I spent an enjoyable hour with Kate Foley late last week, Kate is Neighbourhood Manager in Lozells Birmingham and runs the Life in Lozells blog. The site has been running since March 2007, and is an invaluable resource for local info — but Kate is interested in building more of a community around it, generating and hosting conversation as well as collecting information.
I suggested that an injection of opinion in to the blog might help that, which is something that it’s difficult for Kate to do in her official capacity — two possible solutions came to mind:
- invite some other people to contribute, either on subjects that they are “expert” on (they may only be tangentially related to the area), or
- make use of links, so that Kate is flagging up and pointing to opinion rather than directly offering it herself.
The first relies on use of Kate’s real-world network, pulling voices in to contribute, the second can be done in a more online way but will rely on Kate becoming confident in using search and RSS and building her online connectivity.
Those of you with local blogs, how do you work to build up the conversation?
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Guido Fawkes and his blog comment policy
Although his political blog is often a place for sniping and argumentative comments (following perhaps in the style of the posts), this is a very clear piece of work. It sets out in a friendly (as friendly as the blog gets), conversational, tone just what is and isn't allowed in the comments on order-order.com.
While every point isn't transferable to all blogs, I for example love a long an detailed response to any post on sites I run, it's useful to read it and to think about how comments add value to a site — or even possibly detract. If it's a personal blog, it's very much "your gaff, your rules" and if you set them out no-one can argue. [link]