My questions

STEP 1: Deciding how to do my research—

The Your Voices community is unique in that the bloggers generally don't change. There may be a few who are added to the community each month, but from my observations, the community is limited. It's limited in the sense that bloggers are identified—somehow approved by the Star Tribune to be affiliated with the blog. They have some kind of standing in the "real world" Minnesota community. It's not a free for all in terms of who can post. With that in mind, I knew that the bloggers themselves would give me the best information about the community, as well as any editors who moderate the comments.

STEP 2: Getting in contact with the bloggers—

I reached out to the Your Voices bloggers that I could easily find e-mail addresses for, i.e. those who have their contact information readily available online through their companies, organizations or colleges.

STEP 3: Developing questions—

I wanted to know as much as I could about the community, so I wrote background questions in addition to some that I considered ethical gray areas.

• How did you get involved in the community? Were you asked to join by editors at the Star Tribune, or was there some kind of application process?
• Do you get paid to post? How often do you post?
• Are you given specific topics to blog about?
• What do you think are the benefits of posting?
• Do you blog outside of the Your Voices blog? If not, why did you want to join this blogging community?
• Do you think there are any professional conflicts to your posting? In other words, do you think the views expressed in your posts should be seen separately from the views of your employer? Why or why not? Do you think readers can differentiate between the two views?
• Do your posts get edited by someone at the Star Tribune?
• I saw that the comments are moderated. Do you think more people would post comments if they weren't approved before being published?
• ***Do you see the community as an important addition to traditional journalism/newspapers?
• ***What do you think makes you unique from the other bloggers? (I added this question after a couple e-mails were already sent out, so not every blogger answered this one)