You might say that it would be better to put up some content to comment on before posting a comments policy. But then, why not set the framework first? One of the things that bothered me a little bit on the previous blog, where I did not moderate comments, was that the kind of discussion I hoped to encourage did not happen very often. This meant that much of the time I hoped to spend in exchange with people (some of whom, naturally, would agree with me and some of whom would disagree) got spent instead on irrelevant comments, weird racists and other ists, stalkers, and repeated posters of wonderful findings about the Second World War. If that happens again, I expect I will lose interest in blogging again fairly quickly. So I have put up some guidelines. They are meant to be constructive and not overly threatening, and if they have the desired effect then they will encourage people who want to discuss to join in, and people who want some other thing to bugger off.
The first East Ethnia ran for about four years on Blogspot between 2004 and 2008. Then I got a bit too busy and a little bored with it. The old archive is still there if anyone is terribly curious.
Being blogless for three years was just fine, actually. I became accustomed to living in this very odd country. I finished a book. I spent much time with my family and dog, and sadly also much time dealing with such exciting things as banks and landlords. But at the same time, there were a few things that motivated me to try again. Those were:
1) Nobody else was really providing the things that I thought East Ethnia could provide. Not that there are not a lot of fine sites out there (one day I will complete the links page and you can see what they are), but none with just those concerns, at least in English.
2) I like to make remarks about things! The social networks offer a nice way of doing this, but they do not allow for the kind of flexibility that an independent site does.
3) Occasionally friends would tell me about something they had read and then say, as if to tell me something, ‘this is the sort of thing that would really belong on East Ethnia’.
But I think I will try to do things not just the same way. I will be trying to keep a focus on a particular set of topics here, and keep the music videos, jokes and such things on the social networks. Posting will also not be extremely frequent; expect a couple posts a week rather than a couple posts a day. And I will be trying to add some features, so that this can become a site where people can find out about upcoming events, at least in this fair city.
Oh, and one other change: I will be moderating comments this time around. It may just be a way of creating more work for myself (read: wasting more time) but I think it is the only way to get the kind of discussion I want to have rather than a free for all. When I get around to writing a ‘comments policy’ it will be in the ‘about the blog’ section (look above).
So, real content will be coming soon. In the meantime, everything is under construction but feel free to have a look around. And especially now as the site is in its (new) beginnings, I will be grateful for your suggestions, advice and demands.
