Let’s play a little game I’m sure we all played as kids, but rather than pretend to be President, let’s up the stakes and pretend to be Michael Arrington. Michael is a busy guy, so let’s try to put some ideas and complaints down in one place to help him out.

(1) Categorize all my posts, so readers can easily filter out the crap.

(2) Add a “quick facts box” to each post so readers get some insight into the type of companies that tend to be reviewed. See this post for details.

(3) Allow entrepreneurs to submit their own sites for review, and publish the list. Readers can vote for the ones they like, and every week the winner earns a review from Michael Arrington. Here is the idea, it will encourage more participation from readers, it will reduce the appearance of cronyism, it will give exposure to many new startups, and it will also encourage people to take their submissions seriously. If you submit your site before it is ready, voters may only look at it once then dismiss it forever. If you happen to win nonetheless… what a waste of a great opportunity to launch your site. Today, people rely too much on Michael to decide whether a site is ready or not.

(4) Have a section of the site where readers can submit interesting links with 1 or 2 paragraph summaries, ala Threadwatch or Slashdot. Why? Because I believe this may become even more popular than the authored posts, and it will encourage Michael to put all his “news” posts in this area, rather than the area that should be reserved for startups.

(5) I would ask my readers if they have any ideas. I’ve seen other bloggers like Om Malik ask such questions, there is no shame in it. It’s business 101.