Editor's Note: Attribution

From this point forward, WaxingAmerica posts primarily written by editor Barry Orton will be attributed as such. In the past, these have been few, mostly regarding telecommunications policy, with occasional forays into media silliness or issues.  In the interest of accuracy, I will insert attribution into the appropriate archived posts.  Going forward, a slightly wider range of issues will carry my byline. 

For readers' information, my role as editor here has largely involved punctuation, embellishment of headlines or tone, and standard copyediting.  Sometimes I will suggest a topic for Paul to consider, and more rarely might suggest that a topic Paul is ranting about isn't worth a post.  But otherwise, this is Paul Soglin's blog, and unless specifically signed otherwise, the tone, opinions, and conclusions therein are his. 

-  Barry Orton

Comments

[jody]

Whatever prompted you to clarify like this, it's interesting that you did. I was wondering what "editor" meant, who was writing what. But mostly I was just pretty darn jealous. It never occured to me that a blogger might have a fawning minion, oops, I mean professional help. Now it will be interesting to see which Tone is your Tone, and which Tone is Paul's Tone.

Also I assume that when you would "suggest that a topic Paul is ranting about isn't worth a post" essentially means flapping a cue card that says "STFU" on it under Paul's nose. How gratifying that must be - you must be in some kind of employee nirvana. If I could have job functions of that sort, I would SO be back in the work force.

[Barry Orton]

Jody,

You seek further clarification:

As with most stuff on the Internets, my efforts here are part of the "gift economy." Like Paul, and you, and countless millions of others, I'm making a contribution to the information glut and avoiding my real work simultaneously. In other words, no money is involved, so I'm hardly Paul's "employee." More like co-conspirator. My compensation is limited to Paul's buying most of the lunches we manage every month or so. (Our original deal was going to be a quarter for each correction, but that quickly became incompatible with Paul's daughters' college educations.)

I've known Paul since the early 80's, when my day job, cable TV regulation, intersected with his Madison footprint, which can hardly be avoided. My involvement with WaxingAmerica started when I read a few of Paul's early posts, and emailed punctuation and other corrections. Pretty soon I got sucked into prepublication copyediting, and now some occasional posting under my own name.

As for tone, Paul and I have pretty similar attitudes and a lot of complementary experiences. I work with local and state governments a lot, and Paul has taught classes at the UW. However, I do not care about horseracing, the Chicago White Sox, or that Borat guy.

Barry Orton

[Paul]

There is one problem with the way Barry and I compliment one another. At times I go over the top, assuming he will tone it down; he just makes it worse. And visa versa.