First of all, big props to Karl - I love the feel of community here.
While on vacation this past week, a couple things were in the front of my mind, notably Chris Bowers' report on the emergence of the progressive blogosphere as well as Dan Rubin's "liberal bloggers" post at Blinq. I want to share some thoughts on each, and I hope we all collectively start commenting on each others posts and help this to be a regional hub, since it seems that Philly is heading back to prominence, as exemplified by the NYTimes story.
So first, as to why their is such a concentration of liberal bloggers here - geography, demographics, and proximity. Philadelphia is small enough where the people behind the blogs are close enough to each other where they can build personal relationships. Never mind the fact that this is a friendly city to begin with. The cross-linking online that results naturally pulls up the respondents in the Googlesphere, and in turn in the the blogosphere.
Secondly, that dialogue and sense of locality adds legitimacy to these blogs. The voyeuristic aspect of blogging leads people to wonder what their neighbors are up to (online). As everyone can surely tell by various goings on around the web, online geolocation seems to be the next big thing, witness the use of Blogdigger and Geoblogger. Personally, it's a good thing, along the lines of "less inside, more outside" - the web becomes a tool to socialize, not isolate.
Secondly, about the progressive blogosphere...I was taking notes while going through the report, so I'll just present them in bullets:
Encourage local bloggers to crosslink to each other
Encourage A-Listers to pull and promote other Philabloggers (a la Instapundit)
As much as I hate to say it, frame your speech. A consistent message lends legitimacy. Even a lie repeated.
Encourage thorough attribution...always link back to your source.
Encourage local activism - outside of political affairs
Google Bombing: As far as search engines are concerned and spam marketing, this is bad. But for making an editorial point? Not so much.
Debunking: Don't just call someone a poopie-head - methodically (but briefly) and definitively eviscerate arguments. If debunked previously, make it a point to show all the many times that the lie has been repeated. And when something truly ridiculous has been stated - don't hesitate to point it out, yet at the same time, to give credibility to every claim.
Search-Engine Optimization: I just did this this weekend...make sure Google crawls your entire site but only indexes posts. This is useful because it will put more sites and more links in the search engines database, and will also land searchers on "the post" and not an index.html or archive.html page. If you set your advertising up right, you can increase the number of ad displays you get. (Disclaimer: In two years I have made $13 off Adsense. So I many not have any idea what I'm talking about).
The Conservative Blogosphere is already entrenched in the conventional media - that won't change in the near future. Everyone has seen some conservatrolls in their comment threads, yet we don't have the same ability on the conservative blogs. IMO, individual discretions by individual bloggers should be discussed collaboratively across the blogosphere.
Lastly, and this is the big one...talk about local issues. EVERYONE in the blogosphere is talking about the national issues...put a local perspective on them. Talk about your school district, your bars and restaurants, your recreation activity. By talking about local and tangible subjects and places, you gain legitimacy (at the cost of anonymity). The very last point that I'll make is that anonymity and "A-List" rarely go together...if you are seeking attention, your going to have to drop the veil.
Thanks, good advice... but one thing
I really like your list of best practices. If we only did some more of this regularly - it can help grow our netroots considerably.
Now for the one thing - thanks for the compliment - but you should give props to the team - and the community itself - I am just the host :)
Swarms of sheep
As someone who was recently attacked by the liberal (progressive?) blogosphere, I think there is something else that belongs on this list...
They (we?) need to lose the swarm mentality. If we are going to demand the legitimacy we deserve, we can't go around the internet as swarms of troll-like beings. Every comment, every link, every attack is going to reflect back on us so make it count. I wish people would apply the debunk point to their commenting strategy instead of "Hey! Look! I can flame someone! Fun!" Until the majority of the blogosphere can stop looking and acting like trolls, I'm not going to take them seriously. Right now, the whole taking seriously point is done on a blog-by-blog basis; and it's getting old.
lastly
On your last comment, that we should talk about local issues, I agree but we should do so with discretion. I've read blogs where people mentioned a restaurant and then said something snide about the waitress, not about her work but about her personally, her appearance or something, and similar postings. Discussing people in a way that can be identifiable is tricky and some thought should go into it, and into what is said.
You also say that "A-list" and anonymity seldom go together. This implies one path to "success." Granted those who aspire to have a lot of hits or comments probably at some point will either have to out themselves or be outed, but a lot of bloggers don't aspire to that and are content with a niche or a small but civil audience.
Well...
The clarification that has to be made is what is news, what is libel, what is gossip, and what is worthy. I would hope that those things should be readily evident, but maybe not. I think the community can police itself...and I'm sure there are mods (or the equivalent) to make sure that there's not a lot of spam.
And not every blogger aspires to the A-List, but if your goal is to drive up BIG readership, being a real person with real opinions and standing behind them is a big factor in legitimacy...I doubt there's any legitimacy in anything posted on an anonymous blog. Ego's a powerful thing...
I'm not sure all anonymous bloggers can be pigeon-holed...
and I'm not sure that's what you mean when you write that you "doubt there's any legitimacy in anything posted on an anonymous blog."
There's a lot of truth to your idea about standing behind what you say, but it's probably also good to keep in mind that there are many different reasons one would choose to maintain an anonymous blog, other than simply not wanting to own up to their posts. For some folks anonymity is a professional requisite, as some bloggers have found out the hard way...