After all the meta discussions of the past day or two, I'd like to suggest some ways to move forward. I am, and the other frontpagers are, very grateful for all the messages of support thanks or encouragement, but would like to propose a few ways through which the ET experience can continue to be as pleasant as possible for all of us:
- don't take the Salon, and Fran, for granted. It's a huge amount of work to prepare that press review, and it can turn into a rather thankless task. This is not a machine-generated thread! Don't forget to give her some feedback and, more importantly, don't hesitate to bring in your own contributions - news from your part of the world or about your area of expertise or interest; comments or additional info about any topic already discussed. And remember, there is a "Klatsch" section: it need not be the most serious or highbrow stuff;
- the Salon mostly includes news from traditional news sources; if you read other interesting blogs, maybe they have content worth sharing - don't hesitate to bring that in as well;
- we probably need to interact more with other blogs, especially European ones. Beyond bringing items in the Salon, it might be good to also do diaries when there is worthwhile content. And this should go both ways: if you are a regular on other blogs, don't hesitate to post links to relevant ET content when the topic is discussed on that blog: that will bring in ore eyeballs to the site, and more exchange with other blogs (we'll try to do the same on the frontpage; I know I've been reacting maybe too exclusively to the FT, and always welcome other sources posted in the Salon or Open Threads; that should include other blogs);
- do write more diaries about things around you - photo diaries, "object" blogging, the latest big debate in your country: a local eye will usually bring much more interesting perspective than that of the "embedded" journalists from the major media outlets on the same topic. If enough regulars did a diary of that kind per month, it would vastly enrich the diversity of the site;
- in that same perspective, it would be great if all of us could try to start writing regularly on the forthcoming European elections: this is certainly our intent on the frontpage, but we're going to need your help to have coverage from as many countries as possible, to discuss things like what the local voting procedures are, who the main parties are (and how they are aligned with the main EP groups), what the election debate is about, and any other relevant topic. This is not a "hot" topic now, but ET should be in a position - and we need to make it happen - to provide unmatched coverage of this election, and we need YOU to make it happen;
- as a general rule, don't feel intimidated by us - we all started as lurkers, and took our time to be comfortable online. You'll always be welcome on ET, and your contributions valued. We like both facts and opinions (just try not to mix them up too much!), arcane topics and anything in-between.
As many have noted, this is a community blog: its value comes from all of us providing many different things. There is no editorial line per se (I've given my position on a number of things recently
here, but these are my opinions, not an official "line", and they are definitely not all shared by other frontpagers, let alone by the rest of the community), so the site will feel like what is posted on it - and that can certainly include your posts on topics that you care about. In fact, as a final request, I really hope we can drop criticism about "ET is not doing enough about this or that": please do it. If we're not doing it, it's not necesarily that we don't care, just that we don't know enough to write about it, or are not even aware of some of the underlying issues: if you enlighten us by writing about it, the site wil be better for it, ans, hopefully, so will we.
