Metadiary

So, some may have noticed some goings on, including an offensive diary that has been removed and some comments directed at one particular site participant who seems to think he has more of idea of how things should be done around here than those of us who put far more time into it than he. So it is worth once again to mention some standards.

This is a progressive blog. That means several things. It means we welcome a wide variety of viewpoints, even some non-progressive ones if they are well argued. It means we do our best to give voice to minorities and to openly discuss issues of race, gender, ethnicity and just about anything else even if it makes some white liberals in my neighborhood of Park Slope uncomfortable. And, for the record, we have gotten some praise for being one of the most welcoming blog when it comes to discussing race issues. It also means religion is an open topic of discussion and we welcome points of views that include just about everything from atheism through agnosticism, gnosticism, Manichaeism, Arianism, Unitarianism, Shi'a, Sunni, Sufi, Hassid, Reconstructionist, Mitnagdim, Mahayana, Ch'an, Zen, Wicca, Satanism, Catholicism, Protestantism and good old fashioned morality unconnected with the concept of a deity. What we really are not interested in is advocacy of a deity unconnected with morality. Jihadists, Crusaders of the traditional "kill the unbelievers" variety and people who claim god wants to kill people so a particular candidate can be president are NOT WELCOME HERE. These are things that need to be discussed with your therapist (if you want help), or with Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson (if you want agreement), not people on a progressive site.

Over the past year and a half, Liza's little blog empire has been growing remarkably. Daily Gotham really took off thanks to several highly contentious Brooklyn issues (development issues, arson issues, race issues, and some particularly divisive primaries). For me it was a pretty dizzying rise that included quite a few heated exchanges between the DG editors/writers and other bloggers, political organizations and partisans of particular campaigns. At the end of it, we were credited with (perhaps given TOO much credit) defeating a Congressional candidate who raised $1.8 million and had assumed he would win as the only white candidate in a majority black district where the black vote was split among several black candidates. At the end of it we also had earned the respect of many who at first hated us. The president of one local club we took on who coined the phrase "I'd rather be flogged than blogged" after we took her club to task for disenfranchising a large group of new members recently welcomed me onto the board of the same club. Gatemouth, a local NYC blogger who really slammed us at first, wound up having us as his defenders when he was attacked. One State Senator we have slammed claims to be a loyal reader.

So, somehow, and I really am somewhat clueless how we did it, we became noticed on DG in a very short period of time. Put another way, we were successful.

During that whole time I spent far more time on DG than Culture Kitchen. But Liza asked me to be a managing editor for CK. Since then, through the efforts of Liza and the editors, CK has been growing as well. And has been noticed.