Site Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Are you a publishing corporation? Where are your offices?
A. The BellaOnline website is owned by and developed by one of our editors. We have no offices, we all work from our homes. We make most decisions by majority vote. There is a volunteer team of managers (who are all also writers in our network) who help with the training and day to day activities of our site. We are not a big company, we have no funding. We are a collective of writers who wish to help bring knowledge and happiness to the world, with a minimal amount of ads shown solely to support the website's costs.

Q. How many editors are there per Site?
A. One. Each editor is the sole writer of content for her topic area. Visitors come to hear her unique voice. BellaOnline does not run press releases.

Q. What should a Site cover?
A. The simple answer to this is that anything within a topic range is fair game - but that the editor needs to stay on topic. If an editor is writing about bowling, she should be covering bowling techniques, bowling events, reviews of bowling equipment. She shouldn't be writing about virusses on Windows XP. We already have a software editor covering that area.

We deliberately have chosen the 400 or so topics in our network for a reason. Each site has been created because there exists a natural audience for that topic large enough to balance the money, resources and time we put into developing the editor to run it and the fees to host the content and images for the topic. If we tried to run a topic on "writing an eulogy", we would lose money trying to keep that site running.

In addition to cost issues, remember that we are all volunteers here. Our staff simply can't help 8,000 editors do their daily work. We are comfortable with the sites we have, with the topics we are covering.

Q. What about topics that are nested?
This is where it gets more complex. Because of the way our site has grown over the years, we have ended up with what we call "synoptic" sites. In these cases, one site is the general synopsis of the topic - while other sites are covering specific sub-topics. One example is Hawaii and Island Travel. We first made the site for Hawaii because that content was in such high demand. As people asked about other island, we realized that we could not possibly make topics for every single island in the world. So we made an "Island Travel" site to cover everything else. If that island travel editor covered Hawaii, it would be redundant. We already have an editor specifically covering Hawaii! The Island Travel editor should be covering all islands BUT Hawaii - all the islands without a voice.

PLEASE make sure that you look through our Alphabetical Site List to understand what sites we have in our system. If you take on a topic, you will be expected to write about your topic - but NOT to write extensively about a topic that is already being covered. If you are the Gardening editor, we already have a site on roses and one on orchids. You can certainly talk about roses and orchids - but to write a 12 part series on all forms of roses and their care would be inappropriate.

Q. I want to write about Candlestick Bowling - but you have a Bowling Site
I'm sorry, but we really can only support one writer per topic. We don't have the resources to have 80 quadrillion different sites on specific sub-topics. We all work from our homes, for free.

Our bowling editor covers the bowling topic - including all subtopics. If our bowling editor chooses not to write a lot about candlestick bowling, well, that's her choice. Each editor chooses what in particular to cover. We can't "take content away" from an existing editor and turn it into a separate site. You can always post content in the editor's forum to help educate people about some of the other subtopics that you feel could use more information.

Q. I would like to apply. Where do I go?
A. Once you've read all of the pages in this section, go to our BellaOnline Editor Application. We look forward to hearing more about you!