European Political News

I’ve been working with Jon Bright who edits the OurKingdom blog for a couple of months on a policy project that we are calling “The Stump” or “On The Stump“. It is a rotating policy debate that moves around each week like the Britblog Roundup. There’ll be a team of up to about 10 people involved as “hosts”, but we would like that team itself to rotate in it’s membership over time. (This was first posted at the weekend to make sure that it reaches weekday readers - my apologies if you have read it twice.) How it works On Sunday “host for the week” Blogger A publishes an article about any issue or aspect of policy that they are interested in on their own blog, and a short summary on stump.org.uk. During the week (perhaps before Thursday night) anybody who wants to posts a response on their own blog and links back to the original post by blogger A (using a Trackback or Comment). On the next Saturday the next host Blogger B publishes a summary and of the responses, and perhaps some analysis of their own, including linking back to all those who responded. On Sunday (i.e., the next day) Blogger B becomes the host and publishes their own article about a question they are interested in, and the cycle starts again. This process prevents anyone having to do too much work continually - the way this is organised will mean that team members will have to put in quite a bit of thought and time roughly once every two months. Why is it organised like this? We are trying to help do our bit in several areas: Encourage wide policy debate on a range of questions at the same time. Encourage debate between different political viewpoints. Provide a way for bloggers to build wider contacts. Provide a mechanism where new bloggers can get involved in debate quickly. Encourage more interaction between different blog-niches (since policy and politics are not reserved for politico-geeks). How will the team work We are thinking about a team of around 10 people as hosts. But this area needs to be pragmatic. Our first thought is that team members will join for a period, be involved in the rotation for a time then leave to allow space for somebody else - that will give more people a chance to give input and build contacts. 6-12 months seems to be a reasonable minimum time to be involved as a host, since that is roughly the time needed to build a decent basic profile for a blog. The plan is to do the first team mainly by invitation to get a wide spread of bloggers and views - but if anybody is really keen there may be a couple of slots. If it works well, I’ll be happy to be the first team member to drop out - say after 3 or 4 cycles. Wrapping-Up We’re about ready to start, but we are still debating a few details, and some things are bound to change as we get going. So any comments or questions are welcome. You can find the blog at stump.org.uk, and the feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/stump. Watch these addresses for developments. Please make any comments or ask any questions on the Wardman Wire copy of this post. Tags: stump, on the stump. stumped, ourkingdom, policymeme, blog festival, policy festival

I’ve been working with Jon Bright who edits the OurKingdom blog for a couple of months on a policy project that we are calling “The Stump” or “On The Stump“. It is a rotating policy debate that moves around each week like the Britblog Roundup. There’ll be a team of up to about 10 people involved as “hosts”, but we would like that team itself to rotate in it’s membership over time. How it works On Sunday “host for the week” Blogger A publishes an article about any issue or aspect of policy that they are interested in on their own blog, and a short summary on stump.org.uk. During the week (perhaps before Thursday night) anybody who wants to posts a response on their own blog and links back to the original post by blogger A (using a Trackback or Comment). On the next Saturday the next host Blogger B publishes a summary and of the responses, and perhaps some analysis of their own, including linking back to all those who responded. On Sunday (i.e., the next day) Blogger B becomes the host and publishes their own article about a question they are interested in, and the cycle starts again. This process prevents anyone having to do too much work continually - the way this is organised will mean that team members will have to put in quite a bit of thought and time roughly once every two months. Why is it organised like this? We are trying to help do our bit in several areas: Encourage wide policy debate on a range of questions at the same time. Encourage debate between different political viewpoints. Provide a way for bloggers to build wider contacts. Provide a mechanism where new bloggers can get involved in debate quickly. Encourage more interaction between different blog-niches (since policy and politics are not reserved for politico-geeks). How will the team work We are thinking about a team of around 10 people as hosts. But this area needs to be pragmatic. Our first thought is that team members will join for a period, be involved in the rotation for a time then leave to allow space for somebody else - that will give more people a chance to give input and build contacts. 6-12 months seems to be a reasonable minimum time to be involved as a host, since that is roughly the time needed to build a decent basic profile for a blog. The plan is to do the first team mainly by invitation to get a wide spread of bloggers and views - but if anybody is really keen there may be a couple of slots. If it works well, I’ll be happy to be the first team member to drop out - say after 3 or 4 cycles. Wrapping-Up We’re about ready to start, but we are still debating a few details, and some things are bound to change as we get going. So any comments or questions are welcome. You can find the blog at stump.org.uk, and the feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/stump. Watch these addresses for developments. Please make any comments or ask any questions on the Wardman Wire copy of this post. Tags: stump, on the stump. stumped, ourkingdom, policymeme, blog festival, policy festival