So I was mowing this afternoon and I thought of this idea that might be of interest. How would other boarders here feel about starting a blog/site where we post various (and related i.e. not a random collection) writings? I was thinking of these two formats:

a) Have each person write something on ostensibly the same topic but choosing where to go from there (e.g. a piece on Troy Davis could talk about him specifically, racism in the American legal system, capital punishment, history of last meals/words, etc. – whatever one wanted to write if it related somewhat to the topic at hand). These could focus on a recent news bit, a movie/piece of lit, philosophical concept, whatever as long as everyone could write on it without having to read a whole book or something as prohibitively time consuming.

Or b) we could each all submit (similarly general) topics and then assign them randomly and then have to write on that. This may require everyone submitting three topics so that people get at least a little choice in the matter.

(And then of course there's the more likely c), d), f), etc. where someone/s come up with better ideas that trump mine – suggestions encouraged!)

Would anybody be interested in something like this? I really need to get to writing again, and I think this would be a fun way to do that. I was thinking maybe 2-3,000 words per piece but it would obviously depend on the subject. We could also edit and critique each others' work, and hey, maybe even submit some of the best stuff for publication sometime down the road if it actually happens. So let me know and we can get this rolling or don't and everything will be just the same.

yep. i imagine i would spend more time on this then school papers.

so even like profiles of thinkers like scientists, artists, politicians, entertainers? historical topics? futuristic topics, like the direction of science or culture? i don't know if that's more broad than what you had in mind.

it would give me, at least, motivation to put organized thoughts on paper.

I will definitely do this after I've done all the shit I need to do to get accepted into grad school.

Yeah those would all be fine, but people can then go wherever they want with these topics.

Anybody have any suggestions as far as name, design, format, etc go? Tentative launch date? Just any other thoughts on this at all? I think this would work best as a collaborative effort.

digital dream blog

just kidding, that sounds cyber-erotic in a weird way.

i'm not familiar with blogs, but maybe a "what's new" feed at the top? it would direct link to recent essays/articles, or you can scroll down to see them with most recent submission fist of course. and a sidebar with links to different posters' archives (yeah archive implies maybe unrealistic expectations about the longevity of this project, knowing us).

Well, I made this in about ten minutes, mainly just to get an appearance I liked. Give it a look:

http://wecanfigureitoutlater.wordpress.com/

I'd be down for this. I don't have a ton of time at the moment but I probably will next semester.

Nice to hear that there's interest, hopefully we can get this up and running relatively soon then. Anyone have any name ideas?

One idea:

We shouldn't have it be that everyone writes on every topic. I probably won't have much to say about political things, but a lot to say about literature and philosophy. So long as we have a solid group, I think we should try to have multiple people for each topic, but not necessarily everybody for every topic. This will also make it much easier to keep this going, because we can work around time constraints on different people (there will be lots of times coming up where I just won't be able to do anything for a week or so).

I'll try and brainstorm some names this weekend.

yeah i wasn't thinking everyone would offer essays on the same topic either. i figured what we wrote about didn't necessarily have to revolve around a central issue, but maybe that's not what you had in mind awesome? i thought it would be cool to just write essays about issues and interests you think are important and are passionate about. maybe that's not enough structure.

I'd do this if I wasn't so heavily involved with my college's newspaper this school year.

Anyone think of any good names? The best I came up with was Digital Roundtable, but it was already registered (as a .wordpress.com, but open as a .net or .me for a fee)

The Outsiders.

I'm pretty sure I like this idea. We all write so much anyway.

It would be funny if we kept the current URL and used it as the blog title. It's so quirky and indie.

i always thought digitaldreamdoor sounded like the url of porn site