An introduction to Valleywag's newest columnist, Paul Boutin. Paul, who's written for Slate and Wired magazine, began his career as an MIT sysadmin and writes tech specs at a Silicon Valley startup. Which makes him eminently qualified to write Valleywag's newest regular feature, the Silicon Valley Users Guide. For the first installment, check into Valleywag on Monday. Paul will explain when it's okay to leave the ! mark off Yahoo, how to survive a job interview at Google, and which fork to use at Burning Man. His mission statement, after the jump.

From: Paul Boutin
Date: December 1, 2006 3:02:03 PM EST
To: Nick Denton
Subject: SVUG editorial guide

Please correct anything that won't work. It's too long, I know, but I needed to think it through before I start.

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Executive Summary

SVUG ports my well-established Slate style to Valleywag. The Gawker editorial guide rules all, but below are some details for myself.

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Topics and Sources

1. All posts must explain some important aspect of Silicon Valley tech/biz/social culture in a way that a new arrival would find useful, either now or in an unexpected near future. Important can mean it's a make-or-break thing (don't blow your Google interview by ______ ) or a small but frequent issue (can you skip the exclam in Yahoo's name?)

2. The main three types of posts are
A: How-to's
B: Valley etiquette
C: Jargony concepts explained

3. This is not a gossip section or a personal diary.
A: No referring to myself directly.
B: No broken personal confidences.
C: No blind items, composite characters, or sources-said tales which are more salacious (or newsworthy!) than instructive. News is for the mainbar.

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Voice

SVUG is a Gawker property and it's obvious. Witty! Bloggy! Punchy! SHORT! Yet always legally defensible and informed by the AP libel guide. The one deviation from most Gawker writers is that my POV comes from working in boutique high tech since the early 80s, still working at a tech startup all day every day now, yet also having Condé Nast and WPNI on the "current" section of my resume. It's an unusual mix, so I will look to leverage it. I don't mean I'll be a condescending blowhard or tell war stories. I mean that ...

A. SVUG is never NSFW.

B. I eschew underling humor that makes me look oddly insecure, petty, or mean for a 45-year-old guy who lives in Pac Heights with a glamorous tech exec wife with Nob Hill Gazette-worthy connections. Being nice but still delivering Gawker-worthy zing is part of the challenge.

C. There are many things about Silicon Valley that, as the WSJ editors tell their reporters, I can assert because I know them to be broadly true. But they're always anchored to a real instance, not a generalization.

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- Paul

p.s. Gawker's "one joke per item" rule is one I established at Slate, too.

Contact information for this author is not available.