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Raise the curtain.

Welcome to all our new readers... and a To-Do list

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Wed Feb 11, 2009 at 06:24:27 PM EST
Tags: Sphere, best practices, building a better blogosphere (all tags)

What's up team?

We're entering a new cycle here and the Right Michigan community, happily, continues to grow. Actually, that's putting it sort of mildly.

Whether it's a renewed focus amongst conservatives on community, folks finally starting to understand the power of the web, a consistently quality product or a mix of those and innumerable other factors, traffic, page views and site membership continue to outperform my expectations. To give you some kind of an idea, in the last ten days, the dog days of February in an off-year, we're doing better than 34% more traffic than we were in that same time period a year ago... and that was an election year! Compare that traffic to the same time period in 2007, the last off-year? Try a 300%+ increase.

So, first of all, THANKS! You guys and girls are the best!

Of course all of that new traffic means many of you reading this now are relatively new to Right Michigan. Heck, many of you are probably new to the concept of a group blog in general.

With that in mind, I figured now would probably be a good time to go over some best practices. A DO list, if you will (DON'T DO lists are so... negative).

1) DO submit your own blogs! Its as simple as clicking "Submit new blog" over in the menu on the right. Have something no your mind? Share it with us! That's what community is all about. Keep in mind that this is RightMICHIGAN, though, and make sure that your blog discusses Michigan political issues. If you're going to discuss national political issues make sure you find a Michigan angle or focus.

For instance, a general discussion of how rotten Congressional Democrats new special interest spending package really is is awesome, but its even better if that discussion focuses on Michigan Democrats' roles in passing it or Michigan Republicans' roles in opposing it.

Give it that local flavor. That's what sets RightMichigan apart from all of the other big fancy political blogs on the block.

2) DO make it original. Share your own thoughts! The point of community is to share with one another... to get to know one another. Readers are much less interested in a copy-and-paste job of a story they may have seen in six other places than they are in knowing how that story affects you and the specific thoughts and feelings it elicits.

Plus there's that pesky "fair use" concept. (Click it to read more.)

A good rule of thumb is 2/1. Use your word processor and count the words. If your blog entry is at least two-thirds your own original thoughts and reaction, sweetness squared. If more than a third of the content is taken up by direct quotations you might want to adjust.

3) DO leave comments. Maybe you're more interested in sharing your own perspective on a blog posting you see on RightMichigan than you are with submitting your own blog. Just click "Post Comment" after the story and let everyone know what you think!

And remember, no one will ever see anything but your username. Say what you want to say!

4) DO fact check and spell check. I can speak from experience here... its always better to get it right the first time than to have someone else call you on a mistake after the whole world has seen it!

5) DO keep it respectful. We need to call the bad guys out for being villains but we're always better served if we leave the name calling, profanity, hate and vitriol to the prominent lefty blogs in the state. Besides, they've specialized in hate-speech for years. They'd be tough to beat.

6) DO share the stories you see here with others! When you scroll down after clicking through to a story you'll see a menu of sharing options. Digg it. Facebook it. Tweet it. Email it. Spread the love. I'm not above saying pretty please, either. Ahem... pretty please?

7) DO follow RightMichigan on Facebook and Twitter. Because... well... MORE RightMichigan is always better than LESS RightMichigan...

8) DO ask questions. Ever have anything on your mind, leave a comment or shoot me an email at RightMichigan@gmail.com. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

9) DO click our banner ads! Yes, even if they have a smiling picture of the Governor on them. These ads pay for web hosting and the occasional techie assistance when I can't figure out how to resolve a glitch or an upgrade myself.

10) DO make sure you've got your own home away from home on the web! Have you started your own blog yet? Yes or no, check out this uber-groovy guide for some tips and tricks to making it the best experience possible. And make sure you let me know so I can get you in the handy-dandy blogroll over there on the right.