The Pontificators » About Us http://thepontificators.com/blog A family of ideas Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:59:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Comment policy for TP http://thepontificators.com/blog/2009/03/14/comment-policy-for-tp/ http://thepontificators.com/blog/2009/03/14/comment-policy-for-tp/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:29:21 +0000 Arthur http://thepontificators.com/blog/?p=129 Now that The Pontificators is up and running and we’re spreading the word a bit, I’m hoping that we’re pulling in some outside readers. If you’re here from the Big World, welcome, y’all!  You might have noticed that readers can’t comment on the blog posts here; I thought I’d explain why.

I was a serious internet news junkie during the last election cycle, and was amazed by the wide range of comments posted against the stories – some intelligent and insightful, others hateful, small-minded, and ignorant.  As much as I would like to encourage the first kind of comments, I don’t know how to avoid the second. 

If we implement unmoderated and anonymous comments, someone would need to go through the comment stream and take out the trash, so to speak.  If we have moderated comments only, someone would have to review and approve them all.  The Pontificators are all busy people, and I would like us to spend our blog time creating and posting original content, which is what We Tiggers Do Best.

So for now, only the contributors can comment, which turns the comment stream into part of the content.  Like the song, We Are Family here, and we all have history and relationship with each other.  So in addition to each contributor’s wrtiting, you’ll be able to see the chatter between Pontificators as we are surprised and pleased (or perhaps displeased) by each new post.

That doesn’t mean we don’t care about the outside world — we do, and we want to know what you think.  We are still setting up our site, so we may not have a Contact Us link yet, but your comments are always welcome at admin@thepontificators.com.  I’ll try to find a way to make this blog more “Web 2.0,” to give readers a place and voice in the community.  Send your ideas along.

]]> http://thepontificators.com/blog/2009/03/14/comment-policy-for-tp/feed/ 20 Who are The Pontificators? http://thepontificators.com/blog/2009/03/09/who-are-the-pontificators/ http://thepontificators.com/blog/2009/03/09/who-are-the-pontificators/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:31:44 +0000 Arthur http://thepontificators.com/blog/?p=5  The Pontificators are nine women and five men who are drawn from two generations of an extended family group.  All the contributors are related by blood or marriage.  There is an over-40-year span between the age of the oldest and youngest member.  This group includes sisters and brothers; husbands and wives; daughters and sons; uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, and cousins.  How the individual contributors are related is part of the mystery and part of the fun. 

 We are married, coupled, and single.  We are straight and gay. We are conservative and liberal.  We are Christians, Deists, and Humanists.  As such, there will be no one ideological slant presented on this blog, and you won’t be able to assume that the other contributors agree with the point of view of any particular post.  In fact, our disagreements will probably be part of the content.  To add to the diversity, some of the contributors have told me they will be posting under more than one name, to represent different aspects of their public and private personas.

 Which leads us to the ground rules.  They are few and simple, with the rest left to the judgment of the contributors:

 1. No real names.

 2. Be interesting!  Only post items which you think a wide variety of people would enjoy reading.

 3.  Within the restrictions of the first two rules, no topic is off limits.  So the Pontificators’ posts will touch life, love, sex, death, religion, and recipes.  You can also expect lots of book, music, and movie reviews, as our contributors are enthusiastic consumers (as well as creators) of media.

 I don’t know what “average” is, but this group does not seem to fit that description.  In fourteen contributors we have (that I know of) six songwriters, three visual artists, six writers of prose, and who-knows-how-many poets.  I can’t answer the “nature vs. nurture” question here, but one of the principal reasons for this blog’s existence is that for whatever reason, this group has a lot of original content to share – and www.thepontificators.com looks like a good way to present it. 

I’m excited to see what springs forth.  We all hope you will enjoy what you find here.

Arthur

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