Auntie Miriam Answers Your Questions

Well, what a week we had last week! I can now confirm that Sepia Saturday 159 was our most popular Sepia Saturday yet, and it was a great pleasure to be able to say hello to so many new Sepians. Can I also thank Peter for the suggestion that the second Sepia Saturday in January should henceforth be known as Auntie Miriam Saturday; it is a suggestion I have now incorporated into the Sepia Saturday Rulebook. As Old Sepians will know, that will make a grand total of two rules - the first one was "There shall be no rules". One of the potential drawbacks of such an anarchic community is that new members might want some guidance on how Sepia Saturday works, and for this reason I have asked Auntie Miriam to try her hand at answering some of the more common questions we frequently get asked:

How can I become a member of Sepia Saturday? You don't need to ask, you don't need to apply. Just post an old photograph and add a few words of explanation. Once you have your post up, add a link to that specific post to the weekly Linky List on the Sepia Sarturday Blog.

What is "old" and do the photographs have to be in sepia?  "Old" is what you want it to be. For someone who is still young, "old" might be just 20 years ago, whereas for me, "old" is when I could still do a decent waltz with my husband Frank. And sepia is merely an adjective rather than a precise definition - sepia, black, white, stunning Technicolour, the choice is yours.

Do they have to be family photographs?  Certainly not. They can be family photographs, other old photographs you may have, or archive photographs you have seen on-line and want to share. 

When should I post my posts?  Sepia Saturday is a weekly meme, with the focus, as the name suggests, on a Saturday. However, Saturdays are not always convenient times for people to post and therefore all we say is that the weekly posts should be "on or around" the Saturday in question. You might want to bare in mind, that if your posts are late, you might not get as many visitors.

How can we protect against Sepia Spammers? Some people still use the Word Verification system that is available on Blogger, but most of us have abandoned this as Bloggers' residual spam filters have improved considerably over the years. We will try and spot silly spam posts to the Sepia Saturday Blog and get rid of them, but sometimes my poor nephew Alan is a little slow off the mark on a Saturday morning after a Friday night in the pub.

How can I get my blog added to the list of Sepia Saturday Participants that appears on the side-bar of the Sepia Saturday Blog?  Just send a message to Alan and as soon as his hang-over has cleared he will add a link for you.

Who chooses the archive theme images?  It's that Alan again. He normally picks an old image from a site like Flickr Commons, as these tend to be free of any copyright issues. The whole idea is that the theme is not a specific subject, but an image open to all sorts of different interpretations. I know Alan would welcome suggestions for theme images that can be used in the future, if you have any ideas, just let him know.

Do I have to follow the theme?  No, you can go off-theme whenever you want. As it says on the tin, all we ask for is an old image and some new reflections.

What should I do about commenting on other posts?  There is no easy answer to this question. As experienced bloggers will know, commenting has always been a bit of an "elephant in the room" as far as the blogging community is concerned. Back in the days when Sepia Saturday was young and there were only ten or twelve participants, it was easy to get around to everyones' blogs and add a comment. Such an approach is not so easy when there are 50 participants. Some people will always try to visit and comment on the blogs of people who visit and comment on their posts. Some will try and spread their visits over a number of weeks so that they get around everybody over a period of time. Most bloggers welcome the fact that people visit their blogs and take the trouble to leave a comment, even if it is just a brief few words, the equivalent to the "Like" button on Facebook. The important thing to remember is that there are no hard and fast rules. All bloggers have lives outside their blogs and will, at time, find it difficult to regularly visit all the blogs they follow.

When will the Sepia Saturday T Shirt be available?  Soon.

That is enough from Auntie Miriam, I will put her back in the cupboard now until next January. The weekly Sepia Saturday call will be up at midnight tonight.

Alan