Comments on Progressive Historians: History For Our Future: Is Web 2.0 Failing in the History Blogosphere?

By the way, I've added your widget to my site! Is...

2008-07-02T11:09:27.949-05:00

By the way, I've added your widget to my site! Is there a way you could edit the feeds to state what blog the posts come from, like Andy did in the widget above yours?

MW, thanks for your input. I'll forward this to A...

2008-07-02T10:58:08.621-05:00

MW, thanks for your input. I'll forward this to Andy Walpole, who works on these things, and see if he's interested in creating something like this.

even you don't know the foreign language, you can ...

2008-07-02T06:17:20.978-05:00

even you don't know the foreign language, you can read posts by using Google Translate tool - it helps to get the main idea of the article (i do it with weblog.histnet.ch posts) and get the links, news, data etc. But more important could be to develope a base of history blogs RSS sources and make a mashup, a site, where all the posts would be re-published automatically. There is echo.gmu.edu or our tiny project feeds.historiaimedia.org, but this future system should be opened for user ratings and comments for the feeds and sources - and blogs with better rating would be presented better than blogs with a few stars. Cliopatria made a directory of history blogs, but this is a static one.

There is also a system of Technorati with tags (it is possible to search posts with described with a specified tag) - maybe this could be an easier direction.

MW, I absolutely agree with you -- how do we make ...

2008-07-02T00:03:15.778-05:00

MW, I absolutely agree with you -- how do we make this happen?

And what's more - maybe it is worth to make soluti...

2008-07-01T19:22:14.277-05:00

And what's more - maybe it is worth to make solutions helping to collaborate history blogers from different countries - american blogosphere has great power, but what about for e.g. german one? Language is not a main problem IMHO.

Carnivals seem to be a great idea - we at Historia...

2008-07-01T19:19:07.572-05:00

Carnivals seem to be a great idea - we at Historiaimedia.org got it only once, but we want to develope in polish blogosphere such a project.

I find my own interest in blogging flagging of lat...

2008-06-28T13:19:03.899-05:00

I find my own interest in blogging flagging of late. I wonder if the answer isn't more group blogs along a common theme. Some of the most vibrant blogs on the internet are big group blogs--I am thinking of MetaFilter and Boing Boing. Not only do you get more posters, you get a built-in band of commentors.

One of the H-NET lists should support a group blog, automatically enrolling all of its subscribers as blog users with posting privileges. I think H-West or H-AmIndian would be good candidates.

Tim, I've found that my own traffic peaks in Febru...

2008-06-27T17:17:54.254-05:00

Tim, I've found that my own traffic peaks in February -- and that summer, as you say, is the worst time for readership. But I think that Sharon's comparing this year's traffic and interest with last year's, so it's a valid and troubling comparison.

Over the past two years, I've noticed that traffic...

2008-06-27T16:40:47.113-05:00

Over the past two years, I've noticed that traffic radically decreases in the history blogospher over the summer (meaning from mid-May to Mid-August). So we should ask this rhetorical question in late September or August, when participation is (or could be) at its highest.

In sum, let's wait and see. - TL

As a reader, I would be very disappointed if the H...

2008-06-27T11:34:39.654-05:00

As a reader, I would be very disappointed if the History Carnival disappeared.

I'm not an academic, just an interested reader (BA in history, more than ten years ago, and never worked in the field) who likes the mix of subjects and tones every month.

Interesting...would it be better if we limited the...

2008-06-25T13:09:11.231-05:00

Interesting...would it be better if we limited the Carnival to, say, 15-20 links?

I would be very disappointed if the History Carniv...

2008-06-25T07:14:59.183-05:00

I would be very disappointed if the History Carnival disbanded. One comment that I have as a reader of a couple of blog carnivals is that they can be overwhelming. I think it is sometimes too much information...so I end up skipping or skimming towards the end. I think shorter, targeted (thematically perhaps) carnivals would be more effective.

Just my 2 cents!

Pete, the digital humanities are thriving, but I f...

2008-06-24T21:35:59.705-05:00

Pete, the digital humanities are thriving, but I fear that they may be doing so at the expense of good old blogging. Running a digital history blog can count for a lot professionally, while running a blog like ProgressiveHistorians counts for very little.

CHNM was probably hiring to replace the late Roy Rosenzweig, though I wouldn't argue that they're hurting in any way.

As for the widget, follow the links. It's the thing called "History Now!" that runs here in the righthand sidebar. Basically, it indexes all blogs that have signed up with Andy (to do so, go to History Nexus and follow the instructions to set up an account and submit blogs) and updates their links every time each blog posts a new item. You can run the widget on your blog by getting the code (also linked above). I highly recommend it.

Having gotten into the history blog scene in fall ...

2008-06-24T19:18:53.400-05:00

Having gotten into the history blog scene in fall '07- I'm kinda disappointed to hear tell of the imminent collapse of history web 2.0. Though a bit skeptical of it.

It seems that the more professional subset of digital humanities are thriving- GMU's CHNM, for example. They just added a professor of digital history (or posted job ads for one). It is disappointing that history carnivals have declined. I always check it out and find numerous awesome posts from places i never check.

Finally, what is this History Now! widget?