We’re looking to fill two (unpaid) spots on escarp’s editorial panel in the next two weeks. The time commitment is rarely more than 2 hours a week.

The basics:
1.) editors must be able to receive submissions via SMS 24 hours a day.
2.) editors must be able to respond within 12 hours via SMS.
3.) editing is done collaboratively via group SMS; we don’t use the group for chatter but editors should expect SMS volume commensurate with a 5-person conversation.
4.) editors are required to have a Twitter account.

To request the (brief) application packet, send a DM to @escarp on Twitter with your email address. The application will consist of a brief written questionnaire and an interview via SMS. No resume/CV necessary. We’ll be accepting applications until midnight EDT, August 12th, 2011.

@escarp turned two, today (at 10:34:15 AM CST, to be precise). It’s been quite the journey. 

Work on escarp began when the clouds opened briefly about two weeks before Spring Break, on March 3rd in Lubbock, Texas and went live from a friend’s dining-room table in Austin, Texas (Thanks, Beth (aka MEGABETH!)) It was mostly coincidence, of course, that the site launched in the middle of SXSW (we certainly don’t have the cash to attend in any official manner), though we did manage to fail horribly to catch The Cool Kids at an off-site show in Austin (but succeed thoroughly in finding 6th Street.)

In the two years since we’ve grown from a one-person operation to a five-person panel currently spread across four states. For all we’ve grown, though, we’re always limited by our ability to find passionate individuals to help out. We’d like to use the occasion, this anniversary, to test the waters. If you’d like to be involved, drop us a line through Tumblr or Twitter. Let us know what you’d like to bring to the project.

For a long while we’ve published titles on our pieces (when provided) in simple Title Case due to personal preference (we don’t feel ALL CAPS comes off the same in SMS as in a book, etc.), but at the same time we’ve wished we could provide more distinction for titles when they exist. Setting titles in ALL CAPS would allow the site’s display scripts to distinguish a title from the rest of the piece and handle the styling differently.

One of our writers recently made a good case for this change, and we’ve decided to give it a try. We’ll adapt the web interface to style the titles after there’s one in the system to test it on—but consider this a tentative change. If you like it, let us know. If you don’t—tell us why (especially if you subscribe via SMS).

Also, this sort of change can’t be made retroactively, so older pieces will appear as they always have.