Tuesday, March 21, 2006

What Makes (Made) Salon Bloggers a Community?

If we're going to keep the Salon Blog mojo/jive alive, here, somewhere, or virtually, we need to answer this question. What I love(d) about Sloggers was:
  • manageable size, so we were familiar to each other, helped each other out, regularly read each others' posts etc. -- that's what made it a community, a group of friends
  • no dominance -- it was a group without a hierarchy, jealousy, any of the other things that make some groups unpleasant to belong to
  • shared political worldview, but with a lot of personal commentary as well, so we really got to know each other
  • the cachet of being associated with Salon.com, despite the fact they treated us like shit
  • the sense of fun -- from Raven's goofy posts to VO madness to Birdie's wacky virtual parties
This was unique, to my knowledge. If there were other similar communities, they must have had some other 'gel' that got them and kept them together, though I don't know what it was. Some of the more 'social' blog tools oriented towards younger people have tools to help you 'find' like minds and set up virtual communities with them. Now, there's Zaadz, which is really worth a look -- kinda what Salon Blogs was aiming to be, though a bit less political, and with an amazing 2500 active members. Can we learn from them? Should we join them? What else was keeping us together in Salon Blogs that we don't want to lose? What was it that really made us a community?

6 Comments:

Blogger Patia said...

It's been awhile since I jumped ship at Salon Blogs and caught the Blogger life raft, but I'll weigh in. What I liked best about the Salon blogging community was that it attracted a higher caliber of blogger (and blog reader). The Salon crowd tends to be more literate, liberal and respectful than that at Blogger and others.

And although I love the ease of using Blogger, I don't really feel part of any particular community there. It doesn't seem to be designed to facilitate community, whereas Salon was.

Although I no longer check the Recently Posted list at Salon, I do still subscribe to (and adore) several Salon blogs. (Especially Beauty Dish and Blogcabin!)

Thanks for the Zaadz link. Interesting proposal, and I like the concept, although it seems a little New Age-y for my current tastes.

My question is: Why doesn't Salon get its act together? Either create a publishing tool that really works, or figure out some other way to create community among its readers/bloggers. I fear it may be too late for the former -- I doubt I'd go back at this point. But I'd love a way to get reconnected with the Salon community, via a blog directory, web ring or some such. (And not just because my hit count and comments took a dive when I left Salon!)

Has there been any official (or unofficial) commentary on the sad state of RUL affairs from Salon?

Wed Mar 22, 08:36:00 PM 2006  
Blogger Phil said...

I use Bloglines to track when former Salon bloggers update. We could set up a "Salon Diaspora" Bloglines account, make it "public", and everyone could link to it. Maybe?

Wed Mar 22, 09:00:00 PM 2006  
Blogger Patia said...

That's a great idea, Phil.

Thu Mar 23, 10:19:00 AM 2006  
Blogger mark hoback said...

I agree with most of what Dave has to say here, and Patia also has some good points. Salon Blogs was magic for a bit, but that's fading into a memory - not because of the folks involved, rather, it's the indifference of the parent organization which never did understand the value of content. I used to be able to look at an issue of Virtual Occoquan and say 'Damn, this is better than a week of Salon'. And it was.

The thing is, a community like that needs a leader/sponsor/liaison (not to mention someone who can make a call when the servers go down!). If anyone has the time and resources to step into that role, they've got my support.

Hope you're all doing well, good people.

Fri Mar 24, 07:29:00 AM 2006  
Blogger Bonnie said...

I love Salon for all the reason Dave mentions, and hate it for all the reasons Dave mentions. Today I've been trying to get my newest post to show up, but so far no dice.

I agree with Patia about the higher caliber of writing there. That is a big reason why I joined Salon specifically. I hope to do something with my writing, and Salon seems to be the best place to support that goal.

Some of us - most notably, me - really stink at technological bells and whistles. I haven't been able to figure out Bloglines, and can't figure out how to post pictures on my Salon blog. Therefore, I'm likely to be left in the dust if our efforts to connect get too complex. Either that, or you'll all have to come over to my house and get me all connected up! It's so pathetic, yet true.

I think I have to put my Blogger address in these comments, right? So here is my Salon link: http://blogs.salon.com/0003947

Mon Apr 03, 09:34:00 AM 2006  
Blogger Unknown said...

Nice thinking. Thank you very much for taking the time to write it.

Regards

Zee Mathews
The Salon Mangers Academy

Wed May 12, 04:39:00 AM 2010  

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