I can only agree with the general sentiment here.

Though you've got a good side and a bad side. Yes, there are many out there who will volunteer for sites (we have a few volunteer writers), but on the other hand there are also thousands and thousands of sites out there whom they can work for.

So in the end you have to keep some things in mind:

- Stand out. Don't be just a dime-a-dozen throw up a blog review site.
- Have a broad but defined role for your site.
- Have incentives, be it social interaction, fame, status on your site, perks, whatever. People need a reason to keep going.
- Be a leader, be involved
- If you have the staff, then someone to be dedicated to taking care of your writers, their work and promotion of their work
- Try your damnest to get a lot of traffic on a consistant basis. One motivator for writers is that they know that 10.000 people read their article instead of just 100. Do be open about the numbers too, for better or worse.
- Be prepared to fail on a consistant basis in getting volunteer staff, only a certain % will ever work out, so hone your skills in getting the staff process going and getting failures out of the way asap.

And yes, sometimes writers do sell themselves a bit too high. Just doing some article on a site and the article gets 3 dollars worth of traffic, then its not really worth paying you a full time wage over. Some medium level writers do realize that getting into established sites and their work out to many people can be a stepping stone not only honing your skills, but also more serious positions at major sites.