Welcome to C-U Liberal. I’m just getting started but here’s the basic idea behind starting this blog:
Locally in Champaign-Urbana there are a lot of bloggers. A lot of liberal and Democrat bloggers. But the most open blog forum is run by local conservatives at Illini Pundit. It is open to dissent and you’ll find liberals on there too. It’s a great blog but even some of the conservative posters have noted that there really isn’t a similar forum where liberals can post without always being the minority, which is just silly in such a purple county such as ours.
Some people might argue that the UC IMC forum provides this space but they are highly against running their site as an open blog style forum. That’s their choice and as much as many disagree with it I’m going to stay out of it.
So in the interests of having an open dialogue among liberal bloggers especially on local issues and politics I’m hoping to grow this site and add lots of local contributors. I also want there to be plenty of free room for dissent so the place doesn’t turn into an “ideological echo chamber” (sorry had to steal that phrase) and ideas don’t go totally unchallenged. How boring would that get anyways?
Overwhelmingly I’d like to keep the whole thing extremely open and tolerant of even the most oddball dissent that might pop up. I don’t have a definite set a rules in mind yet beyond obvious things like threats, malicious personal attacks on users, illegal stuff, pornography, etc. Hopefully it’ll stay fairly civil.
The big task ahead will be recruiting contributors and seeing if there’s enough interest to keep the idea alive. I think there is.
Feel free to offer comment, suggestions, etc. I’m all ears.
July 15, 2007 at 12:30 am
IP.com is pretty open and has a good local readership. It might be worth thinking about what needs a blog like this would meet that isn’t met by IP, the Dems blog, etc. To succeed, I think the blog would need
1) Interesting content that was regularly updated
2) A number of active participants with diverse opinions who can contribute decent content (e.g., well-written posts, good photos, etc)
3) Clear, consistent policies about what’s allowable and what’s not.
Overall, IP.com seems to have these things going on, and it might be worth looking at what went wrong with UCIMC so that CULiberal doesn’t make the same mistakes.
July 17, 2007 at 9:24 pm
If I can help in any way, or if you want to discuss ideas (or any of the massive mistakes I made along the way…), please let me know.
We do have some excellent left-of-center blogs in Champaign County, as I’m sure you know. But if you want to build a more community-type site run by the left, I’d love to help.
The more blogs the better, IMHO.
July 18, 2007 at 7:57 am
Also, I added you to the blogroll on IP.com. Reciprocity would be appreciated. :-)
July 18, 2007 at 10:36 am
Can’t wait to see what you come up with re: a liberal group blog….
July 18, 2007 at 10:48 am
Illino Pundit and this blog should merge.
There should just be one blog on which both religions can jointly engage in relatively civil discussions.
Each of our two blog masters (one liberal, one conservative) would post 0-5 seeds to start discussions each day.
The joint logo could be either (a) an elephant and donkey postured on opposite sides of a map of the U.S showing red and blue states or (b) CU’s two mayors postured about a map of CU or a pack of cigarettes
I have been wondering if those supporting (opposing) President Bush’s Iraq policies and supporting (opposing) smoking bans in bars are more or less likely to hope Barry Bonds does (not) hit several more home runs.
The corollary of all this is that worthwhile topics are not necessarily conservative or liberal.
July 18, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Nice looking blog. I like the idea. Hopefully it takes off for you. WordPress.com should generate some traffic for you as well. Network with all the area blogs as best you can and keep your content fresh. Get your feeds out there all over the place (bloglines, technorati, etc).
It’s a nice idea to want to emulate IP, but you need to realistic and don’t get discourage if the numbers don’t come quickly. IP has turned his gig into basically a full-time job, and it takes a lot to post as frequently and maintain a site with that type of traffic.
I’ve got some background and experience as well and would be glad to help you if ever you need a hand. I hosted on wordpress.com and I now have a wordpress install on my own domain. I’d be glad to lend a hand or offer advice when necessary.
good luck,
j-dub
July 18, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I have been looking for this. IP is too dominated by the select few and the comments. I would be happy to see a more open posting policy regarding getting stuff on the front page.
I agree that many concerns don’t have a conservative/ liberal viewpoint (see #9 above) and we all would really benefit from a less polarized discussion.
July 19, 2007 at 8:11 am
My apologies for not having done so earlier, but I welcome your efforts and may fortune smile upon you. To that end keep plugging away and don’t get discouraged.
July 22, 2007 at 3:02 am
Fixing some bugs… comments got moved:
Glock, thanks for the moral support at least. I’m not sure what my next step is yet. Probably work on finding some contributors before spreading the word too much. Place seems a bit too rough (like the generic picture).
Wayward, thanks for the suggestions. I’m in full agreement on 1, 2, and 3. I’m also still brainstorming a bit about how else the site might be beneficial beyond a more liberal leaning local politics forum. I’d rather it compliment the pre-existing sites rather than compete with them though.
I’m going to work on some ideas this week and then probably get cracking if all goes well. Thanks for the input.
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Thanks IP. As you can tell the idea is still in its infancy so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll probably really get cracking on it here next week trying to get things squared away. I definitely appreciate the support and I’m sure if this idea takes off that there’ll be a lot of good debate between folks here and there.
In the meantime I’m going to keep brainstorming, keep on the lookout for a non-generic title background picture, and most importantly for local liberal bloggers who are interested in being contributors.
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gamera, I can’t wait either. But I’m hoping it will be more about what “we” come up with in the liberal blogging community. I’m hoping to add more and more contributors in the upcoming weeks so that it won’t just be me here… because me by myself, well that’s just no fun. I’d rather have a rainbow of liberal opinion, everything from radicals to moderates to self-described “strange” ones like Glock.
MF… I think Illini Pundit is already that and more. Anybody can post there and people can vote any post to the front page, no matter what the slant. They can also vote it back down. I’m not trying to replace that at all. I just believe there is a bit of a demand for a left-leaning blog out there with a pool of contributors and an open discussion. So I’m giving it a shot.
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j-dub, thanks for offers and well wishes. I’m hoping to complement the current sites more than compete so I’m sure there will be a lot of cross blog debating if things take off. All in good time.
Papa, well liberal by definition implies being open minded and I’m hoping we’ll have a nice spectrum of viewpoints on here as opposed to just people toeing a party line.
On the front page posting I’m still working out the details. Right now I’m still working on getting some more main contributors and figuring out how to work a system to allow nearly anyone to get posts pushed up. Might be a while yet, but it’s something planned.