WELCOME

[cosmobeak]

I am loving this blogger idea! I believe when the idea was originally proposed, it was more about having a blog than a newspaper. The newspaper was great, but it did demand a lot of individual time since so much goes into that. I love the blog idea, though.

I think especially since we're doing it on blogger, which is a very popular site, we can get the CS name out there if we write articles that are controversial enough. We can give the Youth's perspective both from a liberal and conservative standpoint. It'll bring more people to CS, and allow others to think about our message. This is great!

So, once we've gotten all the formalities done I can send out a mass email and put up a bulletin on news about wanting blog contributors. I think we should probably ask for some kind of commitment from our contributes contributors. Like, at least one entry a month or something. If others want to contribute but cannot stay that committed, one of us can post their article when they have it, and make sure it says like "guest entry" at the top and gives all credit to them.

Is there any way you can mod it, Raven? So that contributors can't really post definitely unless you've approved it? I know we have freedom of speech and stuff, but I don't want something posted on the CS blog if it says like "Get a gun and shoot all the immigrants" (and it's not being satirical)

[lipton_lover]

it looks like the blog creator has the power to remove posts... not sure though.

So will we do away with editing/approving then? We can still moderate if necessary.

I really want others who find our blog to be able to participate.

Yeah we don't want people to just post to insult someone or anything like that. We can keep it civilized, just like here.

This is exciting!

[cosmobeak]

I think what we might want to do is keep it all CS people. We would still edit and approve, just like we would do with the newspaper. It would be more of a grammatical check than a content one (though if something is really terrible, it wouldn't get through the edit). Once it's approved by Snazzy, the author can post it. That way we can maintain CS's reputation of being full of INTELLIGENT youth, because our posts would be free of grammar and spelling mistakes.

Though whatever, I'm open to suggestions. If people happen across our blog and want to write for it, they'll be able to do that if they sign up for CS. Or perhaps we can get guest articles written by people that want to contribute. I think all the "main" contributors that you see on the page should be actual Civil Squabble members, though, so it's automatically attached to the site.

It would also be cool if we tried to branch out a little bit. Did a little advertising, maybe got local politicians to contribute an article or interview them or something. Really get out there.

[Raven821]

everyone CAN contribute their ideas--that's what this forum is for!

[lipton_lover]

I laughed when you said local politicians... don't forget we all live in different states lol. Also, I don't exactly want to do a face-to-face interview. Maybe just an email with questions...

I really don't want to keep it completely to CS members. The more articles and the more diverse we are, the better the paper is and the more people it appeals to. Also, getting others to write an article kind of introduces them to CS. But it would need to go through editing and meet our standards.

I guess you're right... editing is important. We don't want to hurt our image.

We will be able to post stuff that isn't debatish/news too, right? I'm really looking for more publicity with the stuff I've written, and the sites I've put them on so far haven't really helped.

I have one problem with the editing thing the way it currently is/was. We shouldn't have our editing dependent on one person. What if snaz can't edit for a while? Unless someone else takes over, we won't be able to put anything up. Also she can only do so much editing in a given amount of time.

[Raven821]

Lipton, I think you'll need to create your own blog for your non-newsy stuff. Mostly because we need the blog to have a focus, and that focus is current events and policy issues. However, if you create a blog with the same account that you use to post on our blog (you can totally do that) people will be linked to that blog when they click on your profile.

Keep in mind that this is OUR blog. Anyone can post on it as long as they are affiliated with us. Really, they just need to make an account and introduce themselves.

[cosmobeak]

Yeah, I agree, Raven. I think that as long as they're affiliated with CS in some form then they can post. We don't want strangers from other sites putting stuff on the CIVIL SQUABBLE blog. I mean, seriously, how long does it take to sign up and become legitimate.

And by local politicans...I meant local for all of our towns. It would be cool to have a diverse group; an interview from the mayor of my town and one from the city counsel chair of yours or something. or even youth interested in politics. I know the president of the young dems at the local high school is very open about that stuff.

[lipton_lover]

OK agree that makes sense both about me making a blog and about them having to sign up.

We need to coin a phrase that says how diverse we are... I think it's worth working on. We cover all aspects of stuff from all points of view, not just republican, not just democrat, not just independent.