Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Could we please have a bit of a tutorial on the use of the Preview box? I use it mostly to check on links but when I do I find the formatting goes haywire, especially the spacing between paragraphs. Ta.

Hamish: I suspect you're using a Mac, in which case you're not, unfortunately, getting as much functionality out of the editing equipment as PC users. The main tip for Mac users is to use the  'Text only' input format.

Just thought it worth recording that essentially all of the major indicators for the site to 20 February have already overtaken the whole of January numbers:

comments published: 1330 vs 1312
posts published: 31 vs 35
page views: 235,000 vs 219,500
donations: $2975 vs $2862

Hey David, and Hamish, very good news on the money/advertising front. Excellent to hear that Hamish will be fed for a little longer! Well done on securing the adverts Hamish.

I've actually had a look at a couple which is not something I ever do on most web sites.

Fad Webmaster looks good and I will be using their services shortly.

Hamish: that might have been one of the Google-based ones. The only one presently paying us directly for advertising are Australian Ethical Investments, which will be up every couple of days for the next two months. We are very proud for the association. More coming, but yep, supporting the advertisers, through clicking through the ads on this site, supports us.

Forgive my ignorance David, but would you please define a "page view"? I'm not sure if we are counting how many times people view Webdiary in total or individual threads.

Hamish: page views refer to every time someone looks at one of the Webdiary pages. Obviously it is a much bigger number than unique visitors, but gives an indication of how much people on average surf around the site before moving on.

David, very good news indeed. Thanks for your efforts. Also thanks to all who have helped in their various ways.

Hamish, good work on all fronts. And back on the payroll. Further good news.

Should bring a smile to Margo's face. Still here, M.

Well, the first three days of February brought in $1505 in donations, for which much thanks ...

More importantly, Hamish succeeded in selling $3000-worth of adverts, with some other potential leads looking good ....

So, Hamish's notice is withdrawn, and we will be continuing with a full-time editor for at least another couple of months - which is good, because as I noted a few comments ago on this stream, traffic on the site has picked up dramatically after the Australia Day holiday, solidly back over 10,000 page views per day, including on Saturday, making that our busiest recorded weekend day ever.  

David, allow me to clarify my earlier comment. Although I do not see the point in management updates, I do find them of interest. I was in fact attempting to see things from your point of view as I feel it is very courageous of you to make public information that is not encouraging.

I do however respect your reasons for making this information public but I also feel you may be a little naïve in doing so. My original comment, however, does show a lack of appreciation for your business philosophy and in that respect may I offer an apology.

One may suspect that my comment says more about my business philosophy than yours for it would be hard to disagree that a business philosophy such as yours is a refreshing change to that of many companies operating today.

Best of luck to you and the Webdiary team and may your next management update be more encouraging.

Ian: thanks for the thoughts. We will be experimenting a bit more with layouts, but I have to say that the AdSense algorithms are fairly opaque and have a tendency to be overridden by eg the "chemical detector" ads having a (relatively) high price attached to a wide set of keywords. On the Firefox ad, it's where it is because it is by some margin our highest earner - we get a US$ for every download of Firefox that results!

Phil: inclined to agree with most of what you said - the intent of Webdiary is to be a home for a wide variety of debates and where both sides can be heard, not a comfortable place for the converted to chat to each other. Some subjects are of no interest to some people - for instance, I could never bring myself to spend any time on the interminable creationism debate - but just don't go there: though I guess you're breaking your own rules by commenting on a stream you express no interest in! As for whether these management updates serve any purpose, well, we think they're part of the "accountable, transparent" vibe, so I'll carry on writing them, even if no-one looks!

Gareth Eastwood, lighten up mate, if you don’t like a contribution stop reading it.

 “It’s crazy unsubstantiated comments like this that discourage me from posting and donating to Webdiary”

I’m sure there must be plenty of contributions you could participate in and like you I find some contributors rather predictable and time wasting. I simply don’t read their contributions if a quick scan indicates a lack of genuine content.

I am going to be a little provocative here and suggest you may have another look at what you wrote and ask yourself; am I issuing a mini ultimatum? I will contribute more and maybe even donate if you consider my personal preferences.

Personally I couldn’t give a bugger what Webdiary publishes in the way of content or comments. I read what I want, comment as I please and every thing else is none of my business.

Do I donate to Webdiary? No. Will I donate to Webdiary? Never. Why? That’s my business.

Quite frankly I don’t really see the point in management updates for that also is none of my business.

How about emailing the current articles to subscribers before it goes on the web - like Crikey? Almost a "premium content" without having to carve off content. Maybe the "premium content" also includes the option of paid ads that "sponsor" the day/week/month.

Also, The Reader went from a paper mag to a Crikey-like mailing list and now they're talking about going to a web-only format.  Not sure how they're going to charge for it.

I don't think it's too bad to experiment on the format at this early stage.

Hamish: thanks for the suggestions Ian - appreciated - but we're committed to unexclusive access to everything for now. There are some ads on the way, which will change things a lot.

One of the down sides of having such open forums is that the content on the page is less focussed than, say, a review of a camera. Adsense will struggle to make sense of the content - hence the crap selection.

Looking at this page, I see a chemical detector ad!!!

Also, the menu items on the left may be a hinderance, but I'm no expert on that.  But a little research would probably find the answer.

Agreed Adsense doesn't allow you lot to encourage others simply to click through, but you can help yourself.

For a start you can make it a little more prominant - experiment in moving the ad location.  Maybe reducing the number of Ads per page would help as well.  And get rid of that firefox ad - it's in one of the best spots on the page.

good luck.

Hamish: Thanks Ian. 

Thanks for the statistical and management update.

I think the visitor stats aren't bad at all. The quality of new articles continues to be high. Much of the discussion is insightful and informative. In terms of quality of debate, Webdiary continues to leave Federal Parliament for dead. It may not be a perfect medium but it's the best forum for serious open discussion  in Australia at present. Looked at from that perspective, it's an important community asset deserving protection.

I am concerned that if the pace of Webdiary slows down in the near future because paid and voluntary editorial time is insufficient to maintain the current tempo, it could indeed lead to a vicous cycle of decline.

Could the Directors provide a target $ figure per month / quarter - and increase the pressure a couple of turns on readers to contribute sufficient to meet the target?

The first target should, IMO, be sufficient to maintain the current pace and quality.

Ed, From the State of the Union forum "The American government is now a dictatorship."

It’s crazy unsubstantiated comments like this that discourage me from posting and donating to Webdiary. I have been involved in too many ridiculous arguments regarding crazy statements like this. (Usually with a well known self titled “ultra-left” person, you know who I’m talking about). The fact that I even have to bother refuting this claim is absurd. Webdiary is at its best when an unbiased and sensible debate can be had, unfortunately that is becoming too infrequent. I come here to be informed about topics I know little, to educate others about topics I know a lot and to challenge my views on the world.

I suspect this problem is not unique to Webdiary though, anyone who has visited Tim Blair’s blog will find a similar bunch of ideologues, though more so from the conservative / right (or whatever you want to call it) side of the political spectrum. Keep at it, there will be a way to make this place thrive.

Hamish: Please keep at it with us Gareth. I think many people share your concerns and we're trying.

Whilst some have said these numbers are great, I beg to differ.

In December Webdiary published 2,700 comments. In January, this drops to 1,312 comments. This is not good.

In December Webdiary had 265 registered contributors, in January this had risen to 266.

So what does this tell us?

It tells us that Webdiary is no longer attracting new commentators but just recycling the same comments and biases of existing commentators, and even those commentators are posting far more infrequently.

In December David told us that the site averaged 10,000-20,000 page views per day. In January this has dropped to 7,000.

Perhaps we need some discussion on how to reverse this, as with Hamish now been served notice, declining page views, no increase in contributors, rapidly declining contributions, declining finances.

Webdiary is in a tailspin. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but them's the facts.

 David: some small corrections and an observation:

The numbers of registered contributors rose by 27 - the two numbers you quote are not directly comparable because of the 26 deletions of those (eg Syd Ishus) who were never really there - still not great, but not backwards.

The 2700 comments in December were a high that was particularly pushed up by the nearly 1,000 comments made around Margo's decision to quit on 7 December. Throughout Webdiary's history, the number of comments has also been impacted by the number of posts published: the average comments per post in January is actually up on December (apart from Margo's goodbye post).

This doesn't say that we aren't concerned by the drop in page views, but as has been said elsewhere, we are a site whose traffic is substantially confined to business hours, and January is a quiet time for business in Australia: we'll see how February goes - the daily totals are already up on the January (business day) average. So, some concerns, yes, but not a tailspin.

When I first read the stats, I was impressed that Webdiary was doing so well.

For me it's a valuable discussion on contemporary issues, and a forum in which I can seek opinion and learn from the various responses.

1250 visitors and 266 contributers makes a valuable pool of knowledge.

For that, I'm willing to donate from time to time as circumstance permits.  I'm also thinking of advertising when I have a suitable project to promote.

I like Webdiary, and I think the folk running it are doing a good job.

Hamish: thanks Bryan. We like you too - any articles pending?

David, what are the stats for clicking on the ads? How many times a day would each registered member need to click on an ad to make up the budget short fall?  

Cheers.

David: you lot seem to be pretty averse to click-throughs. Stats are very variable from day to day, but range from 2 clicks a day to the dizzy heights of 24 on several days. Payment is also highly variable per click (from under 10ç to more than $1), so there is no way to do the sum you ask - and the Google Adsense Terms and Conditions absolutely forbid us to publish anything encouraging people to click more!

Max Weber described politics as a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective. Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth – that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible. But to do that a man must be a leader, and not only a leader but a hero as well, in a very sober sense of the word.

Thank you for your persistence and patience, David. Most of all passion! Even when Webdiarists are satisfied, there is much left to do as the concept of on-line exchanges is still rather young and it might take sometime before ads become profitable ... I encourage everyone to click on the ads and to make Webdiary as a preferred member of any affiliated networks when purchasing goods or services.

CODA: How Citizen Reporters Work

David did not publish my earlier comment regarding the disclosure of non donors but did send me an e-mail as a way of explaining. I however would have to disagree!

It would appear that if you are a contributor and have your material published but also make a critical comment about management than they have the right to tell anyone that you did not donate.

I admit I did not donate - I would have been exposed anyway for being critical of management.

David: gee, but Webdiarists are a touchy bunch. For what it's worth, the earlier comment was headed DNP: for David, and I hadn't realised that that wasn't the original heading. It is published now. Since my carefully crafted reply was sent from admin-at-webdiary, and I've just discovered that sent messages from that id aren't saved, I can't repeat it here. Suffice to say that I've already set out (almost) all the answer I'm going to give in comments below. One additional comment: being critical of Webdiary management is a fairly common pastime on the site, and we don't discriminate against those who are - and are immensely gratified that some of the most voluble critics have also been major donors.

It's easy to understand that that you wouldn't make yourselves financially liable to a democracy... that would be unfair.  Having worked in and funded projects intended to be beneficial to a community, I sympathise.

While being totally cash-strapped I'm not prepared to justify to you why I haven't donated.  Accept the fact that I can't, and don't belittle me by revealing the information in pubic as counter-argument, please.  When I can donate I will, and if I win the lotto ...

Both Hamish and Margo have been very kind to me, and I endeavour to support their efforts in any ways that I can.

As you've said, and yes I knew, Hamish was originally employed till the end of January, and it's great that this has been extended.  I've been worrying while waiting for this update about the future of the site, wondering how it will continue and under whose guiding hand.

Please take what I'm saying in the spirit in which it's intended.

David: thanks, Richard. Apologies for belittling you. Your comment hit a raw spot, given some of the comments made last time and the number of unpaid hours I've put in since September to try and get the Webdiary ship back on an even keel ...

I appreciate the discussion that takes place on Webdiary, and I think it is commendable that you are making full financial disclosure. The directors have acted correctly so far as I can see.

I will admit without shame that I am a non-donor. Webdiary is one of a number of blogs I visit and comment upon. I like the content, but not enough to pay for it. The continuing shift towards advertising revenue seems the right way to go.

On whether Webdiarists had any warning of this position: Webdiarists were informed in the previous management update that:

"The Cash in Hand and income in hand but not yet cashed are sufficient to cover the company’s immediate contracted liabilities, which are limited to: * Contracts with Nielsen NetRatings and Project Syndicate for services over the next three months: these have now been renegotiated to a lower level in view of the changed circumstances of the business * Contract with Hamish Alcorn, a Director of the company, for editing services in January * Bank and website fees The Directors will review the forward trading position in January in the light of income received."

For those of you with limited legal knowledge, the Directors are personally liable for any commitments they make on behalf of the company that it does not have the funds to undertake - this means that Richard's suggestion that we keep on paying Hamish amounts to exactly that, ie that Craig and I should personally pay him so that this service continues to run whenever its readers and writers are not contributing enough cash.

Funnily enough, we aren't prepared to hand over that decision as to whether we (and Hamish and Margo) are personally liable for several thousand dollars a month in debts to a popular vote.

Due to current severe financial constraints I"m battling to pay my own bills, the only one of which will appear publicly is $160 for the dog (see Stranger...) before the fine doubles in a week.

David, I do not consider it appropriate for you to disclose if I've donated or not.  Donors have the right to remain anonymous,  please respect my privacy. 

David: some of our donors are non-workers who contribute $5 or $10 when they can. They support what we're doing, and we respect their anonymity.

Giving a month's notice to Hamish in mid-January....what the hell do you directors have for hearts and brains?

Think about it- Margo left in the middle of December, the new site went up, and then the quitest possible period of the year occurred.  Give the bloke a break!  If Hamish hadn't had the guts to make a go of it on the day that Margo left, we wouldn't be here deliberating about anything.

Why weren't we informed in mid-January that Hamish had received notice? The last information we had was that he was employed until the end of January, and was looking for sponsors.

How do you propose to run the show now that you've thrown out the baby with the bathwater?  Why couldn't you wait for the working year to commence before applying your statistical evaluations?

I'm p**sed off, David, and would like to know how, and if, Webdiary will be conducted in the future.  If the directors can make such decisions at such a time  without consulting anybody, I reckon the last elements ofheart and soul have left this project, and you're about to be directing bugger-all.

 What a bloody shame.

David: The Directors have a legal responsibility to not continue trading if we are unable to pay our bills. When Margo left, it was unclear whether we could pay Hamish for January, let alone February. If we had paid Hamish for the whole of February today, as usual, we would have had $150 left in the account, and several outstanding bills to pay - and probably would have to close completely before the end of February. As a Director, Hamish has been part of all decisions. To pick up on Robert Ekins' point, I notice you aren't one of the 87, Richard?

 Piss weak people, absolutely piss weak!

Remember this folks?  

Sigh........