Currently, OpEdNews depends upon its community members for support. Many church members tithe ten percent of their income. A lot of you don't go to church and I'm not saying OpEdNews serves the function of a church. But we do serve some important functions, including casting light on the truth, creating a media culture where the truth, where truths and the stating of the truth is encouraged, supported and nurtured as something that anyone can contribute to. And we support and encourage the belief in a fair, just democratic future.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
and there are Rob's quotes, here.
To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
My radio show, The Rob Kall Show, runs 9-10 PM EST Wednesday evenings, on AM 1360, WNJC and is archived on www.whiterosesociety.org Or listen to it streaming, live at either www.wnjc1360.com or here.
A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
Yes, my concept of community journalism as well --
Yes, Rob, you're incorporating the concept of community journalism which you and I have discussed many times. This is the practice I speak about in my workshops and classes on advocacy writing -- the importance of using comments for the common good -- to fill in the gaps, correct errors, include research, correct untruths. Doing so holds both the author and commenter to a higher standard of truth and community empowerment.
Using the power of our community through the combined and individual brilliance of the readership to expand upon ideas and solve problems is the greater purpose of new media community journalism.
I'm pleased you've put this out to the community and I believe the writers and commenters here recognize the importance of cooperation above confrontation. It's ALL for the common good.
Linda
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Linda Milazzo (110 articles, 0 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 142 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 12:33:46 PM
I just wanted to say that your spirit really comes through in these reflective commentaries you add to the site. I've been sufficiently impressed to 'begrudgingly' donate what little I can, from time to time, which (I assure you) require a lot of persuasion to pull out of me :). And your site does reflect your spirit!
I'm with you, and I'll try to contribute more in the way of writing than I lately have. The only gripe, here, is that I'm leaning toward what is outside the political, and I don't like feeling 'consigned to the diaries' by your crew, which seems like off in the boonies of your site.
Irv
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Irvthom (7 articles, 2 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 83 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 12:41:24 PM
for anyone wanting to be spoon fed the news. This site, it seems to me, is for independent thinking individuals and those that sometimes need motivation, like me! I know I enjoy reading the comments as much as the articles. I do think of it as a community but sometimes wonder how we can spread out and reach those still focused on mainstream media. In that sense, maybe it does have too many far left articles, but I can't complain about that...
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Judy Ramsey (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 82 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 1:39:22 PM
I'll divide my response to Rob's post into three specific points.
First, unlike many news/political websites, OEN seems to be genuinely open to a broad array of personalities and political views. Combine that with many of the best writers on the web and this is a website very worth reading and contributing to. My compliments to the many people who contribute their thoughts to OEN and to those who administer the site. OEN is professionally run and seems to be in a constant state of innovation. It's exciting to be a member of this community.
Second, there are very real dangers lurking in OEN's success. Rob alluded to them in his article. He acknowledged how some of the "old timers" might be yearning for certain aspects of the good old days. There's no getting around the idea that change is inevitable. One kind of change, however, may be the ultimate undoing of many left leaning websites.
As the sites grow in popularity, especially sites like OEN that openly encourage a broad diversity of political opinions, I'm afraid there is a strong attraction to the "center of the bell curve." People further to the left seem so hungry for a voice amid the drone of centrism that they readily flock to genuinely left-leaning websites. At the very beginning, those sites may even be a little flaky. Dark, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories often occupy a greater role than might be warranted. As sites evolve, somewhat more demanding standards are often encouraged and a new wave of members brings a bit more credibility and perhaps even higher quality writing. I think that's just about where OEN is today.
If you could put the current flavor in a bottle and still expand the site's features, that would be great. The problem is, the community's evolution doesn't stop at "just the right point." The owners and senior editors may be thrilled to see more and more growth, financial support and member participation. The danger is that the new arrivals, as a group, often reflect the political center much more than the "pioneers." If you seek to appeal to all with a broad spectrum editorial policy, eventually you become closer and closer to reflecting the attitudes of Mr. and Mrs. Mainstream. Those further to the left are a minority that soon is overwhelmed by the mere volume of more conservative posters. If that's acceptable to those who own the site, so be it. The result is that the pioneers see the well as poisoned yet again and move on to newer lands. Absent the imposition of an "editorial philosophy", i.e. one that seeks a certain narrow range on the political spectrum, most left leaning websites eventually grow into something no longer appealing to those who helped carve out a niche in the site's earliest days. Maybe it's inevitable and maybe the "what do we want to be when we grow up" can be more effectively channeled and controlled. I'm writing this merely to sound a warning to those who might be unaware of what path I think the OEN community is currently travelling on.
And, my third comment (which I previously wrote to Rob via email), is that it would be great to restructure the OEN software to encourage more dialog, i.e. more back and forth, among the "commenters." I don't just see comments as filling in gaps in the initial article, I see them as equals to the original article. Often, a comment provides more details, better documentation and is more articulate and insightful than the initial article. It would be great to provide a sort of "master index" of all comments immediately below each article. The index would contain a subject line, the username of who made the comment, and a date and time. Responses to previously made comments would be appropriately indented so that any reader could determine who was responding to whom. The current system of narrowing the text area for each subsequent comment that responds to another comment becomes very awkward to read and discourages comments on comments. An active dialog in the comments area is every bit as important as the initial article.
OEN is a great community. Rob has been remarkably innovative in growing both the community and the software that supports us and I commend him for his efforts. While increasing the software features and maintaining a high standard of journalistic integrity are both critically important, perhaps seeking ways to maintain OEN's unique political outlook as the community continues to grow should be viewed as the highest priority.
I'd love to hear some reactions to that.
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welshTerrier2 (7 articles, 3 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 105 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 1:44:20 PM
The great paradox is that we want more folks to become more insightful. Not sure I know how to phrase it. Having more people in the community does not inevitably mean we are diluting or "moving to the center."
Let's see where it goes. Ultimately, we hope to influence the larger entity. We can't do that if we remain small and insular. Rob, I think you are on the right track and I see many good suggestions here from others. Letting number and intensity of comments keep an article front and center for longer than a day is needed, as several have said.
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Carl Weis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 23 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 3:56:01 AM
I guess I'm an old-timer with some concerns about continued growth; if American culture and economy should teach us anything it is that growth for growth sake can produce obscene mediocrity and inequality. I often feel that there are too many articles on pretty much the same subject and all too often presenting nothing but substance-poor rants - providing self-therapy for the authors. I got started in writing frequent articles on government and politics at OEN and consider it my web home. But at some point I realized that I wanted to reach a larger audience and used the concept of a newspaper syndicate for columnists. I see different websites akin to different newspapers, located in different parts of cyberspace. I bring this up because I have seen some vast differences among the dozens of sites that publish my writings. On the plus side for OEN, many politicaly oriented websites are incredibly narrow minded, biased, and oppressive when it comes to many topics; one example: some major sites (e.g., dailykos) will not permit coverage of 9/11 truth; others (e.g., blogcritics) are openly nasty to left-thinking authors. OEN should be very proud of its openness and considerable freedom it gives writers and commenters. The one tough issue that has not been effectively addressed YET has to do with the "culture" of OEN. Websites like organizations have a "corporate culture" of some sort. At many other sites there is an incredible amount of comments on virtually all published articles; on some sites I publish the same materials on there are typically dozens of back-and-forth comments compared to, at best, a handful on OEN. I have often wondered why there are relatively few comments at OEN for the vast majority of oped articles. Are most readers of the same mindset as expressed by most regular writers? Are there just too many articles, making it too time consuming for readers to comment on many of them? Are too many articles repeating the same themes and points of view?
My recommendation for building a strong OEN community is to focus energy on expanding the comment-culture, rather than merely going for a bigger site.
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (126 articles, 31 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 509 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 3:23:32 PM
I'm 100% with you on this Joel. I think a lot of the sites with high comment numbers have pretty shallow content in the comments. But still, I'd like to see a lot more. Ideas on changing the user interface are also welcome.
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Rob Kall (808 articles, 3923 quicklinks, 332 diaries, 1703 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 3:32:29 PM
Perhaps you could create a small group of people/editors that would "seed" comments by immediately posting some edgy, devils advocate, prickly set of questions, assertions or objections to some crtical parts of articles. Not long discourses, but short, easily read bullets to get the blood boiling and motivate those holding different beliefs, values, perspectives than the article author.
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (126 articles, 31 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 509 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 3:50:59 PM
Flesh it out a bit. How would it look? WOuld the site support the team in any way, for example, listing them in the masthead, giving them any extra abilities?
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Rob Kall (808 articles, 3923 quicklinks, 332 diaries, 1703 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 5:07:20 PM
Rob, I suggest asking for volunteers who would either use their real names or pen names for this purpose; they should be natural provocateurs, critical thinkers, contrarians and understand that they are trying to entice others to enter the discussion. Article authors may not like this, but the idea is that they too should enter the discussion and defend their views, information and conclusions. In other words, some healthy confrontation should provoke dialogue/discussion in the spirit of intellectual FUN. Seed commenters should, of course, not be nasty, nor insult the article author, but still be bold.
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (126 articles, 31 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 509 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 5:48:32 PM
One thing that distinguishes OEN from most sites is the length, and depth of thought, put into the comments that are posted. I see many articles that quickly entice 10 to 30 well reasoned comments, but then the next day's articles start to get posted, and everyone is off to that day's articles and their comments on those articles, while the discussion left behind dies an untimely death. While I am not familiar with web hosting, a good idea would seem to be to automatically promote an article up to the new day's posting if its comment numbers hit a certain amount, or to add a new flag that if enough commentators flagged the article, it would automatically be moved to the next day, and the next, and so on. In this way, threads could continue into the hundreds on articles of particular controversy, rather than spiking artificial controversy on articles no one has found interesting enough on which to comment. Either of these methods would keep an excellent article and a lengthy and controversial thread in OEN's highlights for all who happen upon the site.
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W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 330 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 7:45:08 PM
Why do we have to put ideas in terms of being left of something, or right of something, or centric of something? I don't care if someone's a Democrat or Republican or Catholic or Jew or Protestant or just plain spiritual.
What matters to me if they think it is okay to lie, steal or murder, whatever the justification. If someone's lying to and stealing from the public, let's expose them, or at least alert those paying attention to know who to avoid. If they think it's okay to profit from lyin', stealin' and killin', let's debate those issues, pro and con.
I'm sure we won't agree on who's lyin', stealin' and killin', but at least the subject will be out in the sunlight for folks to make up their own minds. We need to get back to where lyin', stealin' and killin' is NOT a profitable endeavor.
Then I think the world will be a better place for most of us who are NOT sociopaths. Those with empathy and a conscience are the important folks. We will never please sociopaths, nor should we. Enough already!
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Edward Ulysses Cate (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 217 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 7:00:19 PM
With respect to the idea of picking up on the more intensified discussions, in order to allow them further development than a single day's usage, how about creating a kind of 'central arena' section in which the day's most comment-heavy articles can linger for an extra day or two, as a way of allowing (or seeking) return-to-the-fray input which can tend to further resolution on issues of ongoing engagement. You could allow a 3-day span to such topics, and flag them for 2nd or 3rd day so folks would know.
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Irvthom (7 articles, 2 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 83 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 8:18:30 PM
I like the idea of encouraging more comments, but...
... at the same time I think we have to encourage conscientious commenting practices. One of the more important ones is that we discourage hijacking of threads. If someone puts their heart and mind into writing a good article about the economy and a small group hijacks the discussion to have it center on 9/11, when the author of the article never touched on 9/11 at all, that is a problem. This happened very recently. See http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dave_lin_080310_america_3a_lying_polit.htm
I understand everyone has their hotbutton issues. I understand that to many 9/11 truthers, that issue is the be all, end all. But you have to understand that it isnt the be all, end all to everyone else. If you want to discuss 9/11 truth, create an article or diary that has that as the main topic. Dont hijack someone elses article on the economy, or other subject.
Similarly, I have seen articles posted or reposted by elected officials where the topic is specific and the thread gets completely hijacked to discuss something totally unrelated such as why that politician does or doesnt support impeachment or the politicians vote on the IWR.
Thread hijacking is grounds for being banned on many discussion websites. It is a discussion killer. It discourages new authors from writing articles here. Its one thing to challenge someones ideas, but to write about something completely unrelated is just not the thing to do.
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Steven Leser (212 articles, 45 quicklinks, 33 diaries, 1397 comments)
on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 11:37:19 PM
Nice job, Rob. You might want to save this so you can use and expand on it down the road when you feel the necessity to enlighten some newbees, as you most certainly will if OpEdNews continues on this course. What I like to do when I'm writing my blog, http://absurdnotions.blog.com , is research a topic or event enough to ensure it's legit, and form an opinion, and then write just enough to get the reader curious so they want to look the subject up themselves. That way they've had the opportunity to form their OWN opinions, and educate themselves sufficiently to conduct an intelligent conversation.
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Rick Mason (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 26 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 5:56:52 AM
My 2c. It would be nice if you could arrange for comments to be marked when there is a response. If I were to open my "comments" and saw a number (or lack of) I would know if I had a response, and that would save me the time to search. That would be nice. MSN Slate has that feature. I like what Daily Paul does in that it offers you the freedom to post an article to the top of the forum, no censorship...this forum scrolls, and one that is active, can stay up for weeks with hundreds of comments, while others, pass away as if no one ever saw them. There is also a active comment list running, with two active blogg lists, the comments and forum lists scroll, and that's nice, and why Daily Paul has 700 users at any given time.
One of the things about the Daily Paul is Michael Nystrom, has advertizing from sponcers that are selling Ron Paul related things, which I appreciate because I can check into Daily paul and have the information, tools, products, things I need and appreciate to be informaed and "armed" with info.
No blogg can be all things to all people. Also, it seems some folks have a way of making one feel guilty when a relationship comes to an end. But relationships do end as we grow, and new relationships begin, and hopefully, the new ones are fueling us to more growth.
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Jeanette Doney (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 304 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 8:25:08 AM
Steven. The digression in comments from the subject of the article to ones pet subjects often negates the entire discussion. Thanks for pointing this out.
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Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments)
on Thursday, March 13, 2008 at 8:50:37 AM
