Locutus welcomes you to the Collective.

I have finally activated the most significant part of the recent site changes: the PoliBlog Collective (see the upper left hand corner of the page).

Essentially I have created three sideblogs where I now house all my scifi, sports and Colombia-specific content at these locales (although, no doubt, some will be cross-posted to the main page).

The PoliBlog Collective now consists of:

• PoliBlog. This is the main campus, so to speak (or, perhaps, the Mother Ship) of the Collective, and on balance things will remain as they have been. The focus will continue to be the political news of the day with the ongoing side helpings of general nonsense, observations on academia and personal stuff.
• La Política Colombiana. I will post news and analysis about Colombian politics here. Also I will end up using the space as a storage spot for things like electoral data and ballots (a project I started on the main page a while back). I plan to treat this section of the Collective as a tri-part combination of education on Colombian politics, academic analysis, and research storage (for myself and anyone else interested in Colombian politics).
• PoliBlog’s Deportes. This is now PoliBlog’s sports section. Some content will be cross-posted at OTB Sports. Also, my brother, Philip, will be a contributor.
• PoliSciFi News and musing on scifi TV, movies books and such will go here. My brother will be a contributor here as well, along with Steven L.
  

All are works in progress to one degree or another (but that should be no shock to long-time readers, given that I am on at least site redesign six at this point). The one that is in the roughest form is Colombian Politics. Indeed, I am not sure what I am going to permanently call it at this point.

There is one more element of the Collective that will hopefully be rolled out sometime next month, but it is currently on hold. All I will say at this point is that it isn’t another sideblog.

The basic idea of splitting off some of my content has been on my mind for a while, although I was inspired to some significant degree by Stephen Bainbridge’s recent change and the additions that James Joyner made to his site a while back. I have long considered creating a place for my Colombia-specific work, especially the more academically-oriented that would likely only appeal to a narrow audience. Indeed, the idea of just a web site to store electoral data and such has been in the back of my mind for several years, and this will allow me a place to build such features over time while also encouraging me to do more Colombia-based blogging.

I decided to go the sports, scifi and Colombia route because all three are things that I do blog about, but have often found myself avoiding at times because they tend not to fit into the overall flow of the main page, which is mainly focused on current national and international politics.

There was a point at which I shared Ann Althouse’s view on a unified blog versus a multi-page approach. And I still think that starting out a site with multiple pages would probably be problematic. However, with an established presence, there is a certain logic to compartmentalizing elements of one’s blog. As such, these changes answer a question that Matthew Shugart asked a while back.

I look forward to feedback and would ask for a little publicity help from other bloggers. Also: if you are interested in any of the specific sideblogs, please blogroll ‘em!

Thanks and enjoy.

8 Responses to “Resistance is Futile”

1. Professor Bainbridge's Journal Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 1:57 pm

   Blog Magazines: Resistance is Futile

   The rise of the blog magazine continues. Steven Taylor of Poliblog has joined the movement with what he calls the Poliblog Collective:Essentially I have created three sideblogs where I now house all my scifi, sports and Colombia-specific content at these

2. Jeff Vreeland Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 2:02 pm

   I like the updates – still not sure how I feel about the black but the overall move looks good.

   What are you going to do with your Alabama Blogging information? Will it go on the front page (or maybe another blog PIA)?

3. Steve Bainbridge Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 2:02 pm

   Congratulations. The new design is quite sharp, especially the SciFi page. I love that page’s banner. My only suggestion is that the blue links at the top of each sidebar are kind of hard to read against the black background, at least on my monitor and using my 48 year old eyes. BTW, did I get dropped from your blogroll?

4. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 2:09 pm

   Jeff,

   The Alabama stuff will stay on the PoliBlog main page as per normal.

   Steve,

   Thanks. I will look into the link color issue. And my blogroll is set to show only the 20 most recently updated blogs–but I see that it didn’t show up–ut you are on there.

   I will look into it.

5. Outside The Beltway | OTB Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 2:54 pm

   PoliBlog Collective

   Steven Taylor has create several spin-offs to PoliBlog:

   La Política Colombiana – “a tri-part combination of education on Colombian politics, academic analysis, and research storage.”
   PoliBlog’s Deportes – the sports section.
   PoliS…

6. Jan Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 3:10 pm

   Congrats on the opening of the collective.

   With your new sports blog, I hope people don’t mistake “deportes” for “deportees” and think that you are making a blog about immigration laws.

   Yes, I know, I should have mentioned that sooner, but. . .

7. Dr. Steven Taylor Says:
   December 14th, 2024 at 3:17 pm

   Ah well, maybe it will mean more Google hits from people who can’t spell

8. Jan Says:
   December 17th, 2024 at 10:15 pm

   Resistance is Futile

   I’m learning that is just a generally true statements. . .