My 2 Cents: Where We Go From Here

I’m grateful for all the Berry Pickers who took time out from a sunny Saturday to make Blogfest ‘09 successful. I needed it more than anyone else. It’s easy to lose focus re: what goes on here, when you’re trying to ride herd on individuals who treat the Huckleberries Online comments section as their personal kitty-litter box. Blogfest ‘09 was a reminder that we’ve built a unique online community that knows no circulation boundaries. Or political, religious or social boundaries. I’m thrilled that this is a place where a witch with a gun, a gay man who used to work in a mortuary, a curmudgeonly seventysomething former lawmaker, a gentle Buddhist who gives away sticks, city council members, among others, relish one another’s company so much that they’re lobbying for more than one get together per year. And they seem to accept as blogmeister an Evangelical Christian who once thought George Bush was the cat’s meow. The cameraderie at Moon Dollars (a wunnerful new place in Post Falls to hold small and medium-size private gatherings) reinforced my decision to rein things in here and return to Huckleberries to its roots as a North Idaho regional blog. More below .

After the big November 2007 layoffs at the newspaper, I made a private decision to take Huckleberries statewide in an effort to replace readers that I figured I’d lose as a result of fewer reporters to feed me breaking news. The move, I believe, stopped the fall in HBO page-views and may be responsible for an uptick that boosted the total for the year to around 2.55 million page-views. But that expansion may have created a monster that drove this blog sideways during the 2008 presidential campaign when the main comments thread became a 24/7 ideological shouting match that drove many to cover. I’ve been trying to rein the comments thread in since.

The switchover to the new blogware before Christmas cost HBO thousands of page-views per day. At one point, the blog was down 40 percent. Now, that number has been shaved to 20 percent. Which still means that HBO will hit about 2 million page-views for the year. I can easily live with that. When I moved to crack down on the blog flame wars a few weeks ago, I did so holding my breath. I wasn’t sure how people would react to the loss of HBO’s most prominent commenter. As a result, two other commenters left and the comments thread seemed a bit flat for awhile. I hold no ill will for any of them, or two others who were coolered last fall. Interestingly, my page-view numbers not only didn’t drop but there has been a slight uptick. Also, commenters I haven’t seen here in months, if not years, have returned.

All of which underscores my belief that I did the right thing. Frankly, I had little choice b/c I decided I wasn’t going to spend the last years of my journalism career, refereeing a cyber free-for-all. The response, which was emphasized by applause at blogfest when I said I will never allow this blog to be controlled by flamers again — right wing or left wing — has prompted me to think about changes here. Not wholesale changes. The model, which emphasizes news roundups and commentary on Idaho issues, works. I plan to schedule a coupla think sessions this month to figure out what I can do with limited newsroom help to bring Huckleberries back to a more focused North Idaho blog. As a starter, I plan to shine a spotlight even more brightly on my North Idaho blogroll. Beginning today, I will link to worthy, new material from the entire HBO Blogosphere daily, not just half of the blogroll.

As always, I’ll need your input via your blogs or the comments section to keep things interesting here. I don’t know how many more years I’ll be doing this. Five years online doing something like Huckleberries must be the equivalent of 50 human years. I had far fewer gray hairs when I started. Last month, for the first time, I found myself questioning whether I made the right decision when I started this blog — such was my displeasure over the way things were going in the comments thread. However, Blogfest ‘09 helped me regain perspective and begin delighting again in the special online place that Huckleberries has become. I’ve ranted long enough. As always, I thank you for checking in here. And encourage you to fasten your seatbelts because the ride isn’t over …