Update:
It occurs to me that we may get some visitors today who are not aware of our new enterprise, so I’ve decided to bump this piece that originally appeared a little less than two weeks ago. If you wish to check some of the digests they are found at the Port Writers Alliance tag. – ek
I’m pleased to announce today the formation of the Port Writers Alliance. This is a collective effort of Antemedius, DocuDharma, Firefly Dreaming, Ignoring Asia, The Dream Antilles, The Stars Hollow Gazette, Wild Wild Left, and writing in the rAw.
About The Name
A little to the left of starboard if you get the drift. A harbor or anchorage.
About The Concept
There’s a lot of news and commentary that could be receiving more attention.
Rather than crosspost on a single central site what we’d like to encourage is crossreading and commenting.
We’ll be using two mechanisms to accomplish this-
- Firedog Lake style links to affiliated sites across the banner (props). I’ve always admired the way Jane and her crew have been able to maximize excitement and can only hope to emulate it.
- Regular cross promotional digests of associated sites’ content.
How Does This Work?
Each site will decide for itself the content they want to feature and how often. They’ll produce a digest and publish it on the affiliated sites. It will be promoted by the host or not whenever, depending on the desires of the host site.
Authors must choose for themselves if they want to crosspost, though they should expect requests to do so.
The point is to increase visibility and impact.
Independence
Each site has it’s own vibe. Formula One and Le Tour and if you ever think I’m talking about Politics you are sadly mistaken.
Content that is acceptable in some places is not in others and it is up to the host to decide. All you free speech advocates can find a place to express yourselves I’m sure. Port Writers Alliance sites enforce their own polices which are not uniform.
Success
The objective is that we’ll drive some traffic and raise some awareness. I like to keep expectations realistic.
What you will see as a reader
Below each site’s Banner you’ll see some buttons that take you to the Front Page of each site. Fairly frequently you’ll see a digest post from the individual sites that provide links to content they wish to highlight. Sometimes it will have been crossposted but often not, so the pieces may be of special interest to you and you’ll want to click through and read them. Even for crossposted pieces the reactions will be different.
If you wish to comment or contribute you’ll have to register independently at that site. We just don’t have the technology Jane does at Firedog Lake.
If you are used to the pace of Daily Kos (and I don’t link just because I’m not sure about stability with the advent of dK 4.0) what you will find is that our blogs run quite a bit slower. You can’t expect instant reactions or high volume responses.
On the other hand we’re attempting with this project to expose you to a wide range of diverse content so that there is plenty for you to read and explore.
I’m interested in your reactions to this initiative. Please let me know below.
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took you so long?
love it… 🙂
it matches the new theme that is being produced for WWL – which is far from done, mind you… that was just me playing with looks. There will be new logos and such soon, all with a tropical feel and nautical references. Oceans and Palm Trees and Costa Rica baby!
I think this is a brilliant idea, now that I see what it is!
… I have long been in favor of blog cooperatives, to fight back against balkanization.
a lazy blogger’s dream. I personally don’t like the speed at dkos. It’s great fun if your in a ‘debate’ (wars) but the shear volume of the threads just adds to the factions racing/competing for dominance and individual voices are lost in the ensuing brouhaha. Plus it suit’s electoral politics which at this point is just a freakin mess and cannot contain the reality that’s occurring politically with in the left and the so called center.
This sounds like a perfect set up as I feel that it’s hard to jump from one blog to another it is Balkinzing this gives natural cohesion. So my question is is it a theme park thing. Does each blog have a separate function at FDL the interlinked blogs all seem to vary even though they overlap. Another reason I think this is good is that someone like me slightly scatterbrained with a bad sense of time can spend a hunk of time here and roam without feeling like it’s just a drive by.
It focuses us ATDs? types at a starting point. good timing for me as the dkos4 beta site is just too much work and it is going to shut all the lunatics in separate rooms and sorting out where your gonna find the ones you like seems to be dependent on tags which I hardly ever read until I finished the diary. So perhaps I won’t have to make the jump after all,or crowd my tool bar with a bazillion sites. Good luck and I hope to start writing more content as my career as a commenter is gettin old. The creativity at all these sites is impressive.
I just played with this and at the stes I link to the ones I’m registered at it doesn’t recognize my account and asks me to sign up. Even DD when I come back here. If I use my tool bar the sites do bring up my page so should I re-register ? Will it then recognize me from the links?
Hopefully this can be a useful tool to discuss things like socialism, anarchism, third parties, direct action, anticapitalism, and other things that are usually off limits for the liberal/progressive press.
ctrl f5 and it doesn’t do it. Might be me? I updated Firefox the other day and it’s doing weird stuff with the windows as far as links go, I had trouble with links to AlJazeera today unless I went to my tool bar.
is that you can only participate through comments.
the come back a tad toward the mainstream.
the alliance as part of my weekly radio show intro… and naming all the blogs therein.
It may not sound like much, but other than the 7000 and rising daily Noam Chomsky listens, I am now averaging over 600 unique listens a week.
🙂