Possibly the best we have done - so far, is Migeru's grouping of underlying and constant themes into "Occasional series" although you would want to be seriously interested in a particular topic to read through an entire series.
My view is that ET should consider appointing an assistant editor for each more important theme, and that person's primary responsibility would be to write the sort of introductory/editorial/summary articles outlining the facts and debates here on each theme for a much wider audience - particularly for those coming from a more mainstream context and who don't have the time or conceptual background to read through a lot more detailed analysis in the individual diaries - which could be referenced as links in the "Editorial Diary".
Ideally that is what the front page of ET should be for - the broader more editorial pieces with lots of links to individual diaries acting as a lead in to other content on the site. In my view - probably not widely shared - the design of the ET front page is all wrong - not only is it visually all wrong and unattractive, but the content belongs on the inside pages not on the front page of an organ that wants to be taken seriously.
I rarely go to the front page at all - it seems to me to be dedicated to ET insiders rather than to the wider audience a front page should be dedicated to - the sort of people who might find us through a google search, and who need to be enticed to stay with engaging, headline and well presented content - leading in to more detail on Diary or "social and personal" discussion pages inside.
But I've kind of given up on trying to encourage this sort of "structural" discussion on where ET should be going - views are simply too diverse - and with a lot of resistance to any kind of more structured approach to what we are trying to do. If you want to campaign on a particular topic, you probably have to go to a more specialised website. All of which is not a criticism of ET - it reflects the diversity of its membership. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
I attempted something similar in my recent diary - ET's 20 Big Ideas
Thanks for reminding me of that diary. I know that list was preliminary, but that was very much what I had in mind.
And I know there have several other diaries like that one. A lot of work has been done already. The Debates section and Migeru's Occasional Series. Also, rg's ET Diaries, Migeru's Bootstrapping the ET think tank, and Paul Spencer's ET Think Tank draft summary - Draft # 2, and no doubt I am leaving out many other efforts. And there already have some quasi "position papers", such as the Energize America and the EU Energy Green Paper Consultation response that afew led.
Okay, I'd better read through these again first.
(I just noticed afew's comment about the agriculture position paper(s) and list of diaries.) A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
True, but I would just modify that statement a little bit to
"supplementing ET as a largely transient newspaper like article stream with a semi-permanent if updatable knowledge database"
based on Migeru's points that ET is a blog, that means it's a FIFO or a collection of FIFOs. We don't want to lose that format. We would integrate the blog with MediaWiki - ETpedia would contain the "position papers".
You see, I've already trying to wiki-edit your comment! (^_^) A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
Wikipedia is getting quite a reputation as a reasonably reliable, very comprehensive, and yet accessible knowledge base which allows people to get a handle on a topic very quickly. How do you want to position ETpedia relative to that space?
We can certainly have an internal Wiki, but realistically Wikis aren't considered 'serious' by the MSM. That could well be their loss, but the MSM are still the main medium for getting points into the mainstream, and we need to follow their format if we want to - actually get points into the mainstream.
We need a press presence. We need a point of contact for press people, and we need to send out regular press releases. We may also need a serious website. I don't think a Wiki will do the job, because it's not the right tool for the job at hand - which is media impact, not information aggregation. Something like Comment is Free with an ET twist might.
All of this may be window dressing and fluff as far as the content goes. But in terms of prescience and analysis we have some of the best content in the blogosphere, and a lot of it is being wasted because more people aren't seeing it.
On average we seem to be running about two to five years ahead of Conventional Wisdom. If we want to start changing all of Teh Stupid that makes up conventional wisdom we need to be much more active about crafting a solid media presence and making sure that talking points are pushed regularly znd reliably into national and international debate.
For example, searching on
olympic torch relay site:cnn.com
will only pull up articles from CNN's website on that topic.
It turns out that not just new publications and organizations come up in Google news, but "think tanks" like The New America Foundation and the The Century Foundation also come up on Google News searches, while others like The Economic Policy Institute and The Progressive Policy Institute do not come up at all.
It would be interesting to learn what differentiates these, and to see if we can get EuroTrib.com to come up on Google News searches as well. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
Here are some ideas Colman and I were kicking about today regarding "ET 2.0":
I think this is a great proposal.
I understand the basic concept of using MediaWiki, but I have a question regarding how it has been used in practice (other than Wikipedia, and only very superficially there).
If we use MediaWiki, do you think we can almost let the revision and update process for "position papers" be run on automatic? In other words, with MediaWiki, is it likely that we won't even have to task individuals or teams explicitly to draft and polish these articles? In practice, could we rely on those passionate and knowledgeable enough about the topics concerned to "get it right", with only intermittent and minor editorial and/or community intervention/judgement calls?
Personally, I am very optimistic about this possibility, and confident that it will be very successful. But this is just based on a gut feel (in turn based on what I know about EuroTrib folks). However, I was curious if there is data out there about MediaWiki implementations that would reality-check such optimism.
(I am aware that Wikipedia employs personnel -- volunteers, too? -- to handle "wiki-vandalism" and to make other editor level decisions. But since the group of writer-editors here would not only [presumably] all be registered as EuroTrib members, but would be far smaller in number, that sort of editorial overhead should be far far less, and utterly manageable. Hopeless optimism again?)
(For the record, I don't like the term "position paper", but it's the only one that comes to mind so far that fits the bill.) A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
I'd envisage locked "final" versions of documents in some cases, together with supporting documentation and so on.
The notion of using mediawiki as a participative self-empowering community knowledge management tool really excites me.
Isn't that what MediaWiki was written for in the first place?
However I'm still struggling with how we would present ETmedia to a wider audience. We're not an encyclopedia, we're not a political or campaigning organisation although we do do politics and sometimes campaign, we strive to be evidence and fact based but from a "progressive" perspective, we're not an on-line newspaper or current affairs e-zine, we're not just a blog or a group of nerds with no friends and lots of time to spend on-line. So what are we -in simple terms that simple journalists can understand and communicate - and why should they give any especial importance to what we have to day? "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
Also, we're the people we have been waiting for. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
we're the people we have been waiting for.
And if what we want is to change the conventional wisdom, is greatly increasing the number of our readership/membership the primary concern? It's just as effective to be read by a smaller number of influential people (measured by how many people read them). When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
I know this sounds horribly commercial, but you do have an established brand which you are not leveraging very much. I see someone else has now taken up the Eurotribune.eu and .net domains and styles themselves as "The European Tribune: Independent Journal - and is sometimes ranked above Eurotrib in google rankings. You stand still in this game, and you could lose prominence very quickly.
How many of the Eurotrib.* domains do we not own? When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Note that they have funding from some sort of EU media programme.
Any reason why we can't apply for similar support, especially as we are far more pan european in membership and with a significant input/influence beyond yurp? "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
is development on ET 2.0 already in process, or are there decisions still pending? i guess i am just curious if the incorporation of the MediaWiki thing is already something to be expected, or something that still needs to be greenlighted and that may or may not actually happen.
from Migeru's phrase "kicking about", i am guessing everything is still very much up in the air, but i just wanted to find out for sure. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
Two things are immediately clear:
Related to that, I am assuming that Wikipedia's Contents and List of Topics are completely manually created (i.e. not dynamically/programmatically generated), is that correct? A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
I attempted something similar in my recent diary - ET's 20 Big Ideas but that sort of conversation often seems to die a quick death. ET is quite a diverse community and there is a lot of resistance to being typecast in any way, and possibly not a lot of widespread agreement beyond the sort of very broad and bland sentiments you gave as examples of the prevailing consensus here.
It's not resistance, it's usually lack of time. Many of us have full time jobs and families that do not let us concentrate fully on these potential new activities.
How much time and/or money are you willing to commit to this? This is a serious question.
I rarely go to the front page at all - it seems to me to be dedicated to ET insiders rather than to the wider audience a front page should be dedicated to -
Given that most of my articles, and many of the substantial posts started by the other frontpagers are on the front page, I'm not sure how to take this, quite frankly.
But I've kind of given up on trying to encourage this sort of "structural" discussion on where ET should be going - views are simply too diverse - and with a lot of resistance to any kind of more structured approach to what we are trying to do.
Again, do not blame malice or conscious decisions for what is usually lack of time. Having gone through the process of Energize America, and running this site day in and day out, I must say that those that criticize things by saying "why don't you do this and that" likely underestimate the personal investment required to make this happen.
-- --
I'd love to have full time staff for ET to do the activities it has the potential to. I cannot ask people to spend more time than they already volunteer without some other perspective or compensation. I'm thinking about funding this to some extent. I cannot do this on my own, and don't have the time right now to make it happen (ie define the need, the role, the way to structure it and fund it). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I think at some point this has to stop being an amateur effort. You can have a collaborative grad school amateur ethic, or you can have media effectiveness. I'm not convinced that you can have both - at least not beyond a certain point.
It's a waste of time putting together the best content in the world if hardly anyone reads it. Putting it in a Wiki will do very little to increase the readership, because Wikis are not media.
Since this is a pro-Euro blog it's possible someone, somewhere in Brussels would be willing to fund it. There are certainly less interesting and less worthy media projects having money thrown at them.
it's the nature of blogging, i suspect.
arguments sharpen here, opinions modify and mature, but the subjects we deem worthy of special attention, meriting a whole screed, have already been dealt with more thoroughly elsewhere.
i'm beginning to think pushing jerome into politics might be swifter than try to propel political change through razor commentary, lol!
ET has already surprised us in its short life...if it feels like it's chomping at the bit to actually become a player, like dkos, perhaps it's because we sense a need for that in europe, and here has been a great place to start.
give it another few years, and , as tbg notes, events continue to force dialogue into new channels, and we'll see ET as the gestatory force it is, reaching out further and smarter till it achieves liftoff, or terminal velocity... The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it. Chinese Proverb.
ThatBritGuy:
I disagree.
How many times does the Wikipedia article for a topic come up as #1 on Google search results (or at least #2 or #3)?
I don't know how journalists and media editors go about doing there work, but if they use Google to research topics, we want EuroTrib -- either diaries or/and wiki articles -- to come up within the top 3 search results.
For example, suppose someone googles "gas shortages UK Europe prices", why shouldn't our "best stuff" relevant to that topic come up among the top three search results they see?
And if EuroTrib articles more and more frequently come up under journalistic eyeballs, there's more and more likelihood that journalists will read, get informed by, consider, and eventually grow sympathetic to the positions in those articles.
And that is only the direct route to get to the MSM (i.e. by getting getting read by journalists/columnists/editors themselves). There would obviously also be millions of curious and concerned general readers (and not so general readers with disproportionate influence on journalists) encountering EuroTrib material on Google searches about urgent current events and issues. If by reading EuroTrib material they become more informed, they will be more likely to call bull shit on the MSM when it shovels it out. A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
gas shortages UK Europe prices
into Google to see if any Wikipedia article came up.
The first 10 results were:
As for point 3, it's true that Jérôme's diary title does come up in the smaller-fonted description text below the search result link. However, if you do the search yourself, you may agree with me that the link would be far more attention-grabbing and interesting if the link itself were labeled with the diary title, rather than just "European Tribune", which does not reveal anything about the contents of the page linked to.
Is it possible to configure Scoop to generate HTML so that the HTML page title uses the title of the diary?
Also, if and when "position papers" get produced, this case shows the importance of choosing titles for these texts that are as descriptive and relevant as possible (assuming that they can be used as their HTML page title). A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
Sorry for the pointless comment (well, pointless aside from the high rankings that EuroTrib diaries already get.) A language is a dialect with an army and navy.
By 5.00 pm, through phone calls and SMS from Jérôme, we learn that the Brussels correspondent of the Financial Times has heard about the petition and is planning to publish something about it on the FT website on Tuesday morning. Genesis of a self-organised collaborative European petition
Genesis of a self-organised collaborative European petition
It started off very well, quite a lot of people joined and we got some good feedback etc. However, I gradually realised that to make the project become more than words, it would have to be a full-time job and neither I or the other participants were able to commit that much time, attention and expense to it, as well as to carry on with our normal lives and work. So, I eventually bowed out and handed over the baby to others to look after but it gradually dissolved.
I think that ET is far more realistic and a much more effective platform for constructive ideas. Blaugustine
Well not personally, anyway. I'm not in the business of criticising people who give of their time on a voluntary basis. They usually have 10 people telling them what to do for every one person actually willing to help.
The whole point of having some structure and organisation is to create a more enjoyable, less frustrating, and more productive output for any given level of effort for all concerned. If it doesn't achieve that, then don't do it. I'm not seeing a lack of enthusiasm or effort, but I'm not sure either whether people are getting as much out of their experience and effort as they might.
Much of the stuff written here deserves a wider audience. Many of the members are activists who want to be more effective in their social engagement and use of time. I've been drifting away and looking for more effective forms of engagement elsewhere because we seem to be writing for a very small audience of the largely converted here in any case. I would be prepared to give more time and make a financial contribution if I felt we were going somewhere. You probably have a lot of latent goodwill which is not being tapped into.
So I'm not 100% convinced of the time argument - some of it may be addressed through better organisation and involvement of people who do have time/resources to give. I also agree with TBG's comment below that funding from EU/national sources should be possible give the huge budgets devoted to EU communications - provided we can all be satisfied that any such funding wouldn't influence or compromise our independence in any way.
But it's your game, and up to you to decide what you want to do with it. You've achieved an awful lot already - the question is where do you want to take it from here - if anywhere in particular. My sense is that we need to move on - but if that sense isn't shared then I may have to move on on my own. This is NOT a criticism - sometimes people going their separate ways is the best for all concerned, and either way I wish you the very best. "It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."
