Bloggers For Societal Change: Group Proposal

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Photo courtesy of hd-wallpaper.us

Photo courtesy of hd-wallpaper.us

After reading a post from the blog Deconstructing Myths, as well as a post by Oneness Of Humanity, I’ve come up with an idea to create an online group/league of bloggers who write about societal issues, be it racism, injustice, global warming, animal rights, and the like, and are interested in progress to create a better world.

I was also inspired by this Gandhi quote I posted a little while ago that I found on  EMILY LOUISE BIEHL‘s blog:

A-small-body-of-determined-spirits-fired-by-an-unquenchable-faith-in-their-mission-can-alter-the-course-of-history.

It made me think of what I, and many other bloggers, see as the purpose of our blogs. But since we are currently not organized or connected in a formal way, it feels as if each blogger is on his or her own. I think that if we formed some kind of group, we may feel more united in our efforts, and can therefore be more effective in creating the change we want to see happen.

So here are my ideas:

1) There are many bloggers who already write about societal issues, so there will be no particular requirements. Each blogger will just keep doing what they already do.

2) The thing that would connect us would be a logo with the title of our group (I’m thinking something like “The Determined Spirits Blog Group”). You can also give any suggestions you have for a title. The logo will link to a page that provides a list of all the bloggers in our group, so that visitors can look at our blogs and see what we’re about. and hopefully be inspired in the process.

3) There won’t be a formal application process for entering into this group- anyone can join.

4) The only blogs that wouldn’t be appropriate for this group would be those that are primarily about the blogger’s own personal life, such as your shopping habits, who you hang out with, your significant other, dating, pictures just of yourself, etc.  Blogs such as those would seem out of place, since the focus is not on society, the environment, etc.

5) Blogs in which the primary goal is to sell a product are not appropriate, either. No marketing allowed! If you are someone who writes about a variety of things and has just a picture of your product or only refer to it occasionally, that’s fine. If you’ve written a book and the cover of it is on your site, that’s no big deal.

6) If you are an artist who’s art is dedicated to the kinds of things we’re writing about, you are welcome to the group, as well.

7) If you blog about things meant to improve people’s lives, such as physical or mental health, or any kind of inspirational stuff that improves or enlightens people, you are also welcome. 

I think the best way to get this started is for people to either comment on this post or write me a message on my About page. If you want to join the group and/or have some more ideas and suggestions for the group, include that in your comments.

Thanks and take care 🙂

57 thoughts on “Bloggers For Societal Change: Group Proposal”

  1. Three other ‘Likes’, and one of them appears to be ‘Admin’ who are watching you, but no comment thus far. So permit me to rush in where wiser souls fear to tread…and encourage you in your interesting endeavour.

    • I’d love for you to be in our group!! We’re still brain storming names for it. I’ll keep your suggestions in mind. Maybe we can wait to hear if anyone has more suggestions, then vote on the one we think most reflects what the group is about. We’re also working on a logo. If you have any ideas, we can vote for the best logo, too.

      I kind of like the sound of the word league. Maybe League of Bloggers for a Better Future? I’ll put all our ideas in my About page so we can all see them easily.

  6. Hey everyone- I’m thinking that one way we can form this group and let other bloggers know about it is to put the logo on each group member’s blog, then create a Blog Roll (list of favorite blogs). But instead of calling it Blog Roll, we’ll use the title of the group as the title of the list. All members of the group would have this set up on their blog. What would be best would be some way we could communicate as a group in order to talk to each other in a central location, but I don’t know how to do that. Any ideas?

    I’ve been playing around with some ideas. I added an image of strawberries just to see what an image and a blog roll underneath would look like until we decide on a logo. Let me know if you like the idea. The blog roll would have names of blogs in the group and have a link to each blogger’s site.

    • I like it! Here’s a couple of suggestions:
      1) The “Egalitarian Change” symbol can be overlaid onto the image without the blank selection box around it, and in whatever desired color to provide contrast.
      2) A separate blog can be setup as a central location for group communication where each member has “author” rights to add posts.

      • I love both ideas! I’ll work a little more on the logo. In terms of the separate blog, how do we set up author rights? Could there be way for some parts to be open to outside users and another that’s open only to group members?

      • You can create a separate blog from the “My Blogs” menu by using the “Register Another Blog” button. There, you can chose the “privacy” setting you want.

        From the “Users” menu, you can grant specific privileges (i.e. administrator, editor, author, and contributor rights) for the blog to other people by using the “invite new users to your WordPress.com blog” button.

        Refer to the “help” section for more details.

        FYI: On a previous comment, you may have confused my blog (http://thesecularjurist.wordpress.com/) with the excellent “robertscribbler” blog. No biggie though, we’re both Robert.

        I’m looking forward to the group! If you need help, don’t hesitate to ask. Cheers 🙂

      • I just sent you an author invitation from the new group blog I just made. It’s a work in progress. It will use a random title until we decide on one. Let me know if it gives you access to write posts.

  9. New blog group title idea- “League of Bloggers for a Better World.” The sub-title would be “Be the Change.”

    Or maybe the other way around? “Be the Change” as the title; sub-title would be “League of bloggers for a better world.”

    What do you think? It’s a combo of each of our ideas.

    • Great!!! I just checked out your blog and it’s perfect for our group! You are now a member!

      As I’ve told the other members, check back often to this post’s comment section to know what the latest news is about the group.

      Read what’s been written here already and let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas.

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  13. Okay I will be sure to do so. It is after 1 AM I have to get some sleep, but I will be back here tomorrow with some ideas. I really like this idea and think it has a lot of promise. I never question the power of what a small group of people can accomplish and how much of an impact they can have. It is really what has always led to the biggest changes. I am sure this group will succeed I have no doubt with your and others enthusiasm, creativity, and commitment. I hope to add to this enthusiasm, creativity, and commitment in any way I am able. Few ideas I feel so sure about so early on learning about them, but this is one of them. Good Night or rather Good Morning I will be by later today to share some ideas and suggestions. Hope to hear from you then.

  15. Excellent idea Tanya! Where do I sign up?

    I started a similar idea at communityvillage.us , I know there is a lot of room for improvement at my site.

    Maybe we can meet once a week for a half hour on a Google hangout.
    My time zone is U.S. Pacific and I’m available in the evenings.

    • I’ve read a bit of your blogs and you’d be perfect for our group!! 🙂
      I’m so excited that we’re getting such great people! I’ll put your name on the list (see the left side of this blog).
      Keep up with what’s going on by checking back in this comment section. Read the previous comments to know what we’ve been doing so far.

      By the way- when you said we can talk through Google, did you mean through the Contact section of your Community Village blog?

    • Your in!! 🙂 Welcome! Your name will be on the list on the left hand side of this blog.
      I’ve read a bit of your blog and I like that you are trying to educate kids about important issues.

      Keep up with what’s going on by checking back to this comment section often. Read the previous comments to know what we’ve been doing so far.

    • I went to the link, and I like that Idea. But I’d like to find a way to do something like that in WordPress, just because I try not to have too many online accounts. Having many accounts makes it easier for people to spy and hack your info.

      I’ll send you an author invitation to the WordPress blog I created for the group. The author invitation allows you to always be able to post stuff on the blog, but it will be closed to non-members. Non-members will still be able to write comments to our posts. It still needs work, so look at it and let me know how we can make it function similar to community village. I also want to make sure there’s a way for the group to have internal communication that is private, as opposed to the public pages we’ll have.

      It would also be good to have a “static” front page that explains what the group is about.

  18. Sorry for responding so late I got sidetracked with projects I was working on. I really like this idea of yours for a title:
    League of Bloggers for a Better World.
    “Be the Change.”
    I think that title fits the group quite well. For inspiration for a logo this kind of inspired me for an idea:

    Something like this or something else showing community or solidarity.
    We could make this logo small enough to fit in a blogs side bar to take people to the site with all the blogs listed and bloggers. Basically create a graphical link on their site. This way each participant would not have to keep an up to date list of all the blogs. The list of blogs and bloggers would be centralized all in one place. One person keeps the list up to date and organized and makes changes as needed, a blogger deletes their blog, changes their blog address, no longer wished to participate etc… A new friend of mine has a site with a similar kind of idea http://communityvillageus.weebly.com/ . You can go back to my sites homepage and see how in the left sidebar I created a graphical link to his site. It is nothing more then using the image widget and creating a link to his site. We could do a similar thing with your site idea, a directory if you will of participating blogs and bloggers. We could include a screenshot of each blog with a short summary of what the blog is about. We could even include a section for reviews and ratings of the blogs. We could create groups within the site each organized around particular topics a political blogs group, a human rights blogs group, a heath and wellness blogs group, etc… In other words one large group and smaller groups within that large group to connect like minded bloggers.

    We could set up discussions or chats perhaps to brainstorm ideas for the main group and within the smaller groups. Maybe nothing more then a social club of like minded bloggers talking about topics that interest them. We could plan to create specific days where we all write, do poetry, music, art, video on a specific topic or important current event we are trying to get people to pay more attention to. Kind of like creating an internet viral campaign. If we have 30 members all writing about the topic on the same day with each their own social circles and social networks it could really make a difference in creating change. Who knows it could spark others not members to participate in these campaigns. We could drum up these campaigns on social networks like on August 15 we are going to stand united for background checks for all gun purchases and reasonable gun control legislation. On September 1st we are standing untied for comprehensive immigration reform. Of course not all bloggers in the group will think alike this is where the smaller groups within the large group would come into play. We could even create a logo for this day for people to display on their site sidebars with a link to a page explaining the campaign and how they can participate.

    Just some ideas I had, I will write more as I come up with more. I am very hopeful about this idea, keep this idea alive. I already have three people who liked your article I re-blogged and one who I know is interested in participating in the group. I am so glad I came across your blog and this article. I don’t even remember how I got here, I think from a link in one of my social networking circles but I am glad I did. I see tons of potential in this idea of yours.

  19. Here is the link to the picture that inspired me for a logo that I tried to embed above but it did not show up:

      • Anyways I responded to your comment on my blog to say you have nothing to worry about. It is a long comment so I don’t want to copy and paste it here. I don’t even know if it was a hack it very well could be a buggy theme after 80 articles got published it was having trouble with the articles displaying correctly. It was kind of a complicated theme as far as sidebars goes having different options and sidebars for each type of page, front page left, front page right, article left, article right, archive, top, middle, footer. Top, middle, and footer I could never get to work. I also had too many widgets in the sidebars on the front page and with infinite scroll enabled it just probably not handle all the memory requirements. I don’t even want to go back to old the theme now to see if I could spend hours again trying to fool with all those sidebars to make it display correctly. This theme I think will work out nicely. Much simpler but more post options, modern, sharper looking, easier to read with large font, etc… I think our “hacker” may very well have been a theme glitch. Talk to you later.

        • I still think you should use a more secure way of communication. Even if your current problems were not due to hacking, the fact that they still harass you through the internet is serious. WordPress is too open, and a good hacker can probably get through it’s protections.

          I really think you should stay off WordPress, not only for your online friends’ sake, but for yourself. They aren’t winning just because you change sites. Just try a more secure one. In order to continue your efforts, you’ll need to be in communication with people, but you need to find a better way to do it.

          Good luck, friend.

  20. I’m part of a group of people who blog about kids books. There’s a web page at http://www.kidlitosphere.org/KidLitosphere_Central/Welcome.html and also a yahoo group that gives us a listserv called kidlitoshpere. A conversation like the one in this comment section might work well on a listserv, and it’s pretty easy to create a yahoo group. I like the idea of having an icon each of us can put on our pages. That icon could connect to a main page which contains a list of all the member bloggers. Where do we put the main page? The members of kidlitosphere get together once a year for kidlitcon. I don’t know if we’d want to do the same kind of thing. I’m excited to be part of this!

    • I’ve made a WordPress blog for the group. I’m still working on it. I definitely like the idea of a logo that links to the group’s WordPress blog, so I’ll work on that. We have some ideas for a logo, so I’m working on that, too. When it’s done, I’ll show it to you guys so you can tell me what you think. If you click on the above links from other members, you’ll see our ideas for the logo.

      In terms of using an outside site for discussions, I’d rather just stay on WordPress. We’re working on ways to do that. I’m making author “rights” for each of us so that we can all access the blog to write posts on it. This feature will be blocked from anyone not in the group, but anyone will be able to comment on public posts we put up.

      I don’t like setting up too many accounts on different sites because the more accounts you have, the easier it is for people to hack into your information. I keep it to a minimum.

  21. I suggested a name for the group a few days ago, and it doesn’t look like there are any objections. So the name of the group will be “League of Bloggers for a Better World.” The sub-title will be “Be the Change.” It’s a combo of each of our ideas. The logo will also be a combo of our ideas.

      • If you right click on the logo, you should be able to save it to your computer.
        Then, go to the Dashboard of your blog.
        Then go down to Appearance (from the Menu bar in Dashboard).
        From there, go to Widgets.
        Then find and drag the Image box to the right hand side of the screen.
        After that, go back to the left hand side menu bar. Find Media. Add new.
        Then put the logo there. Copy and paste the URL, which is located on the right hand side of the screen.
        Then go back to Widgets, to get to the Image box. Paste the URL of the logo into the URL section. Then check to see if it worked.

        THEN, go to the group blog and copy and paste the blog’s web address.
        Paste the address into that Image box you put the logo in. Once you do that, the logo will automatically link to the group blog.

        Tell me if it works- I know it’s a really long process! If you have trouble, let me know 🙂
        The Help section of wordpress explains it as well. That’s how I learned how to do it.

  23. Hi Tanya! Sorry I haven’t responded until now, had an internet hiccup. 🙂 I absolutely adore this idea and I think it is a critical and enlightening way to gain the interest of people who are like us: wayward yet focused in our endeavor to be the change, but feeling like we really don’t have the means. I hope that a lot of people take advantage of this idea because a collective conscience is an effective one. Very cool! For the record, I really enjoy the title “The Determined Spirits Blog Group”.

    • I’m very excited that you want to join!!! Yay!

      We’ve decided on a name after people submitted their suggestions (see this comment section ) and I chose a name that combined all of the suggestions. I liked the phrase “determined spirits” too, but it wasn’t what the other bloggers asked for. I want the group to be very democratic, so what we do as a group will be a kind of pool of our ideas. So the name chosen I think was best.

      We also came up with a logo. See it on the left side of my blog under the archives menu. Add it to your blog. You don’t need to add the list of names. I have it there just so I can keep track of who’s in the group.

      We’re also trying to create a group site. If you click on the logo, it takes you to the site (everyone will use the logo as a link to the group site.) I’m still working on it. We can keep in touch with each other for now using this comment section until we can create some kind of private group forum on the group blog site.

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