First of all, i want to thank you for your energy and commitment.

It is not easy developing a niche platform. Over at Progressive Messengers, we are attempting to gather a group of activists for about 18 months now.

Our niche within th eprogressive movement is very tiny.

About 5% of the ppl ever write a letter to the editor. We are attempting to gather those progressive letter writers to gether ad work in cooperation, "echoing" our message.

Not an easy task....but, it has been rewarding.

Tell me, what are you attepmpting to do here?

It had always been my intention that this site will become a community, and in some sense would become whatever the community wanted it to be. However, the community is slow to form (although that is getting better recently). All of this is in my mind as I'm in the process of writing a brochure for Fighting Bob Fest, which will probably be more eloquent than this discussion

This all started off out of a frustration on my part that the state is full of progressive groups that all have their own areas of influence and their own agendas. I don't on the other hand see a whole lot of discussion between these groups, or communication toward common progressive goals. Which is really disturbing to me. I have hoped that in some way it would be helpful to have an online community that is not associated with a single organization or cause, but that was just sort of "there" for people.

I think in a sense this is the more public version of Progressive Messengers. While Progressive Messengers is a sort of "think tank" for developing communications, I'd like Uppity Wisconsin to become more of a public platform for expressing views. The initial goals I have for this would include:

• A home for progressive bloggers (this has been slow to develop)
• A resource center of links to other progressive resources (this is in place but unfortunately about 95% of the links have been put in by me)
• A place to aggregate news and information from other progressive sources (this is coming along)
• A public progressive calendar where different organizations/individuals can post calendar events that are of interest to the progressive community (I've had a few calendar contributions, but not many)
• An experiment - I wanted to see where this would all go, and the outcome isn't anything like clear at this point.
• A place for discussion forums- I'd like to see a lot more of this sort of discussion taking place on the site. Well, this is really the first of them, so I'd like to see ANY of this sort of discussion taking place

In a sense my original intention here was to open up the discussion, and then to get the hell out of the way and perhaps just serve as moderator/editor. I had assumed that things would pick up a little more quickly than they had.

I'm not completely unhappy with things - I've recently picked up an occasional cartoonist and a prolific blogger (thanks WyserOwl). I'm hoping that I can generate some buzz around Fighting Bob Fest.

Another of the ideas I had here was the Progressive Webmasters of Wisconsin - which seemed like a really good idea to me, but apparently there's not been a crying need for this - I've sent invitations to join to quite a few webmasters, etc. and have gotten a fairly pathetic response. Again, I'm hoping that I will generate some interest at Fighting Bob Fest (by the way - Joe - do you have any materials, etc. you'd like me to distribute or show off in the booth for Progressive Messengers?)

I've probably blathered on here long enough for the moment. I'm very much open to suggestions.

Steve Hanson - Webmaster

Well Fightn Bob fest was fine. The usual suspects showed up, but I enjoyed talking to a wide variety of people about local progressive blogging/other web site prospects. Many surfed, not many webmasters, but a lively discussion usually happened as I planted the seed of an idea. I should post my little 2-page that got distributed. But where is the everlasting question isn't it? Probably on PM would be best, but I had it there and it got deleted in reorganization.

Also I'm looking forward to the multimedia coverage of Fightn Bob fest on this blog. I will link to it, but being quick is the key. If we are the first on the web and then post to other spots that it is up--that is what gets a buzz going.

Also what's the deal with the PM blog? Lost your editor? What to do?

What we need is PM folks who have info about the state races to create commentary on the election today and to be ready with something interesting to say...where the votes were for the winners..will it translate into success in the November election. Who is out there with the know-how on these issues? Who can produce quickly since the elections are of interest for a short time.

Time to be relevant and interesting so people keep coming back for more...

Your idea is good actually. But I don't think that it is an easy process. Because people don't even reply then how can they? First of all we need to find out people who writes well then step by step you can put your idea into action i think.

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Wisconsin Treatment Centers