Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

A New Year, A New Moose?

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Strummerson recently started the conversation on the Moose that I’ve had in my head for a few months: what kind of blog are we/do we want to be?  There seems to be a core group of commenters/authors who apparently have time in their lives to post things; I sit in front of a computer eight or nine hours out of the day so I can lurk or post at my leisure.  But there are others who are able to come and go when life lets them.  I will admit that I generally let someone else post articles (diaries) because I can’t get my thoughts together long enough to be coherent and worthy of being read.  And it seems that the last few month have been particularly slow but with the new year perhaps there is a chance to put further thought into what the Moose should be and how the Moose should look.

I’ve thought for awhile that the nature of the Moose is such that we don’t need to separate recommended articles from “regular” ones if only because we don’t generate dozens of stories a day.  In a recent comment I mentioned that a format such as Balloon Juice or Little Green Footballs might serve us.  The downside to the BJ format is that, as far as I know, only certain people can post articles while the majority are commenters.  I like the idea that anyone can post an article because we all have something to contribute and deserve to be read.  So maybe we keep most of the current format but simply remove the “recommended” section.

My other thought is that those of us who can post to the front page need to do a better job of actually doing so.  And yes I smack my own hand.  I don’t necessarily think that a front page article has to be the second coming of War and Peace but something that may foster discussion.

Hopefully folks feel free to give their ideas, suggestions, thoughts.

(And anyone who knows how to wrap the text around a picture is free to do so above because no matter how often I’m told how I never remember.)


16 comments

  1. And because – historically – many diaries here have been comments, and comments as important as diaries, let me repost what I said in Strum’s post:

    Dammit we’re all front pagers.

    To have editors of the blog, who feel obliged to command/control/write something responsible all the time, is just not the model anyone

    Like twitter (apologies for mentioning the name – sheesh) we need a flatter, more equal universe, which doesn’t pretend to echo some kind of moribund print model

    I don’t know Balloon Juice or LGF – but anything that gets over this false hurdle of editorial imprimatur sounds good to me.

    Better a Loose Moose than a Vamoose Moose

    In other words, no point curating a beautiful but dead site. You might as well live in Paris (beautiful but culturally moribund)

    I’d prefer something faster and looser – yet more active and engaged.

    My two pence sterling worth.  

  2. Kysen

    Just a few observations…because  have to bounce in a couple mins.

    I think the reason we have the Recommended Diaries is because it keeps the ‘active’ ones up top and visible.

    What I might…recommend…is that we change what we call them? Maybe ‘Most Active’ or the like.

    As to having ‘everyone’ to post on FP…that won’t work. Because there is no setting to allow JUST that. By allowing posting on the FP, you also allow that individual to edit any other diary they want and delete any comment they want…which, obviously, could be problematic.

    You know I LOVE Balloon Juice (I think I may have recommended it to you ages ago)…however, I don’t like the way his comments read/thread. It is hard to follow a long meandering conversation. I REALLY…by miles…prefer the nested comments method. I think it is what works best for the way Moose convos roll.

    I probably have other thoughts, but not the time to form them.

    Now, lastly…I have been meaning to email the Admin type folks here…I will try to do it tonight. There are..’maintenance’ things to discuss.

    Hope all are well.

    I miss you Mooses.

    /grin

  3. Kysen

    And I vote Ixnay on the Recent Comments on top.

    That throws everything whacky on my page.

    Just my (not so) humble opinion.

    /winces

  4. Sometimes when I click into the MM now I find recommended diaries in the right-hand column; other times it’s the most recent comments.  I’m so confused!

    Except not confused that, on the whole, I really do prefer the old look of the Moosery, especially since the recent comments slab goes so frikkin far down (on the Win7 machine; not as far on the XP because of differences in font) that it’s too durn far to scroll before you get to the recent diaries list.

    And get off my lawn!

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