So web 2.0...

No money changes hands on this plantation.

So what's in it for me, then?

Unlike Web 2.0, there'll be editorial oversight. It's a nice CV line, especially for companies that have the "knowledge sharing" line of position fluff, and I imagine that having a few articles on El Reg under your belt can add a couple of pounds to the hourly contractor rate.

Think of it not as writing for Byte or Exe (and we know from those examples what happens to developer publications that actually pay - they go bust), but rather the ACCU mags Overload and CVu - by developers for developers to both share knowledge and increase your own visibility and status.

Of course, writing for El Reg is likely to prevent you from ever getting a job at Apple, but that's just an unexpected bonus.

I think I'll be patient until Reg Hardware starts looking for a new staff writers... (hint hint vulture central!)

I'm looking forward to seeing your article.

The most important thing for any budding writer is an ability to write. It doesn't matter if you've got twenty years experience and considered an expert in your field if you can't write.

So here Vulture Central is offering a free service to provide you with proof that you can write to a professional standard. If you submit an article that is accepted, you can point to that, saying "Yes, of course I can write, I've had an article published by RegDev."

Track record is very important in any communications business - just look at the number of photo shoot offers Abi Titmuss and Paris Hilton got once they had proved they could perform.

Following your logic, I'm opening my doors to any Reg writers who want to pop down here and write some code and fix a few bugs. I won't pay them, but I promise they can use the experience points on their CVs.

Seriously, if they publish your article then you've already proved you can write to a professional standard. The definition of "professional" is "I get paid for it", right?

Nothing. So no doubt plenty of features on open source as those practitioners are used to working for free.

The thing is, the Reg offers that magic word - exposure. You'll get your name there, so prospective employers will not just see flamewars over Lohan/Hilton, but that you actually seem to know what you're talking about.

And if you've got a job, you could put it on your annual review targets, because the byline will say "Evil Graham works for Fsck.Com, the worldleading supplier of SnaFu(tm)" which will impress your boss. The (unpaid) articles I've written for CVu I wrote at work, in a brief lull between projects, and my employer were happy to see me do it, as it gave them exposure in the developer community. And it earned me a couple of free beers at the ACCU conference.

Of course, if you have something interesting to share, you could try for a paying magazine (good luck!), or bung it on CodeProject or your private blog, both of which are just as unpaid, and both of which are without editorial control.

But if you submit them to RegDev, and get them accepted, you get much greater exposure. You don't get paid, true, but you do get a visible proof that you can write, which will make it much easier to sell articles to WSJ or, indeed, RegDev, or book proposals to 2.O'Reilly.

In the end, it's up to you. The offer's there, the terms are clear. If you don't think it'll give you any benefits, well, nobody's forcing you to write anything.

I guess you never participate in usenet or webforum discussions either, as that would mean you gave advice for free?

Given that a fair few employers I know actually look at such things, and prefer people who've proven that they know what they claim they know, and know both how to solve problems and how to communicate, that might be a bit short-sighted, but it's your career.

And much as I'd love to help you with your bugs, I doubt you can offer me Paris-grade exposure, so I'll respectfully decline your kind offer.

I get the general idea - increase your personal profile in exchange for some words.

Unfortunately, it's not viable for me for a couple of reasons. First, I work for a mega-corporation who are a bit picky about stuff like this. I doubt I'd be able to say what I wanted after it had been through their ideology filter. Second, I'm a hopeless writer. Possibly reason 2 trumps reason 1, now I come to think of it.

As for CVu and web forums and the like, actually I have written a tiny bit for CVu (a long time ago). You have to admit though, CVu isn't really the same thing as a profit-making commercial enterprise like the mighty Reg.

In any case, I hope you get some contributors rising to the bait. Diversity is a good thing and all that.

"I guess you never participate in usenet or webforum discussions either, as that would mean you gave advice for free?"

Nobody expects to be paid for that. They do expect to be paid by wealthy and successful publishers, however.

This is Freetard Economics: rather than pay the going rate, El Reg invites us to play the fame game crapshoot instead.

As an employer, when someone shows me their CV with "wrote for The Register for nothing" proudly displayed on it, I shall adjust their salary expectations:

Downwards.

Ok, how about the idea that someone writes an article for DevReg on, oh I don't know, integrating a MYSQL DB onto Ruby on Rails blog-type-thing (bad example I know but bear with me here) and it's published.

Later on, the DevReg editor wants an article on MySQL and thinks "Hang on, <insert your name here> knows a bit about that, let's see if he's interested". Now they're coming to you, and that means it's a paid job.

You may lower someone's salary if they write for Reg for free, but would you if they were paid for future ones?

As some already have pointed out this smells a lot like web 2.0.

The big difference between posting on a forum / personal blog is that the forum / personal blog is typically not set up to make money. The Reg is a commercial enterprise last time I checked and so this smells a lot like web 2.0. Use some user generated content and try to make money of it.

Considered that most of the Reg readers are (hopefully) knowledgeable in their field and that they have a large reader base they can pull in a lot of articles or rough ideas.

Do you also keep the copyright on your send in article if it does not get published ? Or is this a hidden "let's see what ideas we can get for free" ?

Maybe the Reg should just put up a poll to see what we would like to see on the site and then pay someone to write the most wanted articles ?

"Now they're coming to you, and that means it's a paid job."

If a contractor has already shown a willingness to work for me for free, why would I chuck money at them the second time? They've already set their price, and it's zero.

If they asked for money, I'd say thanks alot, and just move on to the next desperado willing work for free.

Do you get it yet?

It's great for us employers, because the supply of desperados is now (almost) infinite.

I would think one of the prime requirements for a professional writer would be the ability to proof read your work wouldn't it?

It doesn't need to be money, but why not having some other kind of material acknoledment.

For example I recently wrote for 2600 and now I get a t-shirt and a years subscription.

Couldn't ElReg so the same? I mean how much would it cost them to give out free subscriptions?

Or how about a geeky price of getting all articles in the CMS on CD (or as a file) in a machine readable format?

Or maybe you could print t-shirts saying "I wrote for El Reg".

It doesn't need to be money.

themanfrommars!

The Reg doesn't want to pay. The public (or a vocal minority :-) ) doesn't want to work for nothing.

So may I (respectfully) suggest the reg use some non-financial incentive. Prestige and exclusiveness being uniformly desired, I have in mind a special 'ElReg-published writer' icon for those readers submitting an article which got published, available for a set period...

Or a date with Paris... Frankly I'd take the icon, though :-)

Karl: Actually I'd be the opposite, I have the experience as a journalist and editor, but wouldn't even in my dreams be considered an 'expert' at anything

Dazzer: Whoops! If it makes a difference, I'm partially sighted and tend to miss mistakes nowadays: it's why I switched from editing back to writing, so that someone else can spot when I make silly mistakes

Kindly pardon the minor digression, read on.

Aside from the idea of asking people to write articles and get fame and bragging rights, one possibly useful service to offer is to a bulletin board section which discusses typical programming mistakes in reality-show fashion.

Imagine this: Regdev mods deliberately post _bad_ code and ask other programmers to show the correct way the code should be written i.e., whoever thinks it is worth their time to post the correct code will do so. The important thing is to ask the commenter to explain why his code fix is better - which design issues make this thing correct and that thing wrong - in which situation is this approach correct and that approach wrong etc etc.

To put it in perspective, if this were Silicon valley, you could have made an attractive web UI for this and could figure in mashable.com or techcrunch's list of different social networking services - "fixthiscode.com" ?