DWG: Goals, Rules, Guidelines
By Nathan Dain
Table of Contents:
Goals:
Rules:
Responsibilities:
Active & Inactive Authors:
Required Reading:
Setup:
Workflow:
Formatting & Commenting:
Posting New or Multiple Works:
Revision & Resubmitting Required Reading:
New Members & Leaving the DWG:
Welcome to the DWG House:
Revision Log:
TLDR for the DWG:
Here's the bullet points for what you need to know.
Goals: The purpose of any writing group is multifaceted, though they mostly revolve around a need to share, improve, and help others do the same. Be it an attempt to complete a novel, novella, short story, or just a project, this writing group is intended to help facilitate such endeavors, to create a place of accountability and constructive feedback. It's a place to have your work read, to be encouraged to continue writing, to make your writing better, and to read and encourage in turn.
Rules: Mostly, the rules are pretty simple. You get as much out of it as you put in.
Responsibilities: This writing group has a pretty low bar for involvement: read and comment on others’ work; write and post your own work; and update your progress on the DWG: Bulletin Board. That’s it.
If you read the Required Reading (half a page of Active Authors’ works), comment, and update your progress by the 6 pm Saturday cut-off time, you become Active for the next week. When you write and post, a good bite-sized goal is 200-300 words with the same cut-off time of 6 pm Saturday (if you post after that time, it applies to next week’s work, and doesn’t qualify for Required Reading until then).
If you don't post your work, you won't get comments; if you don't comment, you won't get comments on your work until you do; and if you don’t update your progress on the DWG: BB, no one is required to comment on your work.
Of course, you can always post as much work as you want, and comment as much as you want, and even if you don't want to post any of your own work for a while, you can always comment. You're only required to do the minimum commenting to get feedback for the week.
Active & Inactive Authors: Commenting is vital to being a part of the DWG. Everyone wants to have their work read and responded to, but that only works if everyone fulfills both sides of the equation. The status of Active & Inactive is a direct reflection of that. It’s meant to be a simple way for everyone to identify who is or isn’t participating for the week, and has nothing to do with who has turned in work. Active status is listed under Updates in the DWG: Bulletin Board.
To be considered Active, an author must read and comment on the Required Reading of all of the other Active Authors for the week, and make a note of it on the DWG: BB. If you don’t, you become Inactive, though you can retain the Inactive status indefinitely (We’re not going to kick you out of the group. Everyone is busy, and the DWG is meant to help motivate, not guilt).
If you have Inactive status and you want to jump back in, it’s easy, simply read and comment on the Required Reading of the Active Authors for the week by 6 pm Saturday, and the following week, you too will be Active.
(ie. If Nathan is Active for Week 1, and Deron reads and comments on Nathan’s work then posts his progress, Deron becomes Active for Week 2. If Robert would then like to be Active, he reads and comments on the Required Reading for both Nathan and Deron by the cut-off time during Week 2, and becomes Active for Week 3. If during this same time of Week 2, Nathan is too busy to comment on Deron’s work by the cut-off time, Nathan becomes Inactive for Week 3.)
Required Reading:There are several variables that determine whether or not a work is Required Reading, and even then, only a Half a Page of reading and commenting from other authors is required for the week.
When an author posts work before the cut-off time, it qualifies as Required Reading for the following week. Any work posted after the cut-off qualifies as Required Reading only after the next cut-off time (the week after next).
Only when an author is Active is any of their qualifying work considered Required Reading.
No matter how much work an author has posted and that qualifies, only half a page of work from each Active Author is technically Required Reading. If there are two Active Authors that are not you, your Required Reading is only half a page from each author. If you’ve read everything a given author has posted, great, you’ve fulfilled the Required Reading for that author.
When an author has read, commented, and updated their progress on all Required Reading for the week, they become Active for the following week.
Setup: This writing group is called the Digital Writing Group for a reason: it's all digital, though all you need is Google Drive and Google Docs to participate (I'd recommend keeping an eye on your email and using the notifications to stay up to date).
In Drive, we all have access to the folders of each of the projects being worked on (one primary folder for each author). For the most part, everyone has access to full editing (you can change this to Comment Only by right clicking the file or the whole folder and selecting Share if you wish) of all of the work there, though it's polite to post comments in the margins instead of editing in the body of the work. Some of us have been using these files to do our primary writing, while others are simply posting a copy, leaving the original in private files to help with the revision process. (I subscribe to the latter.)
In the DWG: Bulletin Board, we all have access to posting new topics or commenting on existing ones. This is a useful place for everyone to stay in touch and keep informed. It's important to have a place where we can communicate outside of the actual pieces of work, and stay accountable to the group. That’s the reason using it is a requirement. The BB is broken down into four sections: This Week’s Updates, List of Authors, News/Discussion, and Previous Weekly Updates. This Week’s Updates has the current Active Authors, and the progress of anyone participating for the week, by name and color. The List of Authors is a color coded list where each author indicates the color of their voice on the BB, their current work, and their preference for how they would like others to read and comment on their work (i.e. Newest First, Main Story in order). News/Discussion is an open forum for any author to post general news for the group, ask questions, or bring up anything really. For the sake of relevance, please start a post with the date. After a time, the post will move on to the Archives. Previous Weekly Updates is a list of the last 10 weeks of Active Authors, and the updates of everyone participating in reverse chronological order (newest on top). Anything older can be found in the Archives. (Please don’t use the Comment function in the DWG: BB. I haven’t found a way to transfer them from one doc to another, and therefore can’t be archived.)
If you are Inactive for six months or more, you forfeit your color that represents your voice, allowing for a new member to take your place, though you will not be kicked out of the group. This is not a punishment, it’s just logistics. I believe the ideal number of Active Authors is between 4 to 7, and the group will be open to new members until we find equilibrium.
Workflow: The week starts with someone, anyone who gets there first, creating a new date in the DWG: Bulletin Board under This Week’s Updates and listed as “Week of month/day/year,” where the date is the Saturday of the new week. That date is where everyone participating for the week comments where they are in the process of that week. Everyone who's participating that week should post their work on Drive, and comment on the Bulletin Board that they've done so along with what they want from the readers in the comments. (When posting new material or notifying that you’ve completed comments, please post underlined “New Material: *Name of Material*” and “Completed Comments.”)
By 6:00 pm PST on Saturday, any work to be commented on for the next week should be up. After that time, late work can still be commented on by anyone who chooses to, but it won't fall under Required Reading for the following week. Over the next week, everyone participating will read and comment on half a page of Required Reading from each Active Author. Once done with your comments, post your progress on the DWG: BB. If you have commented on an author’s work in person, and that author decides not to require digital comments from you, make a note of that in your post.
At 6:00 pm PST on the following Saturday, everyone who has completed the Required Readings, comments, and posted the corresponding update with then be considered Active, anyone who doesn’t is considered Inactive, and the cycle repeats.
Formatting & Commenting: Posting in Drive is how we share our work, and since we're requiring everyone to read only half a page of each person's work per week, it's best if there is some uniform formatting that we can gauge how much we need to read and comment on. With that in mind, “half a page” should be single spaced text of at least 12-point font. There should also be 1 inch margins on either side (found under File/Page Setup). If you want to use larger text, or bigger margins, or use block paragraphs that's up to you, but no one is required to read more than half of that page.
If some of all of your work that week is interspersed through previously existing text (or you're revising or rewriting sections of previously submitted work) make it clear what you want read and commented on, and be aware that others are still only required to read a half page.
Each individual standalone work (letters, poetry, reflections) of less than half a page is considered to fulfill the half a page requirement.
In general, comments will be made in the margins without changing the body of the text by selecting the specified text and using the comment function. If you make any changes to a document in the document, change the color of your type so that it can easily be tracked (It needs to be clear what is original, and what was changed).
When commenting, speak up on whatever jumps out at you. Good, bad, weird, out-of-place, or damned near perfect, anything is a fair target for a comment. Sometimes, however, there won't be a single thing that you want to point out within a half a page. This is okay. Don't force it.
(Tip from the NSC Writing Director and Professor of Composition: If you’re not sure how you want to comment, fall back on Note, React, and Question. Note: identify a specific passage, phrase or section; React: express what stood out to you; and Question: ask something specific about what stood out to you. This format often provides useful feedback.)
Regardless of how many comments you do or do not make on a submission, when you reach the end of a given work for that week, make a comment at the end of the paragraph in which you stopped of your general impression starting with “Last Comment” or “LC.” This will help everyone in keeping track of who's participating for the week and who isn't. (It will also help keep you in Active status.)
If you don't have time, or fail to catch up on all the Required Reading and commenting for the week, it isn't the end of the world, you'll simply be considered Inactive for the next week, and you won't be included in the next week's Required Reading. (Though people may still choose to comment on your work if they’re so inclined.)
Posting New or Multiple Works: For the most part, there is no limit to how much work an author can post, or what kind of work that might be. By default, a project will be contained in a folder located in the main DWG folder with the name of that folder as the title of the project. If an author wishes to post multiple projects, create a new folder titled as the author’s name in the DWG folder, and create individual folders for each of the projects inside the author’s folder.
When you post a new work, convert it to a Google Doc and delete the original file, or simply copy the text into a new Google Doc. (Limiting the files to Google file types doesn’t count against the data limit of your Google Drive.)
As your work is yours, you can add and remove it as you wish.
Revision & Resubmitting Required Reading:Revising work is an important part of the writing process, and at some point each of us will eventually embark on the daunting and sometimes scary endeavor. For the purposes of the DWG, Revision is grouped into two types: Editorial Revision, and Substantive Revision, and are defined differently depending on the type of work originally submitted.
Editorial Revision is pretty much how it sounds: corrections in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the occasional addition or deletion of a paragraph or passage. In general, long form works with this form of revision will never be considered Required Reading for an author who has already commented on an earlier version, and cannot be resubmitted as such.
Substantive Revision is much more invasive. It involves larger changes that create a different experience for the reader. Reworking an entire storyline, manipulating swaths of details, omitting or adding characters, that sort of thing. Poetry, poetic prose, and short stories are more readily subject to these kinds of changes than longer form works. (Changing a few words in a poem can change its entire meaning.) As such, revised short form works will typically be considered Required Reading if resubmitted even if it was only Editorially Revised. In the case of long form works, nothing short of a complete rewrite will usually be considered Required Reading if resubmitted.
Any work can only be resubmitted for Required Reading once. (Author’s aren’t required to read the same piece over and over again.)
Whatever the type of Revision done, the process of posting a revised work is the same. The author will create a new folder within their work’s directory titled “Archive,” and place the old version within it. The revised version will take its place, and give some indication that it is revised in its file name (adding an “R” or even the whole word “Revised”). Then, in the file itself, make a comment at the beginning of the work listing the commentators who commented in the original version. (This will help other authors to remember what they’ve already commented on without having to search for it.) Finally, post to the DWG: Bulletin Board, and indicate if you would like your revised work to be considered as a resubmission.
Regardless, if an author did not comment on the original work, the new revised work will still qualify as Required Reading for that author.
New Members & Leaving the DWG: As a relatively new endeavor, I’m expecting this to grow (at least a little). For the most part, this is a group of friends, and friends of friends. This group is by invitation only, so suffice to say, only invite people you like and trust.
For the time being, the process is pretty informal. Any Active member can nominate a new member by posting in the News/Discussion sections of the DWG: BB that you’d like to invite someone in, and give a brief description of that person you wish to invite. Then email blast the DWG: BB by selecting File/Email Collaborators with the subject line of “New Members.” If there are no objections within 48 hours of the message, or if half of the members respond with a Yea, send the name and preferred email of your nominee to Nathan, and he’ll take care of getting the new member set up.
New members start with Active status, and retain this status until posting their first writings and having it required for a week, after which point they follow all the same rules.
If you find that the DWG isn’t a good home for you, you can always leave with no hard feelings. Simply send Nathan an email, and move all of your project folders off of the main DWG folder, making sure to change their settings to private by un-sharing the group members (Nathan can help with this as well).
Welcome to the DWG House: I'm excited by the idea of the Digital Writing Group (and just as excited we have an awesome acronym). We're in this together, and although it is work, we do it with a desire to write and make what we've written better.
Revision Log: 2/17/18 (Added Revision & Re-submitting Required Reading, moved Revision Log to the end of the DWG: G,R, & G)
2/11/18 (Mechanic for de-coloring Inactive Authors in “Setup”)
11/25/17 (Clarification on Required Reading & Formatting & Commenting)
Goals:
Rules:
Responsibilities:
Active & Inactive Authors:
Required Reading:
Setup:
Workflow:
Formatting & Commenting:
Posting New or Multiple Works:
Revision & Resubmitting Required Reading:
New Members & Leaving the DWG:
Welcome to the DWG House:
Revision Log:
TLDR for the DWG:
Here's the bullet points for what you need to know.
- We like writing!
- Don't suck. Be nice to each other.
- Write (200 – 300 words in a week is a good goal) and post it to Google Drive by 6:00 pm Saturday.
- Read and comment on Required Reading (at least a half a page of all Active Authors) by 6:00 pm Saturday to stay Active, or to become Active. Mark your last comment in each by starting with “Last Comment” or “LC.”
- If you miss the deadline for comments, you become Inactive. Those who are inactive don't get comments on your work for the week.
- Use Google Drive, and the DWG: Bulletin Board. Check your email. Stay in touch with the group or you become Inactive and don't get comments for the week.
- There are additional explanations for Formatting & Commenting, Active/Inactive status, Required Reading, Posting New Works and Multiple Projects, and New Members & Leaving, (I apologize for any repetition in the explanations, but I tell myself it’s for the sake of clarity.)
- Yay Writing!
Goals: The purpose of any writing group is multifaceted, though they mostly revolve around a need to share, improve, and help others do the same. Be it an attempt to complete a novel, novella, short story, or just a project, this writing group is intended to help facilitate such endeavors, to create a place of accountability and constructive feedback. It's a place to have your work read, to be encouraged to continue writing, to make your writing better, and to read and encourage in turn.
Rules: Mostly, the rules are pretty simple. You get as much out of it as you put in.
- Be respectful when commenting (which is kind of a "duh" thing).
- You're not allowed to simply say, "I don't like it." You CAN say you don't like it, but you have to be able to explain yourself. This is less important when saying "I like it." though it still kinda applies. Otherwise, comment as you see fit.
- Finally, don't make changes to someone else's document without explicit markings (typically changing text colors and/or bolding).
Responsibilities: This writing group has a pretty low bar for involvement: read and comment on others’ work; write and post your own work; and update your progress on the DWG: Bulletin Board. That’s it.
If you read the Required Reading (half a page of Active Authors’ works), comment, and update your progress by the 6 pm Saturday cut-off time, you become Active for the next week. When you write and post, a good bite-sized goal is 200-300 words with the same cut-off time of 6 pm Saturday (if you post after that time, it applies to next week’s work, and doesn’t qualify for Required Reading until then).
If you don't post your work, you won't get comments; if you don't comment, you won't get comments on your work until you do; and if you don’t update your progress on the DWG: BB, no one is required to comment on your work.
Of course, you can always post as much work as you want, and comment as much as you want, and even if you don't want to post any of your own work for a while, you can always comment. You're only required to do the minimum commenting to get feedback for the week.
Active & Inactive Authors: Commenting is vital to being a part of the DWG. Everyone wants to have their work read and responded to, but that only works if everyone fulfills both sides of the equation. The status of Active & Inactive is a direct reflection of that. It’s meant to be a simple way for everyone to identify who is or isn’t participating for the week, and has nothing to do with who has turned in work. Active status is listed under Updates in the DWG: Bulletin Board.
To be considered Active, an author must read and comment on the Required Reading of all of the other Active Authors for the week, and make a note of it on the DWG: BB. If you don’t, you become Inactive, though you can retain the Inactive status indefinitely (We’re not going to kick you out of the group. Everyone is busy, and the DWG is meant to help motivate, not guilt).
If you have Inactive status and you want to jump back in, it’s easy, simply read and comment on the Required Reading of the Active Authors for the week by 6 pm Saturday, and the following week, you too will be Active.
(ie. If Nathan is Active for Week 1, and Deron reads and comments on Nathan’s work then posts his progress, Deron becomes Active for Week 2. If Robert would then like to be Active, he reads and comments on the Required Reading for both Nathan and Deron by the cut-off time during Week 2, and becomes Active for Week 3. If during this same time of Week 2, Nathan is too busy to comment on Deron’s work by the cut-off time, Nathan becomes Inactive for Week 3.)
Required Reading:There are several variables that determine whether or not a work is Required Reading, and even then, only a Half a Page of reading and commenting from other authors is required for the week.
When an author posts work before the cut-off time, it qualifies as Required Reading for the following week. Any work posted after the cut-off qualifies as Required Reading only after the next cut-off time (the week after next).
Only when an author is Active is any of their qualifying work considered Required Reading.
No matter how much work an author has posted and that qualifies, only half a page of work from each Active Author is technically Required Reading. If there are two Active Authors that are not you, your Required Reading is only half a page from each author. If you’ve read everything a given author has posted, great, you’ve fulfilled the Required Reading for that author.
When an author has read, commented, and updated their progress on all Required Reading for the week, they become Active for the following week.
Setup: This writing group is called the Digital Writing Group for a reason: it's all digital, though all you need is Google Drive and Google Docs to participate (I'd recommend keeping an eye on your email and using the notifications to stay up to date).
In Drive, we all have access to the folders of each of the projects being worked on (one primary folder for each author). For the most part, everyone has access to full editing (you can change this to Comment Only by right clicking the file or the whole folder and selecting Share if you wish) of all of the work there, though it's polite to post comments in the margins instead of editing in the body of the work. Some of us have been using these files to do our primary writing, while others are simply posting a copy, leaving the original in private files to help with the revision process. (I subscribe to the latter.)
In the DWG: Bulletin Board, we all have access to posting new topics or commenting on existing ones. This is a useful place for everyone to stay in touch and keep informed. It's important to have a place where we can communicate outside of the actual pieces of work, and stay accountable to the group. That’s the reason using it is a requirement. The BB is broken down into four sections: This Week’s Updates, List of Authors, News/Discussion, and Previous Weekly Updates. This Week’s Updates has the current Active Authors, and the progress of anyone participating for the week, by name and color. The List of Authors is a color coded list where each author indicates the color of their voice on the BB, their current work, and their preference for how they would like others to read and comment on their work (i.e. Newest First, Main Story in order). News/Discussion is an open forum for any author to post general news for the group, ask questions, or bring up anything really. For the sake of relevance, please start a post with the date. After a time, the post will move on to the Archives. Previous Weekly Updates is a list of the last 10 weeks of Active Authors, and the updates of everyone participating in reverse chronological order (newest on top). Anything older can be found in the Archives. (Please don’t use the Comment function in the DWG: BB. I haven’t found a way to transfer them from one doc to another, and therefore can’t be archived.)
If you are Inactive for six months or more, you forfeit your color that represents your voice, allowing for a new member to take your place, though you will not be kicked out of the group. This is not a punishment, it’s just logistics. I believe the ideal number of Active Authors is between 4 to 7, and the group will be open to new members until we find equilibrium.
Workflow: The week starts with someone, anyone who gets there first, creating a new date in the DWG: Bulletin Board under This Week’s Updates and listed as “Week of month/day/year,” where the date is the Saturday of the new week. That date is where everyone participating for the week comments where they are in the process of that week. Everyone who's participating that week should post their work on Drive, and comment on the Bulletin Board that they've done so along with what they want from the readers in the comments. (When posting new material or notifying that you’ve completed comments, please post underlined “New Material: *Name of Material*” and “Completed Comments.”)
By 6:00 pm PST on Saturday, any work to be commented on for the next week should be up. After that time, late work can still be commented on by anyone who chooses to, but it won't fall under Required Reading for the following week. Over the next week, everyone participating will read and comment on half a page of Required Reading from each Active Author. Once done with your comments, post your progress on the DWG: BB. If you have commented on an author’s work in person, and that author decides not to require digital comments from you, make a note of that in your post.
At 6:00 pm PST on the following Saturday, everyone who has completed the Required Readings, comments, and posted the corresponding update with then be considered Active, anyone who doesn’t is considered Inactive, and the cycle repeats.
Formatting & Commenting: Posting in Drive is how we share our work, and since we're requiring everyone to read only half a page of each person's work per week, it's best if there is some uniform formatting that we can gauge how much we need to read and comment on. With that in mind, “half a page” should be single spaced text of at least 12-point font. There should also be 1 inch margins on either side (found under File/Page Setup). If you want to use larger text, or bigger margins, or use block paragraphs that's up to you, but no one is required to read more than half of that page.
If some of all of your work that week is interspersed through previously existing text (or you're revising or rewriting sections of previously submitted work) make it clear what you want read and commented on, and be aware that others are still only required to read a half page.
Each individual standalone work (letters, poetry, reflections) of less than half a page is considered to fulfill the half a page requirement.
In general, comments will be made in the margins without changing the body of the text by selecting the specified text and using the comment function. If you make any changes to a document in the document, change the color of your type so that it can easily be tracked (It needs to be clear what is original, and what was changed).
When commenting, speak up on whatever jumps out at you. Good, bad, weird, out-of-place, or damned near perfect, anything is a fair target for a comment. Sometimes, however, there won't be a single thing that you want to point out within a half a page. This is okay. Don't force it.
(Tip from the NSC Writing Director and Professor of Composition: If you’re not sure how you want to comment, fall back on Note, React, and Question. Note: identify a specific passage, phrase or section; React: express what stood out to you; and Question: ask something specific about what stood out to you. This format often provides useful feedback.)
Regardless of how many comments you do or do not make on a submission, when you reach the end of a given work for that week, make a comment at the end of the paragraph in which you stopped of your general impression starting with “Last Comment” or “LC.” This will help everyone in keeping track of who's participating for the week and who isn't. (It will also help keep you in Active status.)
If you don't have time, or fail to catch up on all the Required Reading and commenting for the week, it isn't the end of the world, you'll simply be considered Inactive for the next week, and you won't be included in the next week's Required Reading. (Though people may still choose to comment on your work if they’re so inclined.)
Posting New or Multiple Works: For the most part, there is no limit to how much work an author can post, or what kind of work that might be. By default, a project will be contained in a folder located in the main DWG folder with the name of that folder as the title of the project. If an author wishes to post multiple projects, create a new folder titled as the author’s name in the DWG folder, and create individual folders for each of the projects inside the author’s folder.
When you post a new work, convert it to a Google Doc and delete the original file, or simply copy the text into a new Google Doc. (Limiting the files to Google file types doesn’t count against the data limit of your Google Drive.)
As your work is yours, you can add and remove it as you wish.
Revision & Resubmitting Required Reading:Revising work is an important part of the writing process, and at some point each of us will eventually embark on the daunting and sometimes scary endeavor. For the purposes of the DWG, Revision is grouped into two types: Editorial Revision, and Substantive Revision, and are defined differently depending on the type of work originally submitted.
Editorial Revision is pretty much how it sounds: corrections in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and the occasional addition or deletion of a paragraph or passage. In general, long form works with this form of revision will never be considered Required Reading for an author who has already commented on an earlier version, and cannot be resubmitted as such.
Substantive Revision is much more invasive. It involves larger changes that create a different experience for the reader. Reworking an entire storyline, manipulating swaths of details, omitting or adding characters, that sort of thing. Poetry, poetic prose, and short stories are more readily subject to these kinds of changes than longer form works. (Changing a few words in a poem can change its entire meaning.) As such, revised short form works will typically be considered Required Reading if resubmitted even if it was only Editorially Revised. In the case of long form works, nothing short of a complete rewrite will usually be considered Required Reading if resubmitted.
Any work can only be resubmitted for Required Reading once. (Author’s aren’t required to read the same piece over and over again.)
Whatever the type of Revision done, the process of posting a revised work is the same. The author will create a new folder within their work’s directory titled “Archive,” and place the old version within it. The revised version will take its place, and give some indication that it is revised in its file name (adding an “R” or even the whole word “Revised”). Then, in the file itself, make a comment at the beginning of the work listing the commentators who commented in the original version. (This will help other authors to remember what they’ve already commented on without having to search for it.) Finally, post to the DWG: Bulletin Board, and indicate if you would like your revised work to be considered as a resubmission.
Regardless, if an author did not comment on the original work, the new revised work will still qualify as Required Reading for that author.
New Members & Leaving the DWG: As a relatively new endeavor, I’m expecting this to grow (at least a little). For the most part, this is a group of friends, and friends of friends. This group is by invitation only, so suffice to say, only invite people you like and trust.
For the time being, the process is pretty informal. Any Active member can nominate a new member by posting in the News/Discussion sections of the DWG: BB that you’d like to invite someone in, and give a brief description of that person you wish to invite. Then email blast the DWG: BB by selecting File/Email Collaborators with the subject line of “New Members.” If there are no objections within 48 hours of the message, or if half of the members respond with a Yea, send the name and preferred email of your nominee to Nathan, and he’ll take care of getting the new member set up.
New members start with Active status, and retain this status until posting their first writings and having it required for a week, after which point they follow all the same rules.
If you find that the DWG isn’t a good home for you, you can always leave with no hard feelings. Simply send Nathan an email, and move all of your project folders off of the main DWG folder, making sure to change their settings to private by un-sharing the group members (Nathan can help with this as well).
Welcome to the DWG House: I'm excited by the idea of the Digital Writing Group (and just as excited we have an awesome acronym). We're in this together, and although it is work, we do it with a desire to write and make what we've written better.
Revision Log: 2/17/18 (Added Revision & Re-submitting Required Reading, moved Revision Log to the end of the DWG: G,R, & G)
2/11/18 (Mechanic for de-coloring Inactive Authors in “Setup”)
11/25/17 (Clarification on Required Reading & Formatting & Commenting)