I am a previous winner of this contest and i believe that this site has gone a very different direction than I thought it wold when I signed up for the contest. I believe that some of the content I put up during my contest on this site was interesting and therefore granted me many views but at the same time I was drawn into posting ridiculous pieces on celebrities that I could care less about. In the end I won because of those stories on celebrities because that is the type of story that draws the largest audience. I would much rather have a debate about whether neurogenesis is the basis of learning and memory but invariably I will only get a few responses from that kind of story.
In the end all i learned is, that the most effective way to win in this competition is to write articles about meaningless celebrities that will draw the biggest crowds but that takes absolutely no intellect from the writer.
I think that this site has the true potential of becoming a place of intellectual discussion and debate. In fact I would gladly offer my service to inspire those types of debate, but when it comes to the contest that is put forth here; it always becomes a match of who knows the better gossip which, I believe is exactly opposite of what this site deserves and wants.
In the end I did win second in this competition two years ago and found very little solace in the fact I won based on gossip and stories similar to the daily news, instead I believe that insightful debates and challenging ideas should be the norm of this site.
So I leave whom ever reads this with a couple ideas that I believe deserve lively debate: ( Most of these are based on psychology because I am a biopsychology major at UCSB; I very much encourage anyone to bring up ideas of debate in any other field.)
1. Does the mind and body exist as one or two different entities. To expand; many people believe that the mind cannot be define as a physical entity while other believe that the mind is solely created by different physical organs in the brain.
2. How far can stress physically affect the body. Of course stress affects the sympathetic nervous system and increases blood pressure, heart beat... but can this actual cause physical illnesses.
3. As a personal not I believe that memories are stored in a chemical fashion, such as inducing LTP in neurons but I believe the excitation of neurons can only be a part of memory and would like to know others thoughts on the matter of physical ( and really any other idea of memory) storage of memory.
I am not writing this to go against what Progressive U stands for but just to push a few user in the direction of academic discussion and argument.
I realize that sometimes the bad posts can be overwhelming, but if you've been on the site that long and think nothing else of it, I think you've missed a few things.
There have been some great blogs on tough topics. ediblewoman blogs about gay rights and the issues facing children. turdlesuds writes about mental health and her working with these patients. DrifterDani writes personal stories that resonate within people for being both powerful and deeply personal. GreenUnderbelly writes about the environment and so forth...
Celebrities aren't the only thing of interest. You might have gotten more reads for them, but I bet if you'd written something with a more interesting topic, like memory or any of the others you listed, packaged it up with a great title, and wrote about it intelligently you would have had a few fans and maybe a few friend requests.
I might be a little adamant about stating all this because your tone just sounds so defeatist that I can hardly believe you won one of the contests.
It's taken me a while to figure this out, but eventually it became a worthy lesson: If you want some place to change for the better, start doing it yourself.
Write those blogs, post these discussion topics in the forums, and you might have a few takers. No promises, but it's possible.
~ *~
This is a signature, an automated thingy that pops up when I comment, not a demand to see my blog!
Mind Control is Easier Than You Think
There has been very little gossip. In fact, anyone posting celebrity bull gets either no reads or a hand slap from the other members.
Your experience was very different from mine. That is so interesting. I won the competition last spring, and I don't think I ever had to resort to gossip. I addressed topics that had some bearing on my life, so I was able to write passionately about them, which made the entries a more interesting read, but they were certainly all topics that meant something to society as a whole. They incited much debate, some of it even intelligent debate.
I'm sorry your experience was so gross. I'd feel dirty about winning on Britney's coattails, too. Blech.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Seriously, the site has changed so much in the past two years. I would know, since I've been here all that time. We've gone through and actually deleted a lot of the blogs that were merely celebrity gossip, because they do go against the mission of the site. We would not allow someone to win based on that anymore.
Two years ago, the moderation was lax. I'm not placing blame on anyone, it was simply that the members of the site didn't feel the need to remove some blogs, and the moderating staff was very small (all of three people, I believe). We've changed that a lot, and now have about 10 active people on the staff, and most of our active members who are not on the staff will take the time to report something if they feel it isn't right for the site.
We've also increased the minimum word count for blogs from 50 (I think) to 200, which encourages a great deal more discussion. The bloggers who know what they're doing find no issue with this minimum, it is only the people who don't back up their opinions or try to repost a news article that find this minimum difficult.
I feel that based on your opinions, you really haven't spent much time on the site recently. I mean, I would hardly consider religious beliefs and the war in Gaza as gossip, and those are the two most popular blogs we have right now. I don't think anything that deals with gossip is to be found on the first several pages of recent blogs.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
I cant even remember the last time I came across something that dealt with gossip on the site. It's probably there, but that's just how much attention it receives now compared to two years ago. Most of us probably couldn't point you in the direction of a single one of those gossip posts now because they receive very little attention at all.
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"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence" - Amiel
"The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves" - Hoffer
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I didn't write a single post about a celebrity, except to comment on a video that showed a minister in a pulpit preaching that Oprah was the antichrist.
I would have a hard time blogging about celebrities because I boycott celebrity gossip. Sometimes I find myself violated with it by others and my environment, and I might form an opinion about it, but in general, I do not care one bit about celebrity gossip.
Oh wait, I can remember another time I mentioned celebrities, I mentioned Brangelina and Jennifer Aniston to illustrate the point that no amount of beauty that one single person possesses is going to make them immune to insecurity and jealousy.
Respectlife, who won, wrote a lot about her political views, which are controversial, and stimulated a lot of debate. I don't think she blogged about celebrity gossip, but I didn't read all of her blogs, so I wouldn't know.
My blogs have been about comparing religion, mental illness, my daughter, and my childhood. In my opinion, I think that every single one of my blogs is unique and creative, but I am biased. I have gotten a lot of support and good feedback though, so I don't think it is wrong for me to say that.
Also one of the unspoken gifts that Progressive U gives is feedback, which has helped me immensely. My personal favorites of my own blogs got very little reads compared to ones that were very easy for me to write and didn't require much thought. However, those favorites of mine have developed a very small fanclub, which has done nothing but encourage me to keep going. Even if only a handful of people care, that is enough for me to continue.
If you like this post, please tip me. All tips will be forwarded to ProgressiveU.org. Keep the site alive!
Respectlife, who won, wrote a lot about her political views, which are controversial, and stimulated a lot of debate. I don't think she blogged about celebrity gossip, but I didn't read all of her blogs, so I wouldn't know.
Yeah, you're right, I didn't really do any celebrities...I did some on Obama which caused a lot of debate and I did one on the whole YouTube thing that was big. The most popular in reads appears to be my "Why Not A Baby?" post that has over 5K reads (the rest of mine have under 1K). That one was on abortion. Actually, a lot of mine were on abortion. :P
I think that every single one of my blogs is unique and creative, but I am biased.
Biased doesn't mean wrong and you're definitely not wrong on that one. ;)
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
Geez, I need to find more interesting topics.... My record is only about 600 reads and that was over a year ago...
-:-
I am treated as evil by people who claim that they are being oppressed because they are not allowed to force me to practice what they do. ~D. Dale Gulledge
Well, I would love to know how it got to be so popular, because it has a steady rise of reads like...every day.
And I've found your posts to be very interesting. :P
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
Most of your visitors are coming from a google image search. They search for an image and the image in that blog pops up in the results, so when they click on it, they're brought to your blog.
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"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence" - Amiel
"The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves" - Hoffer
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Ooooh, ok. Huh...neat :P
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
I'm pretty new, so i can't say much as to what the site used to be, but i can say that I've had a great experience with the site. Most of the blogs I've read have been intellectual or of personal interests that many others seemed to share or have oppinions about. Even on blog that i read about comic books asked people to do some research and really reached out to find people with a common, scholarly interest in the matter. so far, i haven't been dissapointed.
thanks for sharing
If you like this post, please tip me. All tips will be forwarded to ProgressiveU.org. Keep the site alive!