As no other mechanism for a links pool has been established I'm using this topic to dump some links I've been browsing and suggest others do the same by posting to this topic when a few interesting links have been accumulated.

I don't have time to add even minimal descriptions in the style of surveys like blogometer so will often just post the link with just a cryptic title.

These are simply items I found worth reading for my own interest today from among others I scanned and found not worth looking at. I mainly read stuff I don't agree with and most of it isn't stuff I would have time to comment on either or recommend for reference.

However by making the raw links available it would be possible for others who find any of them worth turning into items with proper descriptions as stronger recommendations for reading to do so. Likewise if such recommendations are produced it could encourage incorporation of those worth including into the navigational structure of the site and/or actually writing responses and commentaries about them.

Today's are mainly from browsing the March 16 edition of Foreign Press Review and clicking links found via there even when the original item itself was of less interest.

Galbraith on Withdrawal Symptoms complaining that even if the US gives up in Iraq the Bushies have completely stuffed the American empire. Classic example of "leftist" journal Mother Jones adopting conservative imperial regrets as their own.

Andrew Sullivan on What I got wrong about the War - ends with Galileo's eppur si muove

Max Boot doing some Straussian coat-trailing by humorously "outing" uber-liberal actor George Clooney as actually promoting neocon idealism in films like Syriana

Kaplan on Rumsfeld whining that Senate Democrats aren't challenging the Bushies at all.

Kaplan on Powells UN Evidence includes an embarassing link illustrating how he was one of the many conned into supporting the war the only they could be - and he still doesn't get it.

Kaplan Delusional still yearning for the good old days when American talk about democracy didn't mean a thing and he could support wars for democracy without worrying.

Clinton's Karl Rove Dick Morris pushing Condi for President.

30 million liberated for 2600 lives

John Lloyd in New Statesman on how the mea culpas should be for not overthrowing tyrants earlier.

Cobra book interview confirming complete incomprehension about necessity for dissolving Iraqi army.

War unpopular and General Zinni yearning for old policy supporting dictatorships.

David Ignatius on Steps Towards Unity in Iraq - has actually noticed that what's currently happening is in fact the emergence of a national unity government rather than preparations for civil war.

Real Clear Politics useful source for links.

Defensive Culture Pentagon still not transformed.

Civilian casualties growing

Haaretz confirming Israeli opposition to removing West Bank settlements has collapsed

Depressing but perceptive commentary on strength of the paleo-conservative isolationist sentiment revealed by Dubai ports backlash - from a paleo

Bush is a big spending liberal loved by conservatives because he plays up bullshit "values" issues to be attacked by a "left" that conservatives hate.

An unbelievable mess

US a bystander proves "failure"!

If we were actually trying to attract an audience I would be willing to contribute to the team writing for that audience. But since we aren't, the hours I spend reading newspapers and browsing web each day are basically to keep myself informed. I'm giving this example to remind people that something different would be possible if there was actually an audience to write for rather than a grim determination to remain huddled on the sidelines talking to ourselves.

keza: If you had bothered to click on the links and read them instead of self-importantly busying yourself with "organizing" them you would have noticed that most are not suitable for the (long term) links folder.

They are just a "feed" of items I found interesting among the larger volume of stuff I read on one day (yesterday) in case it saves time for others looking for interesting stuff to read.

If anyone such as you yourself do find some of them of particular interest you might also want to actually recommend those particular ones by putting them into a special links folder or some other mechanism you might define together with a better description or a sketch of a blog item (or draft letter to the editor etc) about them.

I doubt that there are any in yesterday's batch that should end up in the current links folder

In fact I did read one item yesterday (a 33 page .pdf on Sistani and Shia politics) that I thought might be suitable for inclusion as "study material" but it isn't critical reading like the rest there and would be better suited to Iraq and Islam folders. Most people wouldn't find it an "interesting read".

As there is nothing on the site indicating how the site (as distinct from Plone software) operates I couldn't assign keywords and select a suitable location easily myself as a reviewer (any more than anyone else other than you can function as a reviewer) and I wasn't sure whether you do even read the submit comments when items are submitted for review so I didn't want to waste time writing a submit comment explaining that it wasn't necessarily suitable for the links folder "study material" - especially given the sheer pointlessness of submitting items to a site that isn't connected to the rest of the web anyway.

I have now clicked submit on that one item.

I also spend several hours a day reading the daily papers and could add links to items that were worth reading or might be worth a letter to the editor or a published reply if there was some point spending the extra time to do so.

If there is some organized process by which people can contribute to publishing material via this site and some organized process which ensures there is a point publishing material via this site by obtaining links from other sites, it will still be a long process of "baby steps" before significant numbers of people publish significant volumes of useful material that reaches a significant audience.

But while you refuse to organize any way for people to contribute to or publicize the site within the limits of their time constraints, skills and interests and instead just disrupt forum topics like Civil War in Iraq with pointless explanations of how Plone software works instead of actually defining how this site works, there is no way for the first baby steps to be taken.

If anyone is interested enough in an item they see at a link to write something about it suitable for publication here (ie in the navigation structure not just the forum) or for publication in the mass media they should be encouraged to do so and submit it through the sites non-existant review and publication process and/or direct to mass media and other web sites that actually publish stuff.

Breaking up the process into separate steps is essential so that people can contribute to whatever aspects they are actually able to.

Each step then actually takes longer than if you just did it yourself. For example it took more than an hour to post my list of interesting stuff I read yesterday on top of the time I spent reading it and deciding there was only one item I wanted to include in the sites navigation structure). But I can still go back to any of those items if I get inspired to do something more with them and at the same time I have hopefully made it easier for someone else to either just keep abreast of what's going on or actually contribute something to the site based on one of those items.

A shorter list of items that more than one person found interesting in a "work queue" of items for current blog punditry or letters to the editor etc would also take longer than actually writing the blog item, letter etc. But by taking that extra step first, someone else might be encouraged to do the writing for some items.

I am simply trying to work around the fact that you still have not defined any process by which people can contribute to publishing material on the site let alone enlisted people to do so.

Since this forum exists and I am going to continue reading before I start writing seriously - whether that ends up being here or elsewhere - I was trying to just spend the additional time it takes to share info about interesting reads in case it contributes.

Others can make similar contributions whether by adding links to their own reading, or recommending links with proper descriptions, or turning links into documents included in the site or writing actual material responding to the items for publication - provided there is some clear explanation that we want people to help and what we want them to do to help the site and precisely how what they can do fits together with what other people do in the way the site "works" as a collective. The Plone software is an incredibly powerful enabler of that capable of being used by a large newspaper. It is not a substitute for the actual organization of people to contribute and explanations of the software functions cannot define the process by which people can actually take part in what is currently your personal web site despite any agreements and alleged intentions.

The organizing you need to do is not of my "huge list of links" but of the continuous flow of work in reading, recommending, classifying, copying, writing and publishing that is required for a collectively maintained web site.

Define procedures by which anyone can contribute to any part of that and then do the hard part of actually getting people to do so. There still won't be much help for quite a while after you have made it obvious and easy how to help.

But there can't be any until you do.

I suspect there is some sort of fear that actually publicizing the site could lead to the forum being overwhelmed with hostile contributors. Plone's publication workflow facilities would ensure that simply doesn't matter. The stuff reviewers want to make part of the navigation structure and highlight on the front page would be "published" as what the site is about, and hostile material that is not of interest for discussion can either be rejected or buried in obscurity while hostile comments that contribute to discussion would be highlighted with the discussion to make the site more interesting.

That is why I thought it was important to get the navigation structures and site procedures worked out before reopening the forum. (It didn't actually occur to me that anybody would think simply opening the forum and sitting there for a year talking to yourselves without connections with the rest of the web was the way to go so I expected we would run into such problems on the forum fairly quickly whereas the fact is that there is no problem since we haven't actually launched the site yet).

PS There is no necessary connection between the word "link" as used in the above comments, in the Plone software "add item" menu entry for creating a link item or this site's Links folder. I could have used the word url or web page or just referred to stuff I have been reading.

Any description of how the lastsuperpower collective process works should first be written in completely technology neutral terms referring to the functions performed and perhaps to office metaphors such as "in tray", "pigeon hole", "work queue", etc.

warincontext.org looks almost as useful as Foreign Press Review (though with a more narrow focus).

No time, as well as no point in adding samples from it.