This is the second diary about PsiFighter37 and my new project: creating a blogging community similar to DKos for young progressives. In short, the response to the idea was unbelievably positive: most people thought it was an absolutely feasible idea, and offered their encouragement and support.
You can read about our reasons for wanting to create such a site, and what that site would entail, here. Or, you can read the briefest of summaries below the fold. Updates regarding how the site is coming along are below.
OurRevolution was chosen as the working title, as it was an overwhelming favorite (at least, of those who posted), and has grown on me as well. OurRevolution's goal is to
""provide young progressives with the tools to: effectively communicate progressive values with their peers, develop a community of like-minded people across geographical boundaries, actively engage in political activism at the local, state, and national levels, and mold the future leaders of the progressive movement." To accomplish this, the site structure will be part DKos and part facebook.com.
PsiFighter and I have worked a lot on our desired layout, though a lot of work remains to be done. We've partially put this into picture format, so that we'll be able to show the tech guys what we want the site to look like. We still need an image to brand the site. Both he and I had considered the image of a raised fist, but we had a hard time incorporating the image and site name without it feeling militant. We've got another idea floating around, but I'm interested to see what ideas this community has. NOTE: It is not necessary to fit into demographic we're aiming for to offer your suggestions. Everyone has them, I want to hear them.
Talking about demographics brings me to the next topic. As I said last night in one of the open threads: Our "target demographic is 18-22 and younger. those are people that are getting involved with politics for the first time, and are getting involved at a time when many of their peers still dont care. we want to provide them with a community to share ideas, meet like-minded people, and get involved. as such, a cutoff was needed, and thirty seemed like a good one (though perhaps on the old side.?"
PsiFighter and I have talked a lot about what to do with people who don't fit this demographic. Everyone will be welcome to register for the site. However, users over the age of 30 will not be given the opportunity to post diaries or comments. In addition, users over 30 wont be able to network socially in the same way as younger progressives. This is for two reasons: 1) we want young progressives to interact with each other in an environment where they can forge their own path, and 2)we want to avoid any "creepy old stalker" scenario as much as possible.
We're getting ready to start looking into the cost of starting and maintaining this site. The plan is to use CivicSpace, as that seems almost perfectly tailored to what we want to do. Neither PsiFighter or I are any good as internet techs, so we're going to have to find someone to actually create the site, as well as hosting, etc, etc, etc. (I haven't thought too much about money. I'm going to let PsiFighter, as he's a business major. heh) Hopefully, the site won't be too cost-prohibitive.
That about wraps it up. I spose I'll leave you Kossacks the roughest of sketches regarding site layout. We're looking for an image for the upper right corner, if that helps any of you thinking about possible images. Without further ado, I present to you the future front page of OurRevolution.