The following is a reprint from comment I left on Huffington Post this morning, in response to their call out to bloggers for some input on future of their Green section. By the way, thanks Nadine, and Ian at NRDC blog for your kind comments about La Marguerite blog.
Olivia,
There are three very important aspects of blogging that I would like to bring up in this discussion:
First, is blogging as a vehicle for the building of a vibrant community of passionate people. This has been the most rewarding part of my involvement with La Marguerite blog. In order for it to work, your team needs to play the role of moderators, responding to, and connecting all the folks that honor you with their visit. Most of the major green blogs follow the old model of blogging as just writing, and interact very little with their readers.
Second, is blogging as a channel for problem solving and activism. Sooner or later, just talking about things cease to be sufficient. One natural progression is for clusters of people to want to take it further, and start implementing solutions discussed in the blog. This is happening on my blog, where several groups of readers have spun off into offline discussions, leading to several green initiatives. What I would like to suggest, is that you incorporate a more formal structure for such initiatives.
Third, you may be interested in Mark Klein‘s Collaboratorium initiative at MIT, regarding new ways to structure blogging discussions, so that they become more productive. For more on this, I invite you to read post I wrote a while ago, including discussion with Mark Klein‘s comment towards end of the thread: https://lamarguerite.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/mit-collaboratorium-wants-to-organize-the-climate-change-debate/
Marguerite
More on Environment
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
La Marguerite 
That’s a great message, Marguerite. I agree, and it’s great to hear you describe your thoughts to Huffington Post.
Given my situation, my blogging strategy is to blog mainly on two blogs, Dot Earth and here. I’d like to add a third (AH’s NevCountyCAN) but I haven’t make it a habit yet, as I have too many balls up in the air.
At some point, I may start my own small blog, which can hopefully link to, and help feed, other blogs. But, that takes time and continuity, two things that are hard to come by. And, I haven’t figured out the most suitable format/style for me: Should I just write a short piece every other day and not focus much on the interaction/dialogue, in other words, more of a “broadcast” or narrowcast than an interactive site? Should I focus on the ethics, or science, or both? Should I try to adopt a peak-oil strip-tease format to lure readers (although I’d have to practice alot and probably lose some weight!). These things aren’t easy to decide. I think you’ve come up with a great approach.
Finally, as an aside (before I get back to work): From the artistic/musical side of the mix, I recently rediscovered a great, relevant, and beautiful song that relates to all this, and I highly suggest it: “After the Goldrush”, by Neil Young. It’s super.
Cheers for now.
Marguerite,
I saw Al Gore on Meet the Press yesterday, and he was less than impressive. When asked about why he needed a giant home for he and Tipper, he took the usual political road out and didn’t answer. Hey, every couple should have a 10,000 square foot home–it’s the American dream writ large! He hedged on a number of other answers as well.
I am not anti-Gore, but am concerned about both the messenger and how well his message will sell. Some of your readers might be interested in a short article by Dmitry Orlov, “A boondoggle to end all boondoggles?” published in Energy Bulletin. (http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45970) As Orlov concludes, “It’s all the things that Al doesn’t mention that makes his proposal less significant than it might otherwise be.”
Most of earth’s 6.7 billion people are poor and do little harm to the atmosphere. They will be sacrificed by the rich, if need be, to maintain lifestyles that make little or no sense. Witness how rich bankers and financial dealers have fleeced Americans, avoided taxes, and now have the gall, and the power via Treasury Secretary Paulson, to ask poor taxpayers to bail them out. Not good!
Good advice, Marguerite – especially about the writer responding to comments. That’s something that really brings people back, blogging as a conversation. Sometimes you spend a lot of time composing a thoughtful comment and it just goes… fizzle, no response.
And having something of a moderator role is good, too. Otherwise the conversation can easily become dominated by the stupidest people commenting.
It’s easy to make mistakes in this area. For example, on one blog I gave a lengthy thoughtful comment, and we went back and forth with responses to each-other – nothing aggro, just a discussion. The writer then said, “well I don’t want this to turn into the longest webpage in existence, so we’ll stop it here. But I just want to say that -” So the message I got was, “I don’t want lengthy discussions, and in any case I want to have the last word.” So I respect the writer’s wishes and don’t comment on their blog anymore. And knowing I won’t comment on it makes me less quick to visit and read it.
Anyway, I think that each medium has its strengths and weaknesses. And one of the strengths of the blogging medium is that it can lead to interesting conversations where everyone learns something new. So as in your excellent advice, blog writers should do things which encourage that strength.
Jeff, I love Neil Young! Thanks for the lead. On another note, I strongly encourage you to have your own blog. Having a blog is very different from only commenting on others’ blogs. And I think you have so much to say! In any case, I suggest you focus on what is most important to you, and what you like to write about the most. If you need help getting started, please count me as a resource.
Gary thanks for the link. Well worth reading! Like you, I am not anti-Gore, actually I love the guy, but I thought his last speech was just an easy way around the real issues. Conservation and efficiency should be the first things on the world agenda.
Kyle, thanks for your comment. People usually like to be acknowledged, particularly when they give so much of their time, intelligence and energy, as you do. A blog is no different than any other community, let us not forget that.
I totally agree with you ladies and gentlemen on many points :
– Always replying to a comment. Indeed, it is key to the success of a blog. Write you appreciate the effort your reader did to comment ( for a year I almost never had any… now that I have I thank the person and discuss on the matter.)
– Jeff should definitively start a blog as soon as possible as he has many interesting things to write about.
A personal message to him : if you need any help, count me in too ! I’ll be glad to help you in this endeavor as it is always a pleasure to read you and… watch you on Dot Earth !
Enjoy your day !
Marguerite, I love what you said there. There’s so much wisdom in these few sentences.
Jeff, I urge you to start a blog. With your background in both business, philosophy and ethics, you will make an excellent “discussion leader”. I’ll surely weigh in, just like I do on Eduoard’s blog, which I got to know through here.
I think you can figure out what works and what doesn’t on the go. When looking at it from a distance La Marguerite is also quite diverse. I sometimes doubt if Marguerite follows any strategy at all. 🙂
I also don’t care if posting is sporadic. Each post will just show up in my feed reader. I might forget about you if you don’t post something for a long time of course.
Gary, I agree that Gore misses moral authority because he doesn’t have exemplary behavior. But in defense of him: Does anyone out there do any better in total? He said what no-one dared to say. It’s true that he hasn’t presented a plan, but the main message is that there’s far more possible than we think, given popular support And he wants to help create this popular support. He called it “enlarging the political space” on the Netroots conference lately. That’s his goal.
Also don’t forget that we don’t have to solve this problem from the supply side alone (which, like Marguerite, I think was a weakness in Gore’s speech). We can work on energy conversation simultaneously. I’m sure he’ll applaud serious efforts on this matter.
Gary, know I’ve read Orlov’s article: I never would follow anyone would say something like what he’s proposing. He’s a pessimist. I don’t follow pessimists, period.
This doesn’t mean I’m not in favor of radical relocalization and resource conversation. We should do it all, and we’ll end up in our strongest form ever.
The moon will never has felt as close.
I would love to see something like WhyTuesday – Where instead of a network of folks blogging about environmentalism (which is necessary, of course), we put Flip cameras in the hands of folks throughout the country and get them to go to the experts and ask them questions about the issue.
Alex, great idea. Will you make it happen? 🙂
Thanks for visiting La Marguerite.
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