You didn’t wander into the Writers Guild because you thought it would be easy. You wandered here because you love to write. You came here because writing is something that is so far beyond familiar as to be called home. Writing is baked into your identity, interwoven into the very fiber of your being. And while you still have to eat, and drink, and sleep, somehow you’ve also learned to add writing as a major means of sustenance. For many of us, we live to write. But for many more, holistically, we write to live. And in either case, this is in celebration of you.
Welcome to The Scribe’s Quill.
Authors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild Governance Staff and Team Leads Samanthaj, siddhearta, and nonsense 🏴
This is the official newsletter of the BanklessDAO Writers Guild. If you would like to receive this newsletter in your inbox, please tap or click on that subscribe button below.
What’s On the Agenda?
This week saw few things up for discussion in the Council of Writers. One point was raised by Samanthaj, who established the difference between what it means to submit articles to the Guild for publishing and what it means to submit yourself to the writing and editing tests that have been established by the Editorial and Publishing Arm (The EPA). While not every article will be published on Medium or Mirror, everyone can submit an article to be considered for publishing. However, not everyone can take on work being commissioned by outside entities, nor write the headline pieces in newsletters. What distinguishes the two is competency. Clients and newsletters operate on deadlines; blog submissions do not. Quality, then, needs to be determined early on. Thus the writing test exists to determine core writing competency up front. If you’re interested in picking up commissioned work or writing for the newsletter team, or would like to be mentored to become a prolific writer and eventually take on this work, you’ll begin with the writing test.
And if you just want to write just to write? No test necessary; write to your heart’s content and submit your work for consideration.
You can find this week’s notes and agenda here.
Another big piece of discussion is the consideration in spinning out the Guild into a subDAO. In bringing the Guild’s governance on-chain, this would alter the relationship between the DAO and the Guild. As it currently stands, the Guild has grown beyond easy coordination, as can be seen with the creation of both the Newsletter Team and the EPA. Furthermore, roles have been codified to assist with talent coordination and overall Guild organization. It’s only natural that additional changes arise as we continue to grow.
You can find this week’s Governance Meeting notes and agenda here.
Team Updates
The Newsletter Team, siddhearta | Organizer
Newsletter Team Sync: Thursdays at 4:00pm UTC
The Newsletter Team has been busy shipping! Every week on Monday we send out Decentralized Arts and the Weekly Rollup on Fridays. The State of the DAOs newsletter is bi-weekly on Wednesdays.
For new members, we are always looking for people to write editorials and to edit our newsletters. If you have an idea for an editorial you can add it to either the Editorials Weekly Rollup or the DAO Editorials page. Here are the contributors for this weeks Weekly Rollup:
Editorial: DAO Growth by Jake and Stake
Front end: EthHunter
Back end: Theophile
Editor: Siddhearta
If you would like to contribute to the any of our newsletters, please check out our Newsletter Team page and join our weekly Team Sync on Thursdays at 9am Pacific time.
The EPA, nonsense 🏴 | Organizer
Editors Circle: Thursdays at 9:00pm UTC
Submissions are open for potential publishing to Medium, Mirror and for the upcoming DAO blog. Any topic is welcome as long as it remains within the realm of the DAO (organization, governance, etc) or cryptocurrency in general.
Membership in the Guild is not a requirement for submission. All submissions are subject to the EPA’s editorial process to ensure the content is in alignment with Bankless DAO’s mission and principles. As author, you have final say in whether the final edited product is published, provided that it is not time-sensitive and that an editor is available to review the article with you. You can submit an article here.
We look forward to your submissions and thank you for your contributions!
From Your Governance Staff
Samanthaj, Talent Scout
Writing Test
Governance has been top of mind in the Talent Scout office. We’ve just implemented a new writing test to run in tandem with our editing test. The writing test, called Proof of Writing or PoW, is our way of evaluating a writer’s skill with the quill.
DAO members have two options to write their way into client services and newsletter work:
Submit a previously-written article via a Medium, Substack, or Google docs link. It does not have to be crypto-related, but shouldn’t be a class paper.
Write a new article following the guidelines and prompts. If the article is up to snuff, we might even publish it.
I evaluate the articles for structure, voice, and creativity. Commas and capitalization take a back seat—I look for content here. More thoughts on the evaluative methods I use will come in later installments of this newsletter, maybe even a Medium post. Stay tuned.
New writers have already spilled ink and gotten to work on the test. Congratulations to tmmy, VIC, Taddi, and Chaosed for passing the writing test!
We still welcome article submissions from writers across guilds and DAOs. Anyone who wants to submit work to publish on the BanklessDAO Medium or Mirror pages is welcome to submit their piece at this form.
Editing Test
Meanwhile, the editing test was receiving a protocol upgrade. After a lengthy discussion during one of our Governance sprints, we determined that another layer of quality control should be implemented on the test. Editors who pass the test with grammar and copy (meaning they know when a comma is spliced and a sentence must be sliced) but have room to grow in content editing must complete three secondary edits before moving up to become a primary editor. Editors who show their keen eye for content as well as grammar edits get the green light to primary edit.
Bottom line: to pass the editing test, you must know your way around a colon (this colon :, not the other) but if you roll up your sleeves and take on the content edits in the piece, you can cruise right into primary editing. DM me to take the test or just to ask about what I’m looking for in editors.
Congratulations to BlueDolphin and kalex1138 for passing the editing test! You both know your way around at least one type of colon. Good job.
Office Hours: Tuesdays from 11-12 PDT in the writer’s room
Two weeks of Talent Scout office hours are under my belt, and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite hours of the week. We talk about more than just onboarding—crystallizing article ideas has been a favorite the last two weeks. If an article idea is knocking around in your head, you have a question about onboarding or governance, or you just want to talk about life, stop by!
Ap0ll057.eth, Secretary
Ap0ll057.eth is currently taking some time off and will return when he’s ready to dive in again.
nonsense 🏴, Guild Coordinator
We are well on our way to becoming an absolute powerhouse as a Guild. With three highly successful newsletters in circulation, and a growing body of work across Medium and Mirror, the publishing power of the Guild continues to grow. Between team syncs, weekly meetings, governance calls, and all of the asynchronous work in-between, we’re becoming more organized and efficient. The Editing Framework we’ve developed works, and while it isn’t perfect, it’s proving to be an excellent reference to guide the Guild in producing a consistent and unified presence. Every writer has a voice, and we’re creating systems to augment those voices while adhering to the highest level of quality we can produce. As you review what we are creating together, know that your presence and participation serves to enrich the Guild. Together, we are unstoppable. Thank you for being a vital part of this organization.
Writers Guild in Bites
What’s Coming Up?
The Council of Writers Weekly, Monday at 5:30pm UTC.
Writers Guild Governance Sprint, Monday at 7:00 UTC.
Weekly Newsletter Team Sync, Thursday at 4:00pm UTC
Weekly Editorial and Publishing Arm (EPA) Meeting, Thursday at 9:00pm UTC
Meeting Notes
Council of Writers, October 25, 2021
Writers Guild Governance Sprint, October 25, 2021
Newsletter Team Sync, October 21, 2021
Editors Circle (EPA), October 21, 2021
To La Luna, and Back
“If a lunatic were to ask me what this tie is for, I would have to say, absolutely nothing. It’s not even purely decorative, since nowadays it’s become a symbol of slavery, power, aloofness. The only really useful function a tie serves is the sense of relief when you get home and take it off; you feel as if you’ve freed yourself from something, though quite what you don’t know.”
—Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die
On Sunday afternoons, I pull up a stool at the bar of one of my favorite establishments and spend the day working, writing, and chatting. I often have friends drop in to say hello and share a brew. Sometimes I read cards, sometimes I play the psychologist, but most of the time I’m simply enjoying myself. On one such afternoon, I was in conversation with a friend and explained that in my line of work, I’m compensated in crypto. This belligerent gentleman—and I use the term “gentleman” very loosely—sitting on the other side of me, immediately made his way into the conversation with about as much grace as a jackhammer. He was very distraught over the idea that anyone would accept compensation in such a volatile currency. Upon leaving, my friend and I both remarked how wild his reaction was. Why did he even care? He thought I was a lunatic for accepting compensation in crypto. I think he is a lunatic for holding as sacred his fiat.
“Lunatic" is derived from the Latin word lunaticus, which originally referred mainly to epilepsy and madness, as diseases thought to be caused by la luna, or the moon.1 Sounds about right, given our tendency to blame the moon for any number of problems, and how we so easily assign madness or lunacy as the defining terms for anyone acting in a manner outside the norm. It is an interesting thing to consider, however, that madness has very vague definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines madness as being of “extremely foolish behavior,” and also “a state of frenzied or chaotic activity.” Madness is further defined as “senseless folly,” and “intense excitement or enthusiasm.”2 Are any of these really truly negative? What may be folly to one belligerent gentleman may be useful to someone else, and the only things separating the two are experience and perception.
Interesting how madness and, by extension, lunacy, can take on such different meanings when viewed through any particular, or peculiar, lens. The lens we’ll look through here is that which has already been mentioned: assigning madness and lunacy to anyone acting outside the norm.
Lunacy is reserved for those who are willing to step out of the societal norms and cultural constructs that seek to rule over their behavior. It is something that cannot be given, but earned. The lunatic, at some point, has come to the conclusion that the constructed world around them is naught but a farce and, rather than participate and contribute to it, chooses instead to live outside of it.
Verily I say unto thee, if thou dost participate in the crypto ecosystem, though art a lunatic.
While crypto is gaining traction and wider adoption, it yet lies at the fringes of what is socially acceptable. One day, we will see what I call the Social Flippening: that point in which cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology surpass fiat as the primary means of financial movement and freedom. But until that day arrives, we remain the Super Shadowy Coders and Writers of the world, pushed to the fringes and labeled lunatics for our refusal to operate within constructs that continue to fail us.
We are lunatics and degenerates of the world. And as such, we’re going to change it. And when that happens, we’ll be lunatics and degenerates no longer.
But until that happens, we remain judged by the belligerent gentlemen of the world. And that’s fine. Let them wear their ties and wonder why. We’ll continue writing and making BANK.
In service to you, the Guild, and the DAO,
nonsense 🏴
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/madness
Love this "La Luna" piece