You might have noticed that, other than comments on other people’s entries, I’ve been pretty quiet lately. In large part, it has been due to spending many hours at work, and the last thing I’m interested in upon coming home is looking at a computer screen again.
But a larger part is due to me putting in some consideration about where I want barnson.org to go. I really dig our political, social, philosophical and other discussions. And yet, when I participate, eventually my wife or someone else in the family will ask me to pull down my opinion on something or other because barnson.org is “a family site”. In some ways it is — I keep our pictures here, and my ruminations on various things. Recipes, music, that kind of stuff.
I want it to be more — yet, within the confines of its role as a family site, I cannot allow it to be certain things.
So today I registered a new domain. It will be a new site, where I will be a bit less guarded about my opinion, and hopefully, you’ll feel more open to express yours. It’s going to take me a week or two of setup to hammer down the look, feel, and functionality, but I intend to have a few features:
* BBCode-style markup for easy formatting * Moderation of posts, so that nothing starts out “front-page”, but can be moderated there by the community (or else, when we’re starting and the posts are few, the system can auto-moderate stuff to the front page now and then) * Open discussion of topics that are of interest to us. That means, the gloves are off. You’ll be able to say what you mean there without the Blue Meanie (me) censoring what you say. Within bounds, of course, I don’t want to host porn or something. * Easy blogging for those of us that don’t blog elsewhere. I hope to have urls kind of like Sourceforge, where the person’s name can be the first part of the URL (like “my-project.sourceforge.net”). * Trackback, so that you can notify other sites that you’ve written about their articles. * Ability to keep glossaries, books, etc.
My primary goal here is that I want to create a community site that’s not just another k5 or slashdot. I have a few ideas to make its focus really different from the usual thing. Part of my goal is to see if I can put together a “six degrees of separation” social experiment, and document who knows who how. It won’t start out that way, of course, and there are other sites that do similar things, but I think I have a few unique ideas that will keep it fresh and interesting.
Rest assured barnson.org is not going away. Keep posting and commenting. I’ll give you further news when I get closer to completion. I think you’ll be pleased with the results. And heck, maybe people like Justin will be convinced to move their primary blog away from LiveJournal or something 🙂
Trepidation
Arg.. the question becomes.. will you be posting freely and as voiciferously as before on the new site. If so, I welcome it!
As for moving my Blog.. it is something we could talk about. I also wonder what you would charge for just space to store media for download. (I will approach my maximum soon enough).
I would be hard pressed to be a poster on both sites.. mostly for the sam work reasons.. who wants to come home and type more for fun..
BUT.. if it became the new Blog site for all of us, and you were back as the inflammatory matt.. it could work.
Christy
Dawn and I both like your wife a lot. We’d like to hear from her on here once in a while. Christy, if you’re reading this… we want to hear your opinion on things too, even if it isn’t what you think people want to hear. Our discussions are widely varied and I think your voice would be as well received as anyone else’s.
Barnson Maphia
The general reason I’m asked to pull something down is usually because a family member, close friend, or other person close to us has taken offense — not because she has taken offense. If she has something to discuss regarding the site, we normally talk off the blog 🙂 It’s just how she is; she normally only visits when someone calls her attention to an entry, or if I email her and ask her to read something. Keeping up day-to-day just hasn’t been her “thing”.
Many family members visit this site, and when someone googles for “barnson” or “matt barnson”, this is the first link. An additional justification for me moving these articles elsewhere, and posting them under a nom-de-plume, is that it avoids some employer kickback I’ve run into already. No, I’m not joking. I’ve had employers, and potential employers, look me up to research me. I’ve gotten heat where I work right now over what I’ve written here. It’s gotta move.
I know that setting up a new web site won’t turn down the heat much. But this way, I sidestep the issue that I host images and photos here, and ask “faithful” family to come check them out. I haven’t written up a letter and sent it to all my relatives saying “Hey, look, I’m a heathen now!!!”. For some, when they read my opinions on my site, it’s a shock.
But remaining silent when spoken to, in my opinion, is tantamount to agreeing with the speaker. This is one reason that I refuse to attend Elder’s Quorum or Sunday School on those few times I visit the local ward building; I’ve been asked by the bishop to “refrain from discussing non-faith-promoting subjects”. Keeping my mouth shut when I hear something I disagree with goes against my nature.
Yeah, it may get me in trouble. But I guess that’s the difference between doing the easy thing, and doing the right thing.
So, anyway, by creating a new site, I can easily say what I think while confining barnson.org to boring family news, events, and the odd technical article, shoe-tying information, and recipes. That way I’ll dodge the whole “family site” issue entirely.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
clarification…
I certainly hope you don’t think I was blaming Christy for anything. I understand totally your point. I’m just saying that I’d love to see Christy post more often because I like her 🙂
We Don’t Hire Friends of Sammy G
Put up the new site. I don’t post on forums with my real name because it could impact my business. For example, when I post on other forums I always use internicks (i.e. “Steve Phillips”) to shield my professional efforts from my personal interests.
— Sammy G
my opinions
This is Christy.
I can’t remember my password, as always, it’s something to do with fish. Anyway, I appreciate Paul’s comments to encourage me to participate on the blog. Believe it or not I think of cute blog entries all the time. But if I don’t write it down, it’s lost. I don’t get much computer time at all, really, I have an almost two year old that has an internal honing device that tells him the moment my butt hits the swivel chair in front of the computer and he is instantly right there asking for food or whatever excuse his little mind can conjure to get me away from the computer. Typing a simple email response is a difficult activity. Not to mention that when he sleeps (which is rare these days) I hit the pillow as well, if the baby isn’t begging for more miracle grow.
The other reason the blog isn’t my “thing” is because I love to be with people. I’d much rather be hanging out with my friends, shopping or doing a hobby together than hang out with a computer screen. I do get on out of curiosity and request from time to time and I do enjoy it. There’s just so many other things going on in this family’s “boring” lives.
I will try to post on occasion. I’d like to put up the cute things the kids do and say, as well as comment occasionally. But it looks like most of you won’t be posting here much anymore or checking it at all since Matt is planning on a new site to avoid his family influences.
However, it is important to me that possible employers not be swayed by Matt’s weird opinions so it will be good for him not to stress so much about who is watching him. Hopefully he can remember to be a good boy and stay out of trouble. 🙂