Saturday 3 January 2009

Getting Meta... Thoughts about This Blog

So I thought it might be a good idea to take a minute and lay out my thoughts about this Obama London Blog - where it has been and where it might be going. Some of these future-looking thoughts are still vague at the moment, so please don't hold me to them!

Basically, when I first started this blog I wanted a space where I could personally spout off about Obama stuff on occassion, and also a way of drawing in people who might browsing the net for Obama related stuff in London.

I always hoped that the blog might eventually be more than just a one person endeavor, and eventually Diana Shaw Clark started guest blogging, as did my wonderful co-organiser Rob Carolina. But on the whole, the site has been mostly kept up (or not!) by myself.

In 2009, far from wanting to pull back on the blog, I am actually hoping to do much more with it. From now on I will personally be aiming to do at least one post per day. But in addition, I'm also in discussions with some other folks about adding some more talented writers to our "team". In addition to some new permanent bloggers, I'd also like to post some one off articles from Obama supporters with an interesting perspective to share. Do you have some pressing thoughts on health care reform? Or a great election night story to tell? Or some helpful tips for campaigning? Please leave a note in the comments telling me what you'd like to write about, and we'll make arrangements.

This blog is not an official Obama communication, and the opinions expressed on it are not necessarily endorsed by the Transition Team, the future administration, the previous campaign team, or Democrats Abroad. Having said that, however, since I was working directly to elect Obama under the DNC, I have always felt it was important that this blog maintain the same standards for courteous discourse that the campaign itself tried to set. I don't expect that to change in the new "era". The practical impact of that is that, while I am happy for us to have a robust and multifaceted discussion of the issues, I will not feel compelled to publish either blog entries or comments that are dismissive, attacking, personal or unfair.

So far, that actually hasn't been much of a problem - I only had to delete a couple of harsh comments during the campaign. But I'm putting it on record now so no one can accuse me of changing the rules later.

Drop me a line in the comments if you'd liek to write for us, or if you have any thoughts.

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