We’ve got Booman Tribune, for America and general politics. And European Tribune, for discussing things across the *ahem* frog pond. But what about the Great White North?
There’s plenty of politics going on in the Land of the Maple Leaf these days. We’ve got Rove’s Mini-Me, Harper, trying to hijack the government, while Jack Layton and the NDP fight to keep the Liberals Liberal. There’s lots of details of Parliamentary Procedure that I’d love to learn about and discuss, among other things. There’s the always-wonderful (but slightly over-argued) integration/separation questions. There’s cultural issues and more.
But one thing we seem to be missing is the same wondrous grassroots bottom-up politics revolution our friends in the States seem to be experiencing. The parties had good websites and live news updates last election, but I saw very few blogs – and almost none of the local candidates here in the Maritimes had blogs. Theoretically, since we vote for MPs, not parties, these should be even more important here than Stateside.
I’ve run across a few discussion sites for Canadian politics, but most have an absolutely horrible interface compared to Scoop. Or they have a really repressive and hostile atmosphere – think DailyKos at its worst crossed with Slashdot.
So, what would people say to setting up a “Canadian Tribune” for progressives in the True North to discuss these issues and anything else that crosses our minds? Is it worthwhile? How would we go about approaching Boo about such a thing? Who (other than catnip, the obvious choice) might be a good front-page host? (I’d have to bow out here, though I could do administrative work – as I’m in the middle of a Computer Science masters’ program, my time is rarely as free as I’d like.) Or is there already such a site?
I think it is a good idea. But, I also have an explanation for why it hasn’t happened.
Basically, one of the major reasons that this grassreoots bottom-up revolution in the states is happening, is simple: we’re pissed. We see injustices taking place every day, perpetrated by our own government in our names, and we can’t stand it.
I know I don’t speak for everyone, but this is what made me finally stand up and be counted. Less than a year ago, I probably would have had to think for a minute to name my own state’s senators. Now, I think I can come pretty close to naming all 100.
btw, what is your focus for your CS masters? Just curious…I’m a CompE π
I don’t really have a focus yet. I’m kind of see-sawing wildly between theory and practice, though leaning towards practice. Haven’t even really chosen a thesis topic yet, though I’ve got another few months. I’ll probably be doing something with ad-hoc networks and/or HCI. Most of my personal interests lie in the heavily theoretical or the human-centric computing angles.
I think this should be all the more reason for progressive Canadians to make a pre-emptive strike on this, especially since Harper’s ramping up the rhetoric. We have the technology, we might as well use it.
I couldn’t agree more. If no other good comes out of this whole Bush debacle, hopefully other countries can learn from what has happened.
Together we might have enough of a critical mass to keep it running, and we “downunder” types could weigh in as well.
Commonweath countries:
# Antigua and Barbuda
# Australia
# Bahamas
# Bangladesh
# Barbados
# Belize
# Botswana
# Brunei Darussalam
# Cameroon
# Canada
# Cyprus
# Dominica
# Fiji Islands
# Gambia
# Ghana
# Grenada
# Guyana
# India
# Jamaica
# Kenya
# Kiribati
# Lesotho
# Malawi
# Malaysia
# Maldives
# Malta
# Mauritius
# Mozambique
# Namibia
# Nauru
# New Zealand
# Nigeria
# Pakistan
# Papua New Guinea
# St. Kitts and Nevis
# St. Lucia
# St. Vincent and the Grenadines
# Seychelles
# Sierra Leone
# Singapore
# Solomon Islands
# South Africa
# Sri Lanka
# Swaziland
# Tanzania
# Tonga
# Trinidad and Tobago
# Tuvalu
# Uganda
# United Kingdom
# Vanuatu
# Western Samoa
# Zambia
# Zimbabwe
That might work… I think a lot of those would be low-traffic to begin with (I’d expect Australia, New Zealand, and Canada to be the strongest showing). However, there’s probably enough in common that we could have meaningful discussion.
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting much from Tuvalu. π
I’m an American ex-pat living in Australia, and I think there is just enough similarity between Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, and enough difference between them and the US, that a distinct forum might be useful.
If we could get India into the mix, especially regarding the legacy of the English Colonial system that we all share to one degree or another – it could be downright interesting.
Cheers
Getting Indian Progressives into the mix would be very interesting. A lot of the Indians I’ve met have been incredibly socially conservative, even by their own country’s standards, but it’s also something of a self-selecting sample. (University students studying abroad, by and large, do not tend to be random samples of their populations.)
The one issue I can see here is language barrier. A quick scan of EuroTrib’s rules didn’t turn up anything there. Would we be asking for everything to be posted in English, or have different sections for different languages, or simply not differentiate? (Or do the technological limitations of Scoop preclude anything but English?)
yes to commonweath. If we have just a Canadian one we’ll need to go bilingual.
(drôle subtropolis à Montréal)
French and English polities in Canada remain very much Two Solitudes. I’d love to see it, but so far I see very little conversation between the Anglophone and Francophone communities in Canada.
Yank here, and I collaborate over the ‘net with Canadians and Australians. I’m close enough to Canada to get CBC TV and radio, and I hear tidbits from AU from my correspondents.
I think many U.S. readers would follow a Commonweath blog.
We have all this activity because we have an excrutiatingly high misery index. Look at how bush has made the whole world hate us, stolen elections, pre-emptive war, all our industry going to Asia. Oy!
A canadian tribune sounds great, but how will we ignorant americans learn about you poilitical system if you don’t stick around and let us listen to the adults conversation?
I’d certainly hope that people would continue cross-posting. Though as/if we see more Tribune affiliate spinoffs (something about the culture here strikes me as very conductive to it), I think a technological solution to this issue would be nice. Perhaps front-page posts and recommended diaries should automatically be cross-posted as “world” diaries on Booman Tribune, keeping this site sort of central? Or perhaps we could find some why to abuse RSS feeds to get a “Other Tribunes” sidebar box?
Also, many Canadians take a keen interest in American politics, as whatever you loonies get up to tends to affect us eventually. π
Ahh, I remember the days when we used to humor ourselves with the thoughts of a country having currency denominations deemed “loonies” and “toonies”.
How the tides have turned… π
sigh it’s so difficult swimming against the current. π
Egarwaen, I think I’d follow you anywhere in the effort to improve my understanding of my own country. I’ve quickly become a fan and appreciate your grasp of all those little #!*@! details that I tend to brush aside while looking for the um, you know… grand eternal scheme of things…
Wow… Thanks. I’m never good at handling praise, so apologies if this winds up being a little less than coherent. Most of my understanding of the details comes from digging through Wikipedia articles, online Parliament documents, party web sites, and the like, and trying to pick out important facts and explain them coherently. I want to understand our country better too. It genuinely perplexes me how such a generally progressive and tolerant nation can have given rise to such a vocal, vehement conservative movement. Or the east/west divide, for that matter.
And learn not to over-simplify issues. That’s a big problem for me. π
It’s also kind of amusing to hear that, because I really enjoyed your “Pride Week – in Canada” and “Supreme Court Day” diaries, and those comments of yours that I’ve seen. So I’m a fan of your stuff too.
About an hour ago, I dropped everything and was glued to CBC for an explanation of the notwithstanding clause. “OK, I’m listening, I’m ready to learn now, honest. It’ll sink in this time…”
I’m so hopeless, and over-simplification is my specialty. That and grammatical errors placed precisely where they will cause the ultimate amount of confusion.
I’d be interested in hearing more about the notwithstanding clause, when it’s been used before, what the fallout was, etc.
To an American, it sounds scary, as we had a little misunderstanding around 1865 on that issue. Our schools drill into us that a nation cannot survive if states can opt out of legislation they don’t like.
The Nonwithstanding Clause is kind of the opposite. It basically allows the government to pass unconstitutional legislation. However, this legislation must be regularly reviewed, re-debated, and re-passed – every five years, if memory serves. So while, on the one hand, it does allow the government to violate the constitution, it also institutionalizes the process, and forces regular review of laws that are acknowledged to be unconstitutional.
I think it’s quite clever, though I wish governments would just follow their constitutions already.
The Notwithstanding Clause from Wiki. My Alberta Conservative gov’t is famous for threatening to use it repeatedly. Wouldn’t want librul, reality-based thinking to invade the province because that would surely mean armageddon, as we all know!
Must remember – Wiki (as well as Google) is my friend.
Still not sure I get it completely. I’ll have to re-read the Wiki article & give it some thought.
(I just couldn’t help myself…)
Host of the CBC News show, “The Hour.”
He’s cute.
I <heart> George. ….still can’t pronounce his name though.
and you can put together a little capital, let me know.
The most important thing you need is writers. And writers that have the time, energy and talent to provide constant content are hard to come by.
A Commonwealth Tribune is something I have thought of, as well as a Canadian and/or Australian/New Zealand Tribune.
A worldwide progressive movement… that’s more than a dream, it’s a vision. I hope we see this happen. The thought of being able to learn about so many places without any of the usual filters is very exciting.
How much capital is a little? Being a student, I don’t exactly have a lot of cash to fling around. I am serious about it, though. I think something like this is worth doing, and have been toying with it ever since I saw the turnout figures for my riding in the last election. (Halifax-East, I think – McDonough’s riding. They were abysmally low.)
Writers are a problem. I don’t have the time myself, but I’d be more than willing to help out with the technical side of things and with research and editing, if there are others (zander? catnip? Any other Canadians that I haven’t noticed are Canadians?) who want to take a shot at it.
there are different ways to go.
I can set up a site. But how I am financially involved will decide how much capital is needed.
I can create a SCOOP site for a set fee and turn it over to you, or I can form a partnership with someone, or a group of people, and provide technical support and promotion etc.
Jerome and I negotiated for over a month to create EuroTrib, and I think we are both happy with the result.
If you are serious, email the link at the bottom right of the page.
i was just going to suggest egarwaen discuss this with you or Jerome.
Sybil comes to mind, and olivia. And about 3 other people whose names just won’t come to mind at the moment.
Tribe34 has started a Canadian blog for the left: Progressive Bloggers. He’s invited me over there a few times, but I have to get my health issues fixed before I take on anything else (yet another doctor’s appt on Wed – I’m still in serious pain). He’s hoping that it will become the central Canadian site for progressives and is working to get the word out.
Don’t forget to cross-post here, though. π
Good luck at the doctor tomorrow.
Thanks Dem. You’ve been so supportive. I really appreciate that!
Hm. It looks interesting, but there’s something about the interface that I find offputting. I don’t know about others, but I really like Scoop – it’s an excellent balance between functionality and simplicity.
Another example is Vive le Canada, but their software is painful and their writers seem very focused on American/Canadian integration issues and Mindless Link Propagation. The discussion over there also tends to degenerate quickly into flaming and trolling, which makes the atmosphere really hostile. It’s more a Canadian Slashdot than a Canadian Tribune.
The Scoop format has really spoiled us. π
Ironically.. Vive Le Canada is a member of Progressive Bloggers.
We looked at Scoop when we were forming the Progressive Bloggers.. but we wanted to be unique.. what you see at the Progressive Bloggers site has been coded from scratch by our main administrator.
No offence, but I think that’s one of the main problems with the site. Scoop generally works, and is both simple and familiar to a lot of people. Vive’s software feels like Slashcode on crack (which is not positive – I loathe Slashdot’s interface). While Progressive Bloggers looks nice, there’s a whole lot of interface elements that simply feel really, really awkward compared to Scoop.
Plus, Scoop has the benefit of a standardized codebase shared across a whole bunch of sites.
Also, it looks like Scoop’s soon getting Shared Accounts. Which would be really, really cool for the *Tribune sites…
Its popular among American bloggers yes.. but its largely unknown in Canada; dont presume that it will be liked – The AMericans assumed they’d be met by cheering crowds in 1775 and 1812… and look what happenned to them π
Our folks in the affiliates seem quite happy with the setup.. We’ve looked at some minor changes here and there.. but we’ll see what everyone says.
If you want to help Progressives up here, I’d suggest you help support Progressive Bloggers π
Maybe you can get our viewrs in the habit of writing their own diaries and making comments… because that is something that really seems a bit foreign to the Canadian blogger (such as there are)
The problem here is that what your affiliates want seems to be – from what you’ve said – basically what you’ve got. Your audience and targets seem to be traditional bloggers who want to share their traditional blogs with a wider audience. This isn’t really conductive to community-forming, however, especially since there’s no unified forum or reply tracking, and adding one would be harmful to your apparent purpose. Thus, I think what we have here is two objectives and two sites – one (Progressive Bloggers) as a sort of aggregator for Canadian blogs, which are definitely valuable on their own and worthy of promotion. The other, the theoretical Commonwealth Tribune, would probably be more of a community discussion and co-ordination site – like Booman Tribune.
Looks like Euro-trib is looking for readers,
for example the diary, “Have you visited Jerome, lately?”
I imagine a Canadian counterpart would be short of them too even more so.
sybil,
I am grateful for Hausfrau’s efforts to bring people over (which I assure you I had nothing to do with), but don’t think this is because we are lacking readers – it’s because it’a great site and existing members are keen to see it grow!
Remember that it is like BooTrib and dKos – it’s your site, everybody can read you, and everybody can join in the fun…
Jerome wrote:
but don’t think this is because we are lacking readers
and
from Egarwaen
Jerome gets around 700 per day, with an average visit length of 8 minutes
Hausfrau wrote that there were few comments, so perhaps she was referring to lack of participation?
No doubt, EuroTrib is a great site, and congratulations are in order for you. I wish I had more time to read it. I’m actually recovering from a long convalescence. It was during that time that I had the opportunity to read and participate in blogs. But that time is fading now.
Here’s wishing you every good thing for the future of your blog!
Yeah, that was one thing that had crossed my mind. Even DailyKos is, on the grand scheme of things, an absolutely tiny site. He’s got about 500,000 visits per day, but the average visit length is only 3 seconds. (That’s actually quite a bizarre usage pattern, and seems to indicate that many of his visitors are, in fact, bots.) BooTrib seems to average just over 4000 visits per day, with an average visit length of seven minutes. Jerome gets around 700 per day, with an average visit length of 8 minutes. For comparison, Scary-go-round (the first webcomic on my list I could find with a working stats link) seems to average around 20,000 views per day.
On the other hand, part of the point of these organizations (especially this one, if Commonwealth-wide) should be to grow the progressive community. The modern conservative movement in the states, from what I understand, basically started as small groups of people in churches and such that linked up and gained influence by supporting candidates and taking action on their issues. Something similar seems like it could apply here. We first set up the infrastructure (EuroTrib and BooTrib, at least), then we work on getting out there and Doing Stuff. The Action Alerts on things like the DSM are excellent examples of this strategy in action.
I think what it comes down to is a trade-off between attracting people with more local content and a centralized site with a larger community.
Thanks for the information.
“Amount of time people spend reading” figures can be deceiving. I sometimes leave this site open because there is so much to cover. So I go and make coffee and the site is open on my computer for 1/2 hour. If many others are doing that are they not putting up ‘the average visit time’ but not actually reading?
The “modern conservative movement” was strengthened by ‘direct mail’ companies that were started up by Republican millionaires.
I think what it comes down to is a trade-off between attracting people with more local content and a centralized site with a larger community.
I’d go for your first option with slow growth and then maintaining the optimum participation whatever that is.
I asked Jotter what he thought was the optimum membership when he suggested that DKos was too big. He zeroed in on controlling the number of diaries. [Maybe DKos should cut it to one per day per reader.]
Good luck!
No. I think that figure’s measured based on consecutive page hits within a certain time period. So the average Booman Tribune visitor keeps hitting pages on the site for about seven minutes straight, while the average DK visitor does so for three seconds. This presumably involves scanning the headlines, but not participating in the discussion or reading diaries. Thus, while kos may have 500,000 readers, if those numbers are accurate, the number of people who actually participate there (IE, get the same 7 minutes dwell time as we do here on BT) must be much, much lower.
As for diaries, I think that’s an issue of tools. Scoop is wonderful, but the interface just can’t handle a couple thousand active diarists. The diary feature was, after all, not really originally (back when K5 was still alive) intended for what we’re using it for. That it works for that at all is a very positive statement about Scoop’s flexibility.
Better yet, the Commonweal option mentioned above.
That said, i’m not sure what i could offer. Server space maybe in the future. Not now though.
I don’t think we’d suffer for writers. I’d even promise to contribute a diary once in a while instead of leaving snide remarks.
About that toadstool Harper: we caught the story on CBC this evening about his remarks about the Bloc’s vote not being legitimate. Their attempts to use the Bloc recently to topple the government aside, i got a pretty clear idea what he’s up to. He knows the Liberals’ numbers are way down in Quebec. I think he wants to keep the separatist fires stoked for the summer recess. There’ll be an election before the end of the year and he doesn’t want the Libs to repair any damage.
It’s prety cynical, but then the Reforms (sorry, but the Conservative party has been usurped) really think they’d (important – not necessarily Canada) be better off without Quebec. One of their biggest hurdles is population numbers. Ontario and Quebec have been tough nuts for them to crack. Lose a few million voters from the equation and things start to look better for them. Not to mention that separation would wreak havoc on the Liberals.
No, you would not but you might suffer from lack of
readers.
I really think Harper’s shot himself in the foot here. I doubt anyone’s forgotten how he worked with the Bloc to try and bring the government down. And if he thinks he’s going to drive the Liberals’ numbers down in Quebec by linking them with the Bloc… Besides, Layton and the Liberal spokespeople seem to be generally on top of this. Layton’s response – which has been quoted in every article I’ve seen – really seems to drive home just how hypocritical Harper’s being.
That’s not really what i meant. I was thinking more that he awnts to keep the fence-sitters in Quebec leaning more towards the Bloc. He’s stirring up passions by (suddenly) suggesting they’re not legitimate. Whether they become angry at the Reformers or the Liberals is moot – just as long as enough of them vote Bloc in self-defense his work will be done. I don’t think that anything Jack Layton says will help much in Quebec.
Hopefully, enough other Canadians will pay attention to what this shitbag is doing and change their vote to something other than for the Reformers.
You should do it…seems like the more voices the better, and in time you may be able to have some influeince on politics too!
I was thinking about this the other day Egarwaen, the idea of a Cdn tribune, so I was excited to see your diary.
As noted above in the comments there seems to be interest, but serious questions re: funds and writers.
I like the idea though.
I wonder if we could bring/invite some of the more popular and progressive Cdn non-group bloggers into something like this? I read quite a few Cdn bloggers daily who maintain their own personal sites. They may be interested in contributing as writers or commentors. It may be worthwhile to email them and get their take on it – see if they’d be interested – if the idea becomes more serious.
That could work – at the very least, encourage them to crosspost. I’ve stumbled across more than a few individual blogs that are good, but I prefer “one-stop shops” like BT.
Depending on how much Boo is asking (the main problems would be server space and the fact that I’ve never worked with Scoop before, but I pick up new software pretty fast), if there are three or four primary writers who’d be interested in contributing regularly, promoting, etc., we might be able to split the cost.
I can’t contribute financially due to my personal circumstances ie. I’m poor! π
If you plan to go with this idea, perhaps a fund drive could be held along with a standing PayPal (or similar) donation push?
I have no idea how much the cost even is, so it’s kind of hard to start planning bake sales when you don’t know what the target is.
So, there does seem to be interest in a Commonwealth Tribune. I think that’s probably the best idea because, as sybil pointed out, attracting readers is going to be a difficult process. It also gives us a wider variety of topics to discuss. So who’s interested in writing? I’ll be able to contribute, but I’ve got far too much other stuff on my hands to be the star of the show.
to join the European Tribune. A good chunk of the readership is still North American today, and we’re not discussing only European stuff anyway. Some Canadian content would be fine, and this would relieve you of the pressure of finding enough writers to sustain a full scoop site.
If you’re keen, I can promote a few diaries and we can make some noise here on BT and over on dKos. Tell me what you think…
With cross-site accounts (see my link in a comment farther up the page) across three Tribune sites, I think we could probably manage. It would, at the very least, decrease the barrier one has to overcome before dropping a comment on the story, and this would hopefully encourage people to read more than one of the sites. Since the problem isn’t writers so much as readers, this could be a big boon.
Hi Jerome,
I think there are lots of ways that something along the lines of what you are suggesting could work – but I have to humbly say, with all due respect, that it just doesn’t sit well with me, to see say, articles on Australia, Asia etc. being subsumed into a site called “European Tribune”.
I feel you’ve chosen your focus, which is excellent, and while that obviously doesn’t preclude looking beyond European borders, I think other nations deserve more than to be essentially, add-ons to US or European-centric sites. To my mind, it simply reinforces the view that these places are the hub of the world, and the rest of us are just like dags hanging off the back of a sheep.
Obviously it goes without saying that moves to have a few more progressive blogs about the place shouldn’t devolve into 100+ places so that everyone feels they have their spot – but no traffic. For eg, I’d be more than happy to see a “rest of the world” or “commonwealth” or “asia-pacific” or “the other Americas” kind of blogs, or whatever combination worked to ensure equitable coverage, a succinct number of sites and decent readership. But I do think we need to go one better than being an anachronistic add-on to US & European-centric sites.
cheers, Imogen
I agree that a Commonwealth Trib is probably the best solution (and not just because my partner suggested it <g>). I would love to write. I have been sporadically involved in a progressive blog down here in Aus., and may ermain so, but the format and membership of the site is incredibly frustrating. (I think it’s telling you something when you spend more time at places like this than at the site where you have a blog spot).
I can write on ‘all things Australian’ and I also have a strong background in the Asia-Pacific, including China and India, so could at least keep an eye out for items of interest and provide basic background until some ‘real bloggers’ from those parts of the world could be found. I also keep a regular eye on New Zealand (not least because I usually once a month get so depressed about my own damn country I start thiking about seriously moving us there).
Finances – booman or egarwen, if you could email me some kind of idea on how much it would need, I could at least assess how much I could contribute as a ‘seed’ fund as it were. However I really like the idea of a funding drive, because if nothing else it would give us an idea of how interested our American brothers and sisters are interested in seeing what we have to say! π
We desparately need a global progressive movement; or perhaps more specifically – the developing world is organising through things like the World Social Forum; english-speaking progressives / those with a colonial past now need to start talking and getting our act together. And bluntly, while the focus remains USA, bit of Europe, Developing World, “we” end up being the “other” category.
Anyways, for what it’s worth, count me in.
Agreed. Scoop seems to have managed to get a lot of the interface details Right – it’s simple, convenient, friendly, fast, and has all the features needed to support community-building. Plus, it’s got its own group of dedicated developers, a feature worth its weight in gold.
I’ll drop an e-mail to you and Boo in a few, just so we can get an idea of costs and such.
I think the key here is that this should be a Commonwealth community site. Progressive Bloggers is great as a Canadian blog repository, but for a community site, the software seems lacking.
Can you keep me in the loop as well? jeromeguillet@yahooooo.fr (take out the extra ooo)
Whoops, missed you in the first mail. I’ll forward it to you and make sure that any additional replies go your way too.
…. to be what you seek.
We are now at 90+ affiliates/members who consider themselves “Progresive Bloggers… and we use RSS feeds from a number of them to link up to our site to be the “hub” for centr-left wing ideals (and we who run the site throw in the odd front page diary here and there π
I dont discourage any initiative here.. but I caution you that the one problem with having grassroots influence up here is the fact there was too much fragementation in the Canadian blog scene.. particularly on the left. The Progressive Bloggers website is trying to stop that fragmentation.
Regards
You seem to be trying to be more of a “blogspot” alternative for Canada, as opposed to a centralized discussion and community site. At least, that’s the feel I get from the software. Heck, more than half the stories on your front page don’t even have comment links! And those with comment links don’t seem to have “new comment” counts! Integrating RSS feeds from other blogs is a nifty idea, but I can’t help but feel that a Scoop feature to do that would be a better starting point than an entire new codebase.
I do agree that reducing the fragmentation is a good way to go, but I think the way to do that is to try and duplicate the same tight community feel that BooTrib has. Which means that discussion threads are absolutely vital.
We’ve tried to make this site a dual approach thing:
We made it an “ideas hub” for where all the “progressive bloggers” thoughts could be easily found and accessed by people at one site rather then hunting all over the web for it.
At the same time, if they wanted to comment on those stories that were being fed in, they would click on the story, which would take them to the host blog’s site and they could then comment there. The Canadian blogging community (at least some of it) is very conscious of having a smaller (much smaller) reader base then the US… so this was done to alleviate fears we were going to steal their traffic away from them. Call it a classic Canadian Compromise.
There can be direct comments to user diaries that are posted there (similar to what we see here)… but so far that seems to have been picked up by myself only π Even our 2 head admins have their own blog, and they choose to post things on their own blogs.. meaning their posts come thru on the RSS feed to the site.
I dont have my own blog…well, I guess Progressive Bloggers IS my blog — so I post using the diary setup.
Diaries havent quite taken off yet with our general readership base.. but then, if you went thru a # of blogs in Canada, I’d bet you’d find that’s mostly the case. Why? Blogs simply arent read as much up here by Canadians as in the US.
As I’ve said elsewhere, our 1 admin wrote up our blog from scratch. He liked what Scoop had in some cases for features, but not in others. That opinion was shared by a majority of the group. When he came up with his effort, it was roundly applauded, and thats what we use.. if other changes to it can be done and are deemed for the betterment of the site.. he can certainly try programming some stuff in.
We only started this effort up on May 1st.. so given the circumstances, I’d say we are doing pretty darn well.
Where I said diaries havent havent really taken off here.. I meant to say that in general.. the majority of Canadian sites simply have a lot of trouble getting a lot of comments to their stories… either on the left, centre, or on the right blogs.
Yeah, and that’s because, to be frank, most of the interfaces I’ve seen suck. They’re traditional blog setups, with centralized content posting and limited discussion capability. It’s not so much, I suspect, that they have trouble getting comments as they don’t encourage it. DailyKos and the Tribune sites are explicitly discussion and community sites, which encourages comment and, well, discussion. Traditional blogs don’t seem to in quite the same way – even BlogForAmerica, which got a lot of comments, tended to be more like a web-based IRC channel than a real discussion forum.
As for Scoop not being accepted by Canadians, I don’t think that’s a valid point. There are lots here, there were lots on DailyKos (I don’t know if there still are), and there were even quite a few on Kuro5hin back in the day.
The problem is that this is absolutely horrendous for community-building. Especially if a significant fraction of the blogs on the other end required registration to post. Based on my HCI experience, I’d think that a lot of people would find the bar to involvement to be too high for sustained participation. I think your own next paragraph basically demonstrates what I see as the problem with this approach. It’s an innovative idea, certainly, but I’m unconvinced as to whether it’s a replacement for something like BT or DK.
As for blogs not being read as much… Yes, that’s something that has to be addressed in general. I think a community discussion site could be advantageous there, too. Partially because of the whole involvement threshold. You want to keep that as low as possible. DK, BT, and ET all let one start off posting comments here and there and move up to diaries as one gains confidence, and lets one draw on the presence of the community. This is as opposed to a stand-alone blog, where you have to jump straight up to diary-level stories and build your own reader-base.
For what you’ve done with it, I’d say you’re 100% right. Scoop doesn’t do what you want, and it probably would’ve taken a lot more work to make it do what you want. However, as I said, I think your site and the proposed Tribune add-on are different niches, and have more to gain from co-operation than competition. PB seems to be primarily a traditional blog aggregator, which is certainly valuable. What I’m proposing here would be a community site, serving as a “training” zone for bloggers, a more general discussion forum, and an organizational resource. If you want to join in the fun, you’re welcome to.
… to your project.. Anything to promote progressive politics in Canada is a good thing.
I might also add that at the start of this month, after only 1 month in service, we were at 500+ unique visitors a day, which is pretty darn good for up here. Blog visits were also generally increasing to our individual blogging sites members which is what they wanted as well (particularly ones who were most active in blogging and who had RSS feeds set up to us – not all of our affiliates do yet)