Hey ladies....do you know this man?

For your watching enjoyment...

Rocky Arniveros
Steve Wilson
Gabrial Steinwitz
Billy Joe Puddinfoot

Q. What is the purpose of this blog?

A. There are plenty of large multi-user blogs devoted to politics/news/culture discussions. These would include Redstate, DailyKos, and MyDD. However, each of these sites tend to focus on preaching to the choir. They can often be filled with strong rhetoric and vitriol towards those they disagree with or perceive as not toeing the party line. We believe that there is a great opportunity for a blog to fill the large gap in between these blogs on the Right and the Left.

We seek to be a site for intelligent, reasonable, and charitable discussion and debate between those who disagree politically, philosophically, and culturally.

We aim to have an equal balance between those on the Right and the Left and between those of faith and agnostics/atheists.

A.There are three ways that you can post here:

1. You can enter text directly into the body. However, for formatting you will need to enter your own HTML tags.
2. You can download the w.bloggar tool that will enable you to write posts, format, and publish from your desktop.
3. You can email your content to me and I will publish it for you under your name.

Q. Who gets to be a registered user?

A. One of the biggest reasons that many other politically-oriented sites fail to achieve charitable discussion is anonymity. It is very easy to denigrate those that we don't know personally. It is very easy to insult a faceless name.

Therefore, we will seek to grow through personal relationships. At my original blog, Dignan's 75 Year Plan, I was able to establish great dialogue with quite a few people on the opposite end of the political spectrum, in large part because of taking the time to get to know these people. Not only have I spent time emailing my regular readers, but I have even made phone calls to them on occasion.

The growth of this site will be relationship-based. There will not be open registration for anyone who would like to write a diary here. The founding members of this site will be tasked with recruiting other friends who are committed to the concept of charitable and intelligent conversation.

You may say to yourself that you like the mission of this site and would like to contribute, yet you don't know any of us personally. My recommendation to you would be to get to know some of us personally and then ask for an invite. We are always looking for people to join us here

A. I would encourage you to invite people that you know that are committed to the following:

1. Intelligent conversation
2. A willingness to be charitible towards those you disagree with.
3. A desire and willingness to write often.

Q. What is this point system all about?

A. I have decided to create point system to encourage participation and contributions from the registered users here. Points are earned as follows:

1. Posting a front page story: 10pts
2. Posting a diary entry: 5pts
3. Posting a poll: 5pts
4. Posting a comment: 1pt
5. Moderating/approving a comment: 2pts
6. Posting a book review: 5pts
7. Inviting a user: 1pt
8. Having an invited user register: 10pts

My plan is to have prizes each month for the user with the most points. I have not decided what those prizes may be, but they will make this worth your while.

Q. What things should I do after I register?

A. Once you register here, you should do the following:

1. Fill out your personal information. Unless someone can give me a very good reason otherwise, I am going to require real names to be a registered user.
2. Please create an online bio for yourself.
3. In the account section, please use the location tab to indicate where you live. This will give us the ability to view where all of our registered users are.
4. Please upload a user picture if you have one.
5. If you know any of the other registered users personally, please add them to your buddylist.

Q. What's this buddylist all about?

A. As I mentioned in a previous question, this site is all about relationships. As such, it is important to understand those relationships of our registered users. The buddylist feature will allow each user to select other users that they are friends with. This functionality will enable you to quickly view content created by your friends. We will also be able to understand the growth of this site as it occurs through relationships and community.