What are Poblish Editorials?
Why editorials? Why Poblish at all?
Will Editorials be bland, balanced, non-partisan mush?
Are you into evidence-based blogging?
What’s in it for me, as a blogger?
How do I tag things, and why would I want to?
Should I link to the original article, or to Poblish’s copy?
Can I link to my own articles?
How often can I/should I post editorials?
How much should I write?
How do I start?
Blog posts that demonstrate, and take advantage of, the full range of debate within the blogosphere, as hosted by Poblish.
They may well take the form of “round-up” posts (perhaps like the Britblog roundup, or the Scottish blog roundup), most likely covering a particular topic or issue. While this isn’t necessarily very original, good editorials will use Poblish to cover a much wider range of opinion than bloggers are generally able to cover, using Poblish’s features to cross partisan, national, and language barriers wherever possible.
Because of this, Poblish will give Editorials a special priority, integrating them within the site, linking them up to the bloggers, journalists, politicians, blogs, groups, and subject areas they refer to, so the most recent editorials can be easily found.
Editorials can be created especially for Poblish, or they can be cross-posted from your own blog.
Why editorials? Why Poblish at all?
Bloggers inevitably spend more time interacting with other bloggers who share a similar political outlook, a nationality, and a language – partly by choice, and partly due to the nature of blogging, the mainstream media, and the lack of technology, makes it hard for them to do any more.
Yet the political issues that affect us are international in scope, and affect us irrespective of our own political outlook. To limit our own thoughts and analysis to what people like us think, makes us all the more likely to be wrong.
At Poblish we believe we can provide fuller, easier, and more interactive access to the full range of political opinion, and that by interacting, sharing, and collaborating more, bloggers can (finally!) contribute a lot to politics. You might like our Positive Political Blogging campaign.
Will Editorials be bland, balanced, non-partisan mush?
Not at all. What we’re interested in is bloggers who show good faith and openness: a genuine interest in, and curiosity towards an issue, that will encourage them to seek out different opinions – irrespective of the fame or reputation of whoever published them – and make these accessible for our readers.
Naturally, if it turns out that a mass of previously-unseen opinions and evidence looks set to shift the debate one way or another, and if that’s enough to convince our editor, then it’s fine and honest for our editor to make his opinion known. Poblish’s non-partisanship means we value lots of different opinions, and encourage people to challenge one another and feel able to change their minds, but there is no ‘house politics’. We are not a ‘Labour blog’, a ‘Conservative blog’, a ‘progressive blog’, or whatever.
Are you into evidence-based blogging?
Not necessarily, because the point of these editorials is not to try to prove or disprove any particular point. Though supporting evidence can be useful, good faith and curiosity are more important to us.
What’s in it for me, as a blogger?
- Our ethos — hopefully, like us, you have an interest in supporting non-partisan and international blogging.
- The challenge — why not challenge your own views by exposing yourself to a wider range of opinion than ever before?
- The exposure — Editorials get more exposure than regular articles at Poblish, so if you’re an up-and-coming blogger, here’s a chance for your work to reach a new, international audience.
- It’s easy — already writing blog round-ups? If you share our ethos, why not save time and share your existing work with us?
How do I tag things, and why would I want to?
We automatically match any article links in your editorial to the original blogger (if they have an account at Poblish) so anyone viewing their profile or activity feed will see your editorial. We can do the same for Zones, so if you refer to, say, schools or education in your editorial, you’ll see your editorial on the Education zone page.
If you want, you can also manually tag relevant Zones, as well as blog Groups (e.g. Economists) by simply adding special categories to your blog post. Doing so will show your editorial on those pages, and help users find content that’s relevant to those areas.
Should I link to the original article, or to Poblish’s copy?
It’s up to you, but if you’re cross-posting the article at Poblish and on your own blog, you’ll almost certainly want to just link to the original article. Obviously if the original article or blog is defunct, you’ll need to link to Poblish’s archived version.
Can I link to my own articles?
Yes, of course, to a point. Again, ‘good faith’ is the rule-of-thumb.
How often can I/should I post editorials?
Quality rather than quantity. Perhaps once per week would be enough for any given subject.
If you find yourself writing 800 words, that’s probably too much. 600 is probably OK. 400 might do the job, but probably not much less than that.
Get in touch – just send us a quick email stating who you are, and where you blog, and why you’re interested.
We’ll send you a login and password to our blog, make sure you have an identity at Poblish, and that your own blogs are registered there.