I have known many, and liked not a few, but loved only one and this toast is to you
For that success we have primarily to thank all of you who stop by, read, and comment on the posts we put up here. So we’d like to take a moment to genuinely thank all of our regular readership who have amassed themselves so quickly and proven so intelligent, thoughtful and oftentimes challenging. We couldn’t have built a blog that hopes to break new ground and head in a new direction without your support, participation, and influence.
To that end, we thought it would be a good time to get some feedback from you folks about how things are going. So please, leave us some thoughts in the comments:
- Are we posting too much?
- Are we posting too little?
- Are the posts too long?
- Are they not long enough?
- Is the cross section of topics enough to keep you interested?
- Are we too myopic?
- Are we too scattered?
- Is there anything you’d like to see us writing about that we’re not currently?
- Do we just suck?
Really, any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated and very helpful. We consider this site to be as much yours as it is ours and we want to hear what you think and what you want.
Beyond our regular readership, we would be remiss if we didn’t also extend a hearty thanks to some folks whose support has been key in helping us get up and running.
First of all, the rest of the Gentlemen would like to extend a particular thanks to E.D. Kain for all the work he’s put in without having to be asked and without getting thanked enough designing the look and structure of the site and coming up with a variety of tweaks and upgrades to make the site as user-friendly as possible. Odds are, every time some new element is added you have E.D. to thank.
Speaking of which, you can now follow the League on twitter!
Also due for some thanks are Andrew Sullivan, Patrick Appel, and Chris Bodenner of the Daily Dish for all the linking they’ve done to our posts and traffic they’ve driven our way. As was suggested at MetaFilter today, most of the Gentlemen on this site got to know one another by their involvement and participation in Culture 11, so in that regard we owe people like Conor Friedersdorf and James Poulos a big thanks as well, both for the opportunities they provided us through Culture 11 and the support they provided when we were launching. What some folks might not know is that what really brought us into orbit at Culture 11 was our appreciation and respect for the blogging of John Schwenkler, so we owe John much thanks for being the guy who got us all talking and supported us in this new venture. And, of course, there have a bunch of other people who have linked to some of the thoughts presented on this site and provided helpful criticism when we were due, but Daniel Larison and the Front Porch Republic stand out as folks who deserve a particular thanks.
We also have some exciting news! There are two more Gentlemen who have joined the League. Will Collins from Dispatches and William Brafford from William Writes will begin adding to the posts you see on this site shortly. So please, show them the League love by ripping their initial posts to shreds. No mercy, no surrender!
Finally, you may have seen that today we featured a guest post from regular commenter Philip Primeau. Given all the support we’ve received from a variety of bloggers and the opportunities that have arisen as a result of that support, we all feel like this site should return the favor and operate as a place where indie bloggers can come to get some exposure to readers with whom they might not otherwise interact. So if you have an idea for a post that you think would work well on the League, please feel free to contact us about posting it by emailing any of the Gentlemen (our contact info appears on the League’s contact page).
In closing, Mickey Kaus is still a rat fink bastard and bowler hats continue to defy going out of style.
Sincerely,
The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
P.S. – E.D. Kain here. One other nifty thing we’re adding is the ability to do cooperative posts, and this little cameo on my part is just an example of how that works. Thanks to Scott for the round-up above and for the kind words. I have a lot of fun with the technical stuff on this site, and I hope we’ve been able to put together something that is at once simple and elegant and user friendly. To our regular commenters I’d also like to suggest signing up for a free avatar at www.gravatar.com. This adds a bit of personalization to your comments, I think, and helps add additional flavor to the entire experience.
One other question – do readers enjoy the sideblog (mini-posts)? They were a way for us to add lots of tidbits and “off the cuff’ posts that maybe didn’t fit into the general theme or larger debate.
In any case, I echo all of what Scott had to say, and I know the rest of the OG’s feel the same. Feedback is very welcome always…
Cheers!
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34 comments
Posts tend to run a little longer than I prefer, but I enjoy nonetheless.
I came for the blog title (via Larison) and stayed for the reasonable commentary. This post is the exception that proves the rule, but I like the idea of guest posts even with the R.E. Tyrell stylings.
The site is attractive and easy to navigate and my hat (sorry, not a bowler) is off to you.
Well done and carry on.
Thanks guys. I should add that this is all a mere formality. We plan on tuning out any and all criticism and just listening to all the compliments. Did someone say something about the posts being too long?
(just kidding) ;-)
Came via Sullivan and haven’t left since – as to your questions, post length is fine but there are not nearly enough of them.
Cheers.
Thanks Aaron, that’s one of the primary questions vexing us. Our feeling had been that we needed to beef up the frequency of content, but then received some feedback to the contrary. So we figured we’d go directly to the source to see what folks though about how often we’re posting and what they thought we should do.
I have no problems with anything here, really. You post too often when I’m away from the internet and post too little when I’m on it and have read everything already. At worst, when you guys get a subject stuck in your maw it can go on for quite a while, but I’d rather that then too short debates.
Really excellent blog! Compliments to the founders and commenters! Any chance though of storing comments under individual blogger’s names for scatter brains like myself who forget which Manifesto they wrote a particular comment? Or indeed want to revisit another bloggers comments. Maybe also parcelled by month and year also. I guess another luxury would be a word search.
It is very, very difficult to create a good group blog. Usually, one writer comes to dominate the blog or only a few of the bloggers are worth reading and their insights are diluted by the rubbish.
But you have all pulled off the group blog dynamic gloriously a la The American Scene. As a reader of several hundred blogs, I can honestly say this is one of my favorites. Keep it up.
Thanks, Patrick. That is a daunting compliment.
Chad:
See, that’s why you should be online all the time!
Bruce, as to your question, that’s an intriguing idea and I’ll look into it though I make no promises…
Aaron, thanks. Hopefully with two more writers our content output will pick up….
Thanks much Patrick, we’re still head full of steam and have no thoughts of stopping. And we really do appreciate your guys’ support.
And Bruce, great feedback. Thanks for that and your thoughtful comments.
Got here via Freddie’s abandoned site. So I’m kinda an ol’timer, if 60 days qualifies as old.
Complaints? A few, but it’s your home, so if your prefer Victorian over Modern, go for it. I’m only visiting.
Complements? Many, but I don’t want to increase your collective hat size tooo much.
Glad you are having fun, but that was apparent.
Bruce: That’s a really good suggestion. I could certainly make use of it, since there are definitely times when I can’t remember whether I wrote something in a comments thread or a full post.
Everyone: Thank you for the compliments. I should add that the great – and often challenging – comments we get here are one of the more rewarding aspects of this site for me personally.
You’re posting probably too often; frankly only Freddie is actually worth reading, everyone else just sort of mushes together into a vague second-hand sort of pontificating, all saying things that I’ve read somewhere else, usually put much more clearly and insightfully. There’s no way to say this without sounding sort of rude, but, I just have to be honest; I’m getting to the point where I’m going to unsubscribe the RSS feed. The posts are just rambling, they don’t seem truly polished, they aren’t particularly deep; it seems like it should be an internal messageboard, maybe (or at least that’s the feeling I get), where you guys bounce ideas off of each other, and THEN write actual posts.
Also, I think the IDEA of having a bunch of 30-post “discussions” sounds good in theory, but in the end it’s just sort of a glorified tag system; the posts don’t really respond to each other all that often, and seem sort of randomly categorized, at times.
The breadth of topics is about right; the cross-section is about right. I would personally be interested in reading more about film/art, if you’re looking for new topics.
Well, thanks for honesty, paul.
Wow, it’s funny how when you start a comment off by saying that only one of the bloggers is worth reading how much less one is inclined to listen to the rest of the suggestions that follow. Actually, you raise some good points about the series-system, which is something we’re still struggling with and tweaking around. But since we’re not worth reading I suppose that doesn’t really matter much…
Yeah, I agree with Scott. Best to have upfront opinions and honesty. I’m mostly only kidding around with the above snark…I mean, while I’d like to say something along the lines of “I don’t give a damn what people think” the fact is, I do… ;-)
I truly don’t mean to denigrate what you guys do … I don’t know, it’s just that whenever I see another 12-paragraph thing in the RSS feed, it’s gotten to the point where I just cringe and close it (I read absolutely everything you guys posted for the first 30-40 days, but, since then …). There are some good posts by everyone, obviously; and I certainly don’t think you should stop writing. This might just be that you don’t have the writing style or the topics of conversation that I personally find particularly interesting; and then I came from Freddie’s blog (perhaps obviously), etc., etc.
I know, Paul. I am too reactionary. Ask my wife. I’m defensive. Whatever. You know, one reason we put the miniblog in here was so that there could be shorter-form stuff for people who are maybe not so much into the long-12-paragraph mumbo jumbo so I wonder if that’s been a positive for you or if you think it’s mainly a problem with writing for too big of shoes and not filling them?
Actually this “off the cuff” thing (the miniblog?) is completely new to me, I just noticed it; it’s not in your RSS feed, just so you know! That’s what I get for relying on RSS feeds, I guess.
Thanks for the heads up on the RSS. Fixed.
That’s pretty awesome though, you had actually already fixed the thing I was compaining about (too many long posts).
Well, glad to be of help. Now hopefully a few of the rest of us might, you know, be worth reading at some point…. ;-)
Get a room, you two…
Love the book, hate the cover.
By which I mean: This blog needs a serious makeover, ASAP.
Yeah? What would you suggest, Philip?
Really Phil? I love our look. But I’m biased!
Yeah, I thought we had a pretty good look going. Do others feel the same as Philip? Or is he just bloody insane?
Insane? Yeah, probably, but no taste for sure.
late to the party but I HATE the narrow central column you confine your posts to. it makes reading posts much more difficult, and makes long posts seem even more daunting. if you're loathe to remake the whole look, maybe a a wider format for posts that run below the fold?
Max, I widened the center column just for you. It's still not WIDE but it's wider.
Bruce,
I've implemented Intense Debate comments which should give you more control and tracking of your comments if you register. I'm still working out some kinks though.
Nothing but compliments from me. I think I found you guys through the comments on John Schwenkler’s blog, which I found via Ross Douthat, etc. It’s a daily read for me.
My only negative is that i am extremely jealous of your traffic!
Thanks, Mike. I for one really appreciate your valuable comments here…