Decision time

The results of the poll were inconclusive:

Disband Blogpower ...... 0
Ask CN to depart ...... 10
Leave things as is ..... 10
Comments .............. 4

The comments were 2 for leaving things as they were and 2 just general.

Given these results, it would not be just if Central News were asked to leave. This then divides us along political lines but there IS a solution. Before angrily departing, please at least read to the end and see if the variants* don’t meet with your approval.

Firstly, Blogpowerers, the banner really should be displayed [and we’d not like to put it more strongly than that], as it is symbolic of the initiative and is virtually an advertisement for Blogpower. Not to run the banner would seem to defeat the purpose of the initiative.

There are two variants:

a] the plain banner from the Tin Drummer, linked to this site;

b] a banner, still linked to this site, with a disclaimer which you can read for yourself at the Thunderdragon and would presumably be available from him.

Secondly, there are three variants of the blogroll which members can opt for:

a] the fully automated roll as it is now, administered, as usual, by Ian. The main reason for this variant is that all our members’ names are displayed on many blogs, thus maximizing our chance of being hit, which was one of the prime raisons d’etre in the first place for Blogpower. Against this variant is the situation that it can cause the type of trouble it has, over unwanted sites plus it occupies a large amount of the sidebar;

b] the fully automated roll, as in a], which you keep on a separate page on your own blog and link to your main page sidebar, thereby cutting space requirements on your main page;

c] *an html version which I’ve put together on one of my pages, linked to the DTB sidebar [you can see the link HTML Blogroll in the sidebar now]. The roll is accurate up to Sunday, 18:00. Follow the link, copy and paste into your sidebar. With this variant come certain Blogpower conditions:

[i] You may delete up to 10% of the total roll at any one time, thereby removing the sites you find offensive;

[ii] You need to and are honour-bound to manually update the roll yourself within a week of any stated changes. [These changes will always appear at the end of the html link from the DTB sidebar.]

The variant of a categorized roll turned out to be unworkable, had virtually universal opposition to it when it came down to details and has been dropped. It’s the opinion of the administrators that this virtually solves the problem of undesirable blogs.

Thirdly, the policy for new blogs needs to be discussed. My own recommendation is that if someone indicates he/she intends to upload the banner, then the administrators take a quick look at the site and either instantly admit the blog or else, if there is some issue involved, it would immediately be put to the members via a post here. From the comments, we’d make our next move.

Hope the above streamlines the procedure and is acceptable to members.