I just read an instruction blog as Salon.  Open Salon has 4,000 people trying to write and be read..I had only one post that had as many as ten comments and recs.  I will still send a post down there once in a while and I look for four writers I enjoy.  Like the newspapers I read or other news sites like Politico and Daily Beast, one can bring nothing to the table unless one does some hunting.

The problem at Salon is that once you post, you have about fifteen minutes to half an hour and you are not on the front page anymore.  That is unless you get four or five comments and 'thumbs up' in that period.  

Now I just got into this wonderful addiction.  Due to some neurological problems, I got to the point where I could not put three sentences together for many years.  There was too much noise. Noise is chaos.

At TPM, there is such a small group that your post can sit up on the front page, so to speak, for hours. There are other reasons for being at TPM.  Yesterday somebody was trying to use Café to sell insurance. I wrote to TPM at their comment site and complained.  I was not the only one. I took off for three or four hours and came back and the spam was gone.

TPM also brings all these experts in at its home and Café and we get to post comments to Secretary Reich or Nobel Laureate Krugman or top economists, etc.  Muckraker is fun. Election Central is good. And things written here are cited on cable news.  This is the best of all possible worlds.

I do not see how Café can sustain this world because more people will join once they see they can post and get comments.  Well researched posts like those from SleepinJeezus or TheraP. Poets like TheraP or LisaB or Orlando..  Well reasoned comments and posts by Stillidealist. And yet someone sees something funny in a news post and cites it and it creates a whole discussion.

Lux, Pseudo, Miguel and Stilli are constantly commenting and posting and kidding and arguing and all the good things you get to do here. And Bwakfat-what the hell is a bwakfat? And Astral can do a good rant and then get into some technical stuff that loses me completely and 20 people chime in to what he is talking about.

And when you just think you are doing well the Old Grouch catches up to you.

You can take time to drink from these wells and ponder how they strike you. I am here because I posted something I thought silly at the last minute and was actually going to erase.  The next morning I get up and there were all these comments, long comments and short comments and a discussion in which I was not even part since I crashed just after I posted.

Oh, I should have written this. Oh I should have omitted this. Oh, I should have revised this. Oh, I should have checked on how to spell Kelvin.  And then there were three really kind comments and I was hooked. I could experiment and take chances.  What did I have to lose.  My first two or three posts were ignored completely, so I figured what the hell.  You cannot really embarrass yourself.  

And there are good hard arguments.  There is not just Cumbaya. (I never did get how to spell this.)

At any rate this writer at Salon was instructing people how to get noticed.  Do not just put up a Baby picture and think your are going to get 15 thumbs up.  But you do not need to write the Declaration of Independence either.  And get a cabal together. At Salon you can send messages within the system so you do not need to hand out your email address.  At Salon you have 'friends' instead of followers and followings.  She says just make somebody your friend.  Then send all your friends notice that you are going to post so that you get immediate comments and get to stay on the boards.

At Café we do not have to think like that.  At least not yet. We get time.  LisaB does a poem and I do not get it.  Then there are four or five early comments (Because TheraP and LisaB will get fifty comments and 35 recs. They are experienced and talented at this) After I read the first few comments, I start 'getting' what is being communicated. The same goes for Orlando.

To be able to write out a thought, or a rant like me and JoeB and Erica and scores of others and get a reaction is just great.  It then becomes more than an exercise to see who won the day than taking a look at how to better gestate an idea and put it into words that can be comprehended.

As of yet, we do not have to conspire to be heard. And there is an underground here also.  Jason (Teddy R) is still running an entire discussion that is two weeks old.  Big, hard arguments. Proofs and disproofs as well as spoofs.  For all intents and purposes Jason has his own separate blog.

One last thought. The use of cites is getting better and better.   Someone writes three paragraphs and you can click and read scores of pages on the subject or see something hilarious on Utube. It is like the writer has his or her own variety show or news slot.

All of this experimentation. All of these techniques. Everybody daring to try something new or bring back something old.  Venting anger. Creating laughter.  I cannot tell you how much this exercise has loosened up my mind.  If you think I am crazy now, you should have seen me a year ago.

I can't list everybody I read.  This is at the top of my head. Which is a small space and I do not wish to write 20 pages right now.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS. And Debbiedoesnothing, this goes for you. A lot of you do not even use your real name.  How can you lose? I predict that numbers will soar and we will end up with twenty pages of titles to new posts and people will become lost and be forced to do what they are doing in Open Salon.    

I can see I am rambling.


THE END