Rantrave Reflections

After posting for a few months on rantrave.com, I want to see it achieve even more than it has. My motives are a mixture of altruism and selfishness. My altruistic motives consist of a fondness for the site's founders, who I have never met and the other rantravers, who I have also never met. I have benefited at least as much from ideological opponents as I have from those who validate and agree with me. I want them to be as well heard as possible.

My selfish motives are as follows. Rantrave has increased my daily hits about twenty times what I was getting before. And I want more. I want next year to be twenty times as big as this year. Since rantrave has broadened my audience, I want rantrave to get bigger. For this reason, I plan to follow rules that I believe will make the site more appealing.

Whoever writes or comments on rantrave deserves respect, or at least civility, unless they violate the guidelines, which are really common sense and decency. There is a pompous expression that irritates the hell out of me. "He (she) doesn't suffer fools gladly." When I hear that said of someone, I feel like throwing a pie in their face. Because I am sometimes a fool. I sometimes float a poorly conceived idea. I sometimes shift my mouth into drive when my brain is in park. When that happens, I like to be told how my logic has fallen short. I don't like to be called an idiot or some equivalent thereof. Eye rolls, sneering or verbal abuse can cut to the bone. I don't like it done to me, and I don't want to do it to others. Looking at it from rantrave's point of view, readers might be scared from registering or becoming regular contributors. No one likes to walk a tightrope over concrete. Make it easy to fall.

Rantrave is evolving its group personality. We should make that an inviting entity. Tom Wing dis some funny photoshopped visual gags. They were brilliant. They enabled newcomers to get the joke and laugh along. Amish King actually inspired me to write about micronations, fictitious countries that exist mostly in the mind of their creators, if at all.

Most of all, there is a silent majority of rantrave readers who never register, but might be pulled in by a single article. My dream is that some will check in regularly. In the back of my mind I worry about the rantrave founders getting enough out of it to continue keeping the site up and maybe to tweak the idea to make it work even better. I want the silent majority to be interested. If they want conservative opinion, I hope they will find it. If they want liberal opinion, I hope they will find it. And I hope we can stage good arguments for those who like that as well.

Sports bore me. Jesus is not a part of my theology. I have limited interest in most popular films. But I have watched those to whom these themes are central rack up awesome hits. People whose politics I share are driven by different theologies. I am most impressed by the civility of some who are repelled by some of my beliefs while sharing some of my interests.

I feel an obligation in public spaces and the homes of others to maintain civility and a measure of self effacement. I want everyone to walk away from a session on rantrave feeling better, feeling fulfilled and not to feel hurt or insulted. because I want the site to succeed, as well as all who come to it. When people cancel or stop posting, its a loss to the site. I certainly don't want to cause anyone to do that.

My biggest weakness is that I sometimes post my daily two articles and scram. I appreciate comments. I will try to return the favour, say maybe with four comments on other people's articles each day.

I really hope to see this site grow and to accomplish for its members and readers good things in their own private lives. The novelty of potentially reaching millions all around the world has never left me. The idea works well. Let's make it work even better