The Progressive Blog Alliance HQ

The last month was pretty stressful, but the projects I was busy with are finished, and even though there's a lot more that will keep me busy this year, I have a bit of spare time.

I've so far kept away from the blogroll mainly because Nick's advice (more or less verbatim, "don't list sites on it because it will FUCK UP their ranking on search engines FOREVER") has scared me off. And I still hesitate to update it, even for people who explicitly want to be listed.

So I'm starting with the easy part: Tonight, I will go through the blogroll and remove dead sites that either no longer exist or haven't been posted to in more than 3 months.

kristendom is repeatedly peppering his or her posts with unrelated images and various spam links that are obviously advertisements ("Get your website flooded with visitors and readers for FREE!"). This is confusing, because the posts are sometimes on-topic. But then, I've seen spambots that manage to post "related" content based on some kind of context search.

If you read this, kristen, could you confirm that you are not a spambot please? Answering this question should be sufficient, we don't need Turing tests here. And if you aren't, then why the heck are you posting these spam links? It's definitely not appreciated. (And by "appreciated", I mean "If you persist, you will be banned. Fast.")

In the past few weeks, I've repeatedly seen comments by people asking to be included on the blogroll.

Now, the problem with this is that the blogroll can only be administered by a single person. That person is Nick Lewis, and Nick Lewis has a lot to do. Blogrolls for small communities can be managed in spare time. But when it grows as big as this one has, it becomes a bit time-consuming.

The obvious solution is to put the Blogroll not into the hands of one admin, but into the hands of each user - let all of them add their own site to a profile and update it when needed.

Besides, given how extensible the Drupal engine is, it might not be the worst idea to integrate the PBA Blogroll into this site, the PBA HQ, which is after all powered by Drupal.

The following is the result of half a day's messing around with the Drupal API. It's my first attempt, so don't expect to see anything worthwhile - but I've tested what little there is, and it works. A user can register an account, set the URL and site name in their profile, check a box to have it listed in the Blogroll, and the list will update.

Having just joined yesterday, I'm still in the process of waiting for the updates on my password etc., and thought I'd look around. Guess what's almost the first thing I found? (Look under comments "re:" ) LOL

I see the spammers have found this site. Being on GMT+2 time, I assume I'm seeing this before the N.A. continent is awake. Good luck, administrators!

Having been owner/moderator of a number of Yahoo clubs for years, I'm familiar with this. For the rest, I'm looking forward to some good articles here, perhaps write some also.

Greetings to all from Amsterdam.

 

Earl

www.politicsinternational.web-log.nl

For those of you who don't know me, I'm the poor fool in charge of this place. Today, however, (which might I add is 5 days before the PBA turns one years old), I was sworn in as a VISTA -- which is the domestic equivolent of the peacecorps. This, in effect, means that I may no longer 'lead', or participate in this organization By all accounts, I am now a federal employee, and "on call" 24/7/365. In otherwords, (please hold your laughter), I am expected to spend the next year helping eradicate poverty in the United States, but can have no political opinions of my own. The hardcore backend administration of this site will be done by "Hubert", who above all, is not me.

Most importantly, however, the crown of the PBA is currently on the floor. Anyone want to pick it up? If so, send me an e-mail at netpolitik(at)hotmail(dot)com .

Like I said when the PBA first started going, the blogroll desperately needs a "random blog" button.  Clicking it would be equivalent to clicking the name of a blog selected at random from the blogroll.  It would greatly increase traffic to every blog, I think, because it would give people something to do; I, for example, really, honestly, want to read other people's blogs, as a more interesting time-killer.  But I find it hard to just pick a blog, because the only clue I have is the title, which can be misleading.  Also, the random chance would appeal to people's sweet tooth for games, possibly encouraging them to go to a random blog rather than none at all.

David Scott Anderson at In Search of Utopia emailed me to spread the word that his blog will be back up ASAP.

For anti-spamming purposes, I propose that - if that is possible - a filter be configured to kill any comment whose subjects contains "poker" or "texas hold em". It'll take care of 99% of the crap.

The way this place is being swamped now is a disgrace. If I were more vengeful, I'd suggest we do something to take these idiots out of business, but that'd be a waste of time.

Kevin Hayden's blog needs your help. Drop by and kick in some Paypal bucks. It's worth it.http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/archives/2005/02/19/ad-plans-you-have-to-consider/

Thought it might be a nice idea to have another banner for the PBA; the sort that one might rotate over a blog or submit to BlogExplosion. I don't have any hosting space I own right now, so this goes into a temporary webspace right now. Don't worry, it's only 12k.

Could use a little work in terms of background, and I'm not sure about the colors.

That's right; the original PBA logo which I saw when I first came across Net Politik, the one with the guys sitting on the dead elephant. Originally, I couldn't access my ftp and therefore hot-linked it in my blog, and then I was too lazy to upload it. Now, I can't find it anymore - is there anyone who still has it? Or is there a new official logo now that I should stick over that blogroll instead? Because this "Image Unavailable" box really bugs me...

Friends, the Progressive Blog Alliance is on the verge of a transition. Unfortunatly, I have no idea where this transition will lead us, how significant it will be, or even whether the transition will result in our organization's slow death, or a sudden dramatic expansion. All I know is that the smell of change keeps getting stronger. Therefore, I'm in the process of reviewing our history, and current position to figure out "where we are at". After that, we will proceed in developing a framework for our future direction, in terms of principles, group composition, and methods and means. The criteria I am using comes from a work that was a key inspiration in the creation and organization of this alliance. If any of you are interested in building an offshoot of the PBA, or would like to develop a progressive organization, I suggest reading this. And yes, I am talking to you.

Please let me know if your interested in helping me write, or would like to contribute your thoughts, criticisms, and suggestions, and I'll move my work from excel and word to a more wiki-like location. So that we are all on the same page, here is the criteria I will be using: (From Social Democracy Literature and Cases)

1. Convey a strong narrative – The narrative is the connective tissue that ideologically unites the various participants in the network. Effective narratives generally allow the participants to see themselves as protagonists in the context of a dramatic struggle. They must be broad enough to resonate with a diverse group of individuals, but specific enough for them to genuinely identity with them.

2. Communicate via hot media – A network is defined not solely by the number of connections, but by the qualitative nature of those connections as well. A hotter or richer sensory media experience allows the participants to develop a more visceral attachment.

3. Provide micro-motives and empower the individuals – In order to mobilize the various participants for collective action, it is important that they receive individual benefit. These micro-motives can take on a variety of forms, but they should be as closely aligned with the collective ambitions as possible. Empowerment for the individual often serves as a micro-motive in and of itself. It also translates into a more effective overall network by providing the “soldiers” with the tools to win the battle.

4. Provide tangible concrete goals with time constraints – For these empowered individuals to be effectively utilized, they generally require specific action objectives. These objectives do not necessarily need to be generated by a central authority, but without