As lists have become increasingly popular on the site, it’s become necessary to gently step in and make sure things are going in a constructive direction. As a result, I’ve posted the following set of brief guidelines on the list creation page.

List Guidelines
– Your list should be related to music in some way
– If you’d like to post comments, suggestions, or complaints about the site, use the site forum instead
– If you’d like to post something completely unrelated to music, use the community forums
– If you’d like to post something related to a specific user, use their shoutbox

Lists that violate these guidelines will be deleted — so please don’t try to skirt them. We want to encourage you to make lists, but we also want to make sure that lists remain a valuable and interesting resource for users. Lately, lists have included rants, half-hearted rankings, obscenities, video-game discussion, and everything in between. Additionally, the fact that lists appear on the front page of the site has led to a lot of abuse. Let’s keep the focus on the music — we have an entire set of wonderful forums for every offtopic conversation you can think of.

If these new rules prove to be too stifling for users, I would consider re-implementing user journals. It’s important that we build a strong sense of community and individual user expression– I just want to make sure that it is occurring in the right…

About 2-3 weeks ago, we posted a news item asking for volunteers to improve the site’s database. Unfortunately, the announcement predated some new community album editing features that we were in the process of adding. As a result, thousands of hopeful, enthusiastic recruits were turned aside in dismay.

Never fear, eager album editors. Meatplow is still organizing an on-going effort in the forums. As of today, there have been over 2,400 album edits using the new and improved community editing system. If you are interested in helping out, visit the organizing thread here

Voting is currently underway on the next feature to add to Sputnik. Some of you may be asking: “Egads, so soon after the launch of the staff blog?!”

However, our hordes of web designers (read: me) need something to be working on over the next couple of weeks.

If you’re interested, check out the poll here

Sputnik 2 was an unmanned spacecraft. That is, except for Laika (pictured on the left), who calmly commanded the satellite as it rocketed through the heavens. She did an admirable job of things until she died of overheating. However, her name now lives on forever as the first mammal to orbit the Earth — an accomplishment that understandably subjected Yuri Gagarin and John Glenn to fits of jealousy.

We’re not launching Sputnik 2.0, and no animals have been harmed in the production of this update.

However, we’re happy to announce that Sputnik now has its very own staff blog.

Over the next few months, we anticipate that this blog will become a major part of the site. The focus here will be casual, frequent updates, as the staff (and perhaps eventually, contributors) continue to brainwash you with our exceptional musical taste.

If you ever come back to this page, you can expect:

• Track reviews and music highlights
• Sputnik’s very own ‘Track of the Day’
• Concert and Event Coverage
• Site News
• Lots of media
• Random musings on music, artists, and genres
• And lots of other scintillating content

Although we’re running on WordPress, you should be able to use your normal sputnik login to post comments. As always, make a post in the Site Forum if you have any problems.