I decided to call the site “i read your blog”. Or maybe “i ready our blog” depending on how you want to read the URL. This is a very unimaginative name and I’m already starting to regret it but TOO LATE. It’s all-in from here.

Do any of you remember reading the About page of the Indie Bloggers site? I dug it up on the Wayback Machine and it’s actually a pretty great read. Ranty and idealistic enough that I would call it a manifesto (primarily because I don’t know what a manifesto is, nor have I ever read one). But the way the submission guidelines were written was actually pretty cool. See for yourself on the Wayback Machine link to Indie Bloggers.

Or view the PDF version I made.

There’s some smashing stuff in there. Like this succinct explanation of the site:

Indie Bloggers (“IB”) is only about writing well and reading others who write well.

Don’t you know, they’re talkin’ about a revolution:

IB is and will always be a corner of the internets where we can get away from all the bullshit and fluff and write our asses off without worrying about popularity or who links to whom or gets more comments.

Obligatory grammar nazi note (that I loudly applaud):

A note: You are not e.e. cummings. Use of proper capitalizations is required right along with spelling and grammar.

I don’t really want to know what spurred this:

I have no problem with sexuality in general if it’s not over the top and inappropriate. (NO ANIMALS.)

An appealing call to action:

Now go submit. Pretty please with a fucking cherry on top.

I’ve been thinking about it. The reason Indie Bloggers shut down remains a mystery but if I had to guess, it was because there was too much work involved in reading submissions and scheduling them. Either way, massive props go out to Stacy for making it such a worthwhile site stocked with rich content and no advertising. I’m sure it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get the site to where it was.

I’m approaching this idea from an engineering perspective. I’m slowly pulling together a site that rigs a submission form to post directly into WordPress. Then I can have moderators log in and approve whichever submissions are good enough to be published. The final part is the scheduling. I could either have a bot that comes in and schedules posts based on the date they were approved or I could just manually schedule things so that way we don’t get eighteen consecutive posts about revenge sex. TO BE DECIDED.

Anyway, drop me an email if you’d like to be one of the first submitters to the site. Or maybe if you want to be a moderator. No promises if this site will even get any readers but it will be a good exercise.

Don’t start freaking out though because I didn’t actually do work. I just sat there and performed my usual morning routine of checking email and blogs. When it came to that time where I would usually start work (around 11am), I instead fired up my laptop and watched Iron Man whilst tucking into my first cup of coffee.

Afterward the coffee and the movie, I was all buzzed. I wanted to be all badass like Tony Stark and create things and tinker and look really smart. Childish, I know but I was being driven by caffeine. I thought about when I was reflecting on my New Year’s resolutions and how Indie Bloggers no longer exists.

I’d like to run an Indie Bloggers-style site that features a curated set of blog posts from interesting but lesser-known writers all over the internet. I’d want it to basically be an homage to the original except with a happier color scheme and a well organized archive. But I see a number of huge obstacles in my way:

1. Ego

This would essentially be an exercise in boosting my ego. While a community organizer should certainly be proud of their achievements, I’m more cynical and I think that like most websites driven by ego, it’s been thought of a zillion times already and it would die a slow death once it no longer becomes fun.

2. Content

I’m probably too cynical about writing style; I’m no connoisseur of the literary arts. I roll my eyes at poetry, free form prose, giant slabs of text with no paragraph breaks, and lack of punctuation. Not to say that I expect everyone to be a perfect essayist on the internet, it’s just that these remind me of the horrible things I wanted to write in my youth. I cringe because I understand the sentiment all too well.

3. Updating

I do not read very many personal blogs. The ones that I am subscribed to, I tend to skim over. At work, I develop a short attention span and I just don’t have the patience to read through everybody’s personal diatribes. This would certainly be counter-productive to running a website that highlights excellent personal writing.

Perhaps I would be better served sticking to my older idea of making a free WordPress theme for people to download. That could be fun and simple.

Another thing, I bought a Wacom tablet back in November and I’ve barely touched it since. I never really allowed myself time to draw except when I was stuck in class and bored out of my mind.

Now, it looks like I need to simulate those conditions again in order to want to draw anything. I’m not sure I have the discipline to do this when I’m at my computer because it’s so easy to open a browser window and just numb my brain with inane crap.