This is fantastically simple, though some will try to make it be anything but simple. As a ringmaster, I don't care whether you're pro-Green Tortoise or anti-Green Tortoise. I have my own views, but they're beside the point. I put thiose aside and ask one simple question about each applicant's site: "Does it talk about the subject of the ring in a way that gives real value to the visitor?" Journals that convey the experience you had are cool. Pictures are funs. Pages about the history of the company might be interesting. All of these give the reader a good reason to be glad he came.

What are not cool are pages in which somebody vents about what a whiny wuss or drug addled hippie loon somebody else is - and yes, one does see those around. Yes, the writer may be having fun picking a fight with somebody who he knows can't reach through the computer screen and give him the clocking he probably deserves, but what do the visitors get out of that kind of trolling? Not much. That's the standard, then - is it useful, is it fun and is it civil? By that, I don't mean Politically Correct; what I mean is to ask you ... if hostilities end up occuring, really, anger management issues aside, who started it? If the answer would be something like "me, poor sap never saw it coming, snicker" - please take it elsewhere, it's not that kind of ring, because who wants to read that?

If your site would be an appropriate addition to this ring, what you need to do is drop by the Stop! at Burning Man list and introduce yourself and your site. You DO have to follow this step; just quietly sitting in queue means that your application will not get processed. The people on the list will talk about your site (what they like and what they don't), I'll think about what they're saying and if your site looks like a good addition to the ring, I'll admit it. Just don't try to skip the peer review step, because I take what my members say about your application very seriously, because I want them to be happy with what the ring is becoming. To skip that step is to say "who cares about the members; I want to join the community, but to the devil with the neighbors". The neighbors might not think too highly of that, and neither will I, so please respect the neighborhood. Time to start surfing the ring.