And going back to another issue, I would like to encourage those listed as Contributors to make whatever account changes are needed to have their real/full names appear. I am not going to make changes to anyone's status as a Contributor, but I may remove from the displayed list any names that are not real/full.
The reason my name shows up as only crystal is because I've had a blog for over a decade with that google account name and I don't want to change it. But you guys all know from dotCommonweal that my last name is watson and if David wants to, he can list my full name in the sidebar.
Years ago when they renamed Crystal Cathedral, you remarked on PrayTell. "I kind a like the name Crystal." I agree. I recognized you across blogs without the last name.
OK, color me stupid. 1. I can find the jump break button, but I have no idea when or, more importantly, why to use it. I used to see curlicues in posts from time to time, but they look like toes on piano stools to me. And about as useful.
2. If there is too much religion, write about something else.
3. I know who everybody is but the Catholic from Cleveland, and he/she has had some pretty good stuff. If my own lower case is one of the offensive items, I'd change it if I knew how, but whether I get into this site is a boon vouchsafed or withheld by Google on its own whim, and I hate to kill a 50% good thing by offending the logarithm that decides whether it's an in-day or an out-day.
Using the jump button means that the first few inches of your post appear and then a link that says "read more." It prevents people from inadvertently hogging the "front page" of the blog.
Jean, When I come onto this site, I get page listing posts by title. There is no way anyone can hog a simple list. Now, it appears to me that it is somehow possible for people smarter than I to get from that page to one days' worth of blogs, in order. I did that by accident and don't know how to repeat the feat or why I would. Is that what the curlicue is needed for? Or is my ignorance invincible?
Tom, where do you see this list of titles? Most of us are seeing a title, usually a looong post. Then another title. Blogger cuts off older posts when the scroll gets too long. So what I see are people essentially shoving others to the jump page, which usually stifles conversation on a thread.
From Tom's description he is probably doing what I do, i.e.log into the list of posts where we work on our own by pressing the "edit" button. If I see new posts or what looks like new comments on recent posts I hit the "view" button on that page to bring that post since it gives me not only the full post but all the comments.
I rarely go the blog's home page with all the posts. But I am sure Steinfels is concerned about how that looks.
Right now, like Tom, I have a lot of practical concerns. I have never used blogger and so I am figuring out how I want to use it, and how to express myself in this format. I am use to designing web pages in Web Expressions not blog pages. So I am getting the feel of what it means to get your topic together in the first paragraph or two. My style is more academic, as a student once said "I wonder why he saying that, then why he staying another thing , but in the end you bring it all together. Fine for a website and the 4 page pdfs. that I design for it. But not exactly the blog world.
OK, Tom is going in on the admin side. Be aware that non authors will see the page from the user side, and they will have to scroll and click a lot to see older stories.
Yes, the dashboard page. That's where I land when I log in. I only saw once what you see when you log in, and I don't know how I saw it. I see headlines and can either "view" or "share." Thanks, all, for enlightenment.
Actually the first post by the catholic from Cleveland leads the reader to so much documentation about him that any objective person would say he is probably the most documented among us except for Steinfels and Komonchak.
Included in that documentation is a NYTimes article that quotes him with his first and last name occupation and age. Can't get any more documented than that.
I agree with Steinfels that there is too much religion.
However I think we all have to write about what interests us. And my interest is spirituality which is not the same as religion. As a social scientist I think about spirituality much differently than people in a religious studies department think0 about it. In fact I would feel pretty uncomfortable teaching in a religious studies department.
My current posts on religious music are entirely due to Crystal. Until she suggested not simply music but singing, I would never have thought to do something about singing for this blog although I commented on the issue a lot at PrayTell. I think it is pretty good blog dynamic when one of your colleagues does a post that leads you to think, You know I have a lot to say about that, it will probably take several posts.
One of the reasons I decided to respond to Crystal was that I rarely if ever use YouTube. So right now I am engaged in the process of figuring out how to use it and what it pluses and minus are. Again the fact that I am being challenged to do that says that good things are going on in this blog. Now you might have to put up with a lot of posts on mostly (but not completely) religious music. But then benefits always have their costs.
If anyone agrees there is too much religion on this blog, then write about something else so that the religion gets watered down. I am a social scientist with a lot of interests outside of religion and spirituality, so I may bring some of those into the mix here. For example I am sure there is a lot going on with romantic love and could probably entertain you with that, but quite frankly it isn't a current interest thought it is an "old flame" that I could probably rekindle.
Finally, if you are dissatisfied with the present mix of posts, recruit a new contributor. I already have. During the parish closing when I was reading his material, I was impressed that the catholic democratic from ohio was both very grounded and thinks for himself. Not only Commonweal but the NYTimes could at this particular time benefit from a well grounded catholic democrat from ohio (and rust belt in general as he was describe by the NYTimes) and I am willing to invest some of my time in helping him develop that potential. I also think he has chosen has pen name very well and hope he is not forced to give that up.
I don't care what people write about. I am not interested in long screeds about the hierarchy or arguments about Church doctrine. It is what it is. But that's just me, and I usually skim or skip them.
It would be nice if long posters used the jump feature. Tom's post suggests that not everyone's computer displays Blogger the same way.
I also think it would be courteous not to post that day if someone else has already done so, just to let conversations get started.
When new people come in, welcome! But please tell us something about yourself in your first post, and don't hide behind a lurky pseudonym. It's creepy.
Jean: "I am not interested in long screeds about the hierarchy or arguments about Church doctrine. It is what it is. But that's just me, and I usually skim or skip them."
Yup, that's what the scroll button is for. But it's not what I signed on for.
David Nichols: Thanks for organizing this. How do I sign off?
Just to confirm, are you asking to be removed as a Contributor? It will be a terrible loss for NewGathering, but as site administrator I can cancel your "subscription" if that is your wish.
Thank you David. Jack reminds me that I'm the one who proposed starting a blog--to an enthusiastic crowd! So maybe I should pull in my horns and stick around. I do begin to see some of what Commonweal editors were complaining about at least to us posters!
Katherine Nielsen...I don't mind your asking at all. As your own posts show there's a lot out there for us to discuss and as Stanley points out above a lot to march about and organize against.
U.S. foreign policy happens to be one of my obsessions and it has more or less disappeared from the news because Trump is swamping the news. I know from dotCommonweal that many don't share my interest but it is our army and our tax dollars that have become the policemen to the world. We need to pay more attention.
As for religion! Commonweal's motto is: "A journal of religion, politics, literature and the arts edited by Catholic lay people." I have understood that to mean not that it's a "religious" magazine, but that it is a vehicle for bringing a Catholic perspective to the world around us; in short, part of the Incarnation. I have come to think of the many complaints against bishops, canon law, the Vatican, though often justified, as Catholic navel gazing.
Margaret, thanks for your reply. I agree with you that some of the topics people obsess about become "Catholic navel gazing". US foreign policy isn't one of my areas of expertise, which is why I don't post about it. But I am interested in it, especially from a Catholic and Christian perspective. So I hope that others such as yourself for whom it is an obsession, as you say, will post on that subject. It is a learning opportunity for me.
Jean, Thirty of the 33 posts for March displayed on one page with three left over on a second page including the important invitation to contributors. By putting a jump into several of my posts I was able to bring them all into one page.
Looks like we are going to average more than one post a day since we did not start at the beginning of the month. I do think its a good idea to stop and take a look for a day or two at the postings before jumping it. We also can see each other's pending posts. That might help manage the mix of religion vs other, lengths of posts, etc. Most of the views and comments are over within two or three days.
It may only be me but I guess I don't really like the jump function. I see it on a lot of other blogs and for me, at least, it just means one more click to make.
I do get, though, that long posts may push other earlier posts off the main page. A suggestion - one thing my other blog has that this one doesn't is a 'hot' list of recent posts' titles in the sideboard.
I am here primarily for religious and/or spiritual discussions. Apparently Ms. Steinfels has had too much of that and wants to branch out. I can't say that I blame her, given her particular career history.
I was attracted to Commonweal by the articles that dealt with what I call practical religion and its applications. Not interested in complex theological discussions, but in how the commenters view the events of the day through their particular religious or spiritual prisms. So while I am interested in discussions on the intertwining of religious understanding with current events, I am not looking for strictly political discussions.
Katherine, my background. I grew up in California, educated in Catholic school through 4th grade, moved away and attended public school in a small town (300 in my public high school), then four years at a Catholic, all-women's college during the great transformation that ended most single sex education in colleges. I was in the last class that was on the all-women campus. The following Sept the college merged with the local Jesuit university. I did my graduate work at Georgetown, in economics, with a focus on international economics. I follow political/economic trends closely in the world, especially in Europe and Asia. I am in my 60s now, have three grown sons, and three grandchildren under three years old. I follow immigration and racial issues closely as my three white sons all married women who were not born in the US. One is black, from a Caribbean country. One is Viet Namese, born in a refugee camp to parents who escaped Viet Nam in a boat and survived, unlike 400,000 other escapees who didn't make it. My other d-i-l is European, and she and my son and grandson live overseas. Living in the Washington DC area since grad school (I meant to go back to California, but I met my husband here), I get far more exposure to pure politics than I want to have. I did not look for that at Commonweal nor do I look for it here. Politics is the local industry. If I want to limit myself to non-religious commentary and discussions, there are many websites I can read. There are very few with intelligent christian discussions, including those that involve the current events in the US and the world. I suppose each of us has different preferences. I have a strong interest in spirituality, but think I define it differently than Jack R. I have almost no interest in liturgy. Even while still a practicing Catholic, I much preferred weekday masses to Sunday - a dozen people, quiet, a good 5 minute homily by a Jesuit (my go-to chapel during the week is the one at Holy Trinity church - the original chapel for the Jesuits who founded Georgetown). The chapel is a good example of the virtues of elegant simplicity as opposed to churches that overwhelm with art, statues, stained glass, gilded altars etc. I was an active, very involved in my parish Catholic until the day came I could no longer support the Catholic church, with money or even with my active presence. We attend an Episcopal church now (wonderful music, Jack!). I sang in choirs and small groups when young, but no longer sing. I also no longer enjoy music as much as I did, as I have a hearing loss that causes some notes to sort of disappear, leaving the sound discordant at times. The hearing loss makes events such as plays and concerts pretty much a thing of the past for me also, and I don't seek out discussions of the latest in theatre. I have no idea what people are talking about vis a vis the jump function.
Not sure what it says about us that a thread titled "Complaints" has the third highest response rate, and we've on been at this for a couple of months--second only to Vote No on Gorsuch and Save Marriage through Pessimism.
Jean, it seems this site is still trying to feel its way to being - what? Searching for its identity in the wide world of blogs, I suppose. At Commonweal, I only read about 1/4 of the articles and blog posts. It covered a lot, and it was easy for readers to choose articles of interest and ignore the rest. I don't see why that can't work here. Many times the blog posts had only a couple of comments. Occasionally a blog post pulled more than 100 comments. Is there a problem with Jack posting on liturgy, and Crystal on religious dramas and women's issues (I am interested in women's issues, both in and outside religion, and have no interest in religious drama), and Margaret Steinfels on literature or politics and others posting on whatever they find of interest and may think others will be interested in. Each participant can read and comment as they wish. I read far more blog posts and articles at Commonweal than I commented on and I'm sure others did the same.
I still don't see jumps, nor do I see a menu where there is a button 7th from the right. I don't see any menu with any functions at all "directly above". Only a list of contributor names on the right side of the screen.
The only reason we all know each other is because of religion - Commonweal is a religious magazine. True, there weren't many posts there about spirituality, but there were some. There were also posts about politics, culture, and current events. but usually with a religious perspective.
I visit a lot of blogs .... America magazine, the Jesuit Post, Pray Tell, NCR, the UK Catholic Herald and The Tablet, the XX Factor, US Catholic, etc. I don't read all their posts - only a fraction of them seem especially interesting to me - but that's to be expected.
I have the complete record of the discussion prior to the ending of the Commonweal blog, and you were the one who suggested we have our own blog.
So I hope you don't jump ship so quickly.
So far I have been impressed that my colleagues are able to produce a blog with more than a post per day on average. Many of us are still unfamiliar with the technical apparatus of doing this. I think we have been supportive of one another even when we might not have the same interests.
I think its been a good start. I hope people don't give up on one another. I am not a pessimist.
And going back to another issue, I would like to encourage those listed as Contributors to make whatever account changes are needed to have their real/full names appear. I am not going to make changes to anyone's status as a Contributor, but I may remove from the displayed list any names that are not real/full.
ReplyDeleteThe reason my name shows up as only crystal is because I've had a blog for over a decade with that google account name and I don't want to change it. But you guys all know from dotCommonweal that my last name is watson and if David wants to, he can list my full name in the sidebar.
ReplyDeleteYears ago when they renamed Crystal Cathedral, you remarked on PrayTell. "I kind a like the name Crystal."
DeleteI agree. I recognized you across blogs without the last name.
I remember you from Pray Tell too :)
DeleteOK, color me stupid. 1. I can find the jump break button, but I have no idea when or, more importantly, why to use it. I used to see curlicues in posts from time to time, but they look like toes on piano stools to me. And about as useful.
ReplyDelete2. If there is too much religion, write about something else.
3. I know who everybody is but the Catholic from Cleveland, and he/she has had some pretty good stuff. If my own lower case is one of the offensive items, I'd change it if I knew how, but whether I get into this site is a boon vouchsafed or withheld by Google on its own whim, and I hate to kill a 50% good thing by offending the logarithm that decides whether it's an in-day or an out-day.
Using the jump button means that the first few inches of your post appear and then a link that says "read more." It prevents people from inadvertently hogging the "front page" of the blog.
DeleteJean, When I come onto this site, I get page listing posts by title. There is no way anyone can hog a simple list. Now, it appears to me that it is somehow possible for people smarter than I to get from that page to one days' worth of blogs, in order. I did that by accident and don't know how to repeat the feat or why I would. Is that what the curlicue is needed for? Or is my ignorance invincible?
DeleteTom, where do you see this list of titles? Most of us are seeing a title, usually a looong post. Then another title. Blogger cuts off older posts when the scroll gets too long. So what I see are people essentially shoving others to the jump page, which usually stifles conversation on a thread.
DeleteFrom Tom's description he is probably doing what I do, i.e.log into the list of posts where we work on our own by pressing the "edit" button. If I see new posts or what looks like new comments on recent posts I hit the "view" button on that page to bring that post since it gives me not only the full post but all the comments.
DeleteI rarely go the blog's home page with all the posts. But I am sure Steinfels is concerned about how that looks.
Right now, like Tom, I have a lot of practical concerns. I have never used blogger and so I am figuring out how I want to use it, and how to express myself in this format. I am use to designing web pages in Web Expressions not blog pages. So I am getting the feel of what it means to get your topic together in the first paragraph or two. My style is more academic, as a student once said "I wonder why he saying that, then why he staying another thing , but in the end you bring it all together. Fine for a website and the 4 page pdfs. that I design for it. But not exactly the blog world.
What Jack said - Tom's remembering going to the Dashboard page for the blog, which lists the posts' titles.
DeleteOK, Tom is going in on the admin side. Be aware that non authors will see the page from the user side, and they will have to scroll and click a lot to see older stories.
DeleteYes, the dashboard page. That's where I land when I log in. I only saw once what you see when you log in, and I don't know how I saw it. I see headlines and can either "view" or "share." Thanks, all, for enlightenment.
DeleteActually the first post by the catholic from Cleveland leads the reader to so much documentation about him that any objective person would say he is probably the most documented among us except for Steinfels and Komonchak.
ReplyDeleteIncluded in that documentation is a NYTimes article that quotes him with his first and last name occupation and age. Can't get any more documented than that.
So I have to play detective to figure out whom I'm talking with. Seems kind of cloak and dagger to me.
DeleteI agree with Steinfels that there is too much religion.
ReplyDeleteHowever I think we all have to write about what interests us. And my interest is spirituality which is not the same as religion. As a social scientist I think about spirituality much differently than people in a religious studies department think0 about it. In fact I would feel pretty uncomfortable teaching in a religious studies department.
My current posts on religious music are entirely due to Crystal. Until she suggested not simply music but singing, I would never have thought to do something about singing for this blog although I commented on the issue a lot at PrayTell. I think it is pretty good blog dynamic when one of your colleagues does a post that leads you to think, You know I have a lot to say about that, it will probably take several posts.
One of the reasons I decided to respond to Crystal was that I rarely if ever use YouTube. So right now I am engaged in the process of figuring out how to use it and what it pluses and minus are. Again the fact that I am being challenged to do that says that good things are going on in this blog. Now you might have to put up with a lot of posts on mostly (but not completely) religious music. But then benefits always have their costs.
If anyone agrees there is too much religion on this blog, then write about something else so that the religion gets watered down. I am a social scientist with a lot of interests outside of religion and spirituality, so I may bring some of those into the mix here. For example I am sure there is a lot going on with romantic love and could probably entertain you with that, but quite frankly it isn't a current interest thought it is an "old flame" that I could probably rekindle.
Finally, if you are dissatisfied with the present mix of posts, recruit a new contributor. I already have. During the parish closing when I was reading his material, I was impressed that the catholic democratic from ohio was both very grounded and thinks for himself. Not only Commonweal but the NYTimes could at this particular time benefit from a well grounded catholic democrat from ohio (and rust belt in general as he was describe by the NYTimes) and I am willing to invest some of my time in helping him develop that potential. I also think he has chosen has pen name very well and hope he is not forced to give that up.
I don't care what people write about. I am not interested in long screeds about the hierarchy or arguments about Church doctrine. It is what it is. But that's just me, and I usually skim or skip them.
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if long posters used the jump feature. Tom's post suggests that not everyone's computer displays Blogger the same way.
I also think it would be courteous not to post that day if someone else has already done so, just to let conversations get started.
When new people come in, welcome! But please tell us something about yourself in your first post, and don't hide behind a lurky pseudonym. It's creepy.
Jean: "I am not interested in long screeds about the hierarchy or arguments about Church doctrine. It is what it is. But that's just me, and I usually skim or skip them."
DeleteYup, that's what the scroll button is for. But it's not what I signed on for.
David Nichols: Thanks for organizing this. How do I sign off?
Margaret,
DeleteJust to confirm, are you asking to be removed as a Contributor? It will be a terrible loss for NewGathering, but as site administrator I can cancel your "subscription" if that is your wish.
Margaret, if you don't mind me asking, what are some of the topics you would like to see discussed
DeleteThank you David. Jack reminds me that I'm the one who proposed starting a blog--to an enthusiastic crowd! So maybe I should pull in my horns and stick around. I do begin to see some of what Commonweal editors were complaining about at least to us posters!
DeleteKatherine Nielsen...I don't mind your asking at all. As your own posts show there's a lot out there for us to discuss and as Stanley points out above a lot to march about and organize against.
DeleteU.S. foreign policy happens to be one of my obsessions and it has more or less disappeared from the news because Trump is swamping the news. I know from dotCommonweal that many don't share my interest but it is our army and our tax dollars that have become the policemen to the world. We need to pay more attention.
As for religion! Commonweal's motto is: "A journal of religion, politics, literature and the arts edited by Catholic lay people." I have understood that to mean not that it's a "religious" magazine, but that it is a vehicle for bringing a Catholic perspective to the world around us; in short, part of the Incarnation. I have come to think of the many complaints against bishops, canon law, the Vatican, though often justified, as Catholic navel gazing.
Time to move on.
Margaret, thanks for your reply. I agree with you that some of the topics people obsess about become "Catholic navel gazing". US foreign policy isn't one of my areas of expertise, which is why I don't post about it. But I am interested in it, especially from a Catholic and Christian perspective. So I hope that others such as yourself for whom it is an obsession, as you say, will post on that subject. It is a learning opportunity for me.
DeleteJean,
ReplyDeleteThirty of the 33 posts for March displayed on one page with three left over on a second page including the important invitation to contributors. By putting a jump into several of my posts I was able to bring them all into one page.
Looks like we are going to average more than one post a day since we did not start at the beginning of the month. I do think its a good idea to stop and take a look for a day or two at the postings before jumping it. We also can see each other's pending posts. That might help manage the mix of religion vs other, lengths of posts, etc. Most of the views and comments are over within two or three days.
It may only be me but I guess I don't really like the jump function. I see it on a lot of other blogs and for me, at least, it just means one more click to make.
ReplyDeleteI do get, though, that long posts may push other earlier posts off the main page. A suggestion - one thing my other blog has that this one doesn't is a 'hot' list of recent posts' titles in the sideboard.
I am here primarily for religious and/or spiritual discussions. Apparently Ms. Steinfels has had too much of that and wants to branch out. I can't say that I blame her, given her particular career history.
ReplyDeleteI was attracted to Commonweal by the articles that dealt with what I call practical religion and its applications. Not interested in complex theological discussions, but in how the commenters view the events of the day through their particular religious or spiritual prisms. So while I am interested in discussions on the intertwining of religious understanding with current events, I am not looking for strictly political discussions.
Katherine, my background. I grew up in California, educated in Catholic school through 4th grade, moved away and attended public school in a small town (300 in my public high school), then four years at a Catholic, all-women's college during the great transformation that ended most single sex education in colleges. I was in the last class that was on the all-women campus. The following Sept the college merged with the local Jesuit university. I did my graduate work at Georgetown, in economics, with a focus on international economics. I follow political/economic trends closely in the world, especially in Europe and Asia. I am in my 60s now, have three grown sons, and three grandchildren under three years old. I follow immigration and racial issues closely as my three white sons all married women who were not born in the US. One is black, from a Caribbean country. One is Viet Namese, born in a refugee camp to parents who escaped Viet Nam in a boat and survived, unlike 400,000 other escapees who didn't make it. My other d-i-l is European, and she and my son and grandson live overseas. Living in the Washington DC area since grad school (I meant to go back to California, but I met my husband here), I get far more exposure to pure politics than I want to have. I did not look for that at Commonweal nor do I look for it here. Politics is the local industry. If I want to limit myself to non-religious commentary and discussions, there are many websites I can read. There are very few with intelligent christian discussions, including those that involve the current events in the US and the world. I suppose each of us has different preferences. I have a strong interest in spirituality, but think I define it differently than Jack R. I have almost no interest in liturgy. Even while still a practicing Catholic, I much preferred weekday masses to Sunday - a dozen people, quiet, a good 5 minute homily by a Jesuit (my go-to chapel during the week is the one at Holy Trinity church - the original chapel for the Jesuits who founded Georgetown). The chapel is a good example of the virtues of elegant simplicity as opposed to churches that overwhelm with art, statues, stained glass, gilded altars etc. I was an active, very involved in my parish Catholic until the day came I could no longer support the Catholic church, with money or even with my active presence. We attend an Episcopal church now (wonderful music, Jack!). I sang in choirs and small groups when young, but no longer sing. I also no longer enjoy music as much as I did, as I have a hearing loss that causes some notes to sort of disappear, leaving the sound discordant at times. The hearing loss makes events such as plays and concerts pretty much a thing of the past for me also, and I don't seek out discussions of the latest in theatre. I have no idea what people are talking about vis a vis the jump function.
Not sure what it says about us that a thread titled "Complaints" has the third highest response rate, and we've on been at this for a couple of months--second only to Vote No on Gorsuch and Save Marriage through Pessimism.
ReplyDeleteJust an observation ...
Jean, it seems this site is still trying to feel its way to being - what? Searching for its identity in the wide world of blogs, I suppose. At Commonweal, I only read about 1/4 of the articles and blog posts. It covered a lot, and it was easy for readers to choose articles of interest and ignore the rest. I don't see why that can't work here. Many times the blog posts had only a couple of comments. Occasionally a blog post pulled more than 100 comments. Is there a problem with Jack posting on liturgy, and Crystal on religious dramas and women's issues (I am interested in women's issues, both in and outside religion, and have no interest in religious drama), and Margaret Steinfels on literature or politics and others posting on whatever they find of interest and may think others will be interested in. Each participant can read and comment as they wish. I read far more blog posts and articles at Commonweal than I commented on and I'm sure others did the same.
DeleteI still don't see jumps, nor do I see a menu where there is a button 7th from the right. I don't see any menu with any functions at all "directly above". Only a list of contributor names on the right side of the screen.
Thinking about it, I'm guessing the menu referred to with the jump button is on the page when initiating a topic.
ReplyDeleteI guess I will have to go back to the old email instructions as I don't remember how to do that even though I have contributor status.
The only reason we all know each other is because of religion - Commonweal is a religious magazine. True, there weren't many posts there about spirituality, but there were some. There were also posts about politics, culture, and current events. but usually with a religious perspective.
ReplyDeleteI visit a lot of blogs .... America magazine, the Jesuit Post, Pray Tell, NCR, the UK Catholic Herald and The Tablet, the XX Factor, US Catholic, etc. I don't read all their posts - only a fraction of them seem especially interesting to me - but that's to be expected.
Margaret,
ReplyDeleteI have the complete record of the discussion prior to the ending of the Commonweal blog, and you were the one who suggested we have our own blog.
So I hope you don't jump ship so quickly.
So far I have been impressed that my colleagues are able to produce a blog with more than a post per day on average. Many of us are still unfamiliar with the technical apparatus of doing this. I think we have been supportive of one another even when we might not have the same interests.
I think its been a good start. I hope people don't give up on one another. I am not a pessimist.