com.