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Common-Insight
Common Insight posseses a simple layout with an appealing close up of an eye with the Earth reflected in it. This is a very new site containing only 15 entries. The author states in the About section that he started writing because of his frustration with shallow bickering in political thought, and wanted to see a deeper discussion take place. He intends to state his opinions and defend them, but remains open to new ideas. Hmmm, an open mind! Sounds interesting. Let's check it out.
I began to read the entries, starting at the beginning. Imagine my surprise when the title of his first essay turned out to be 'Why the Gay Marriage Debate is Over'. This did not quite jibe with the stated purpose of his site. But let's not be too hasty, what else is in here?
Each entry contains numerous links to his essays or pertinent information elsewhere on the net. He admits there might be too many links and I would agree with him there. Topics range from politics to Extinction Level Events, including tsunamis, or whatever else captured his attention that day. When I clicked on a link to read an essay and then used the 'back' button, I was taken to more essays. This made it necessary to go back to the opening page and scroll down to the entry I had been reading, making for some frustrating navigation.
Since there are not that many entries and this blog is so new, it is hard to tell how it might evolve over time. If his stated purpose is to engage in intellectual debate, it would seem imperative to include a comment function, so we might join in, and see what other readers are saying. The only thing I found was his email address, which is fine, but one of the points of open debate is that it be.... well, open.
This site is very much like other political blogs. Lots of linkage, convicted opinion and succinct commentary on current events. However I think it fails in it's stated purpose, which is a give and take of ideas with readers.
I would consider re-visiting this site in a few more months to see how it develops. In my opinion, it is a little too soon to tell. The potential is there, it just needs some tweaking.
This site was reviewed on 2004-05-28 by yetzirah.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
yetzirah felt that Common-Insight deserved a rating of 2.5.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the site when it appeared in front of me. I’m not the world’s greatest judge of colour co-ordination but the colour choices didn’t work for me. The name could have meant almost anything; so no clues as to where we were going. Unusually the post at the top of the page was the first. I learned from this that the web log is real new. Less than a month old.
A quick hop over to the about C-I link revealed the purpose of the site. An opinion’s site on the why’s and where fore’s of US politics. The parties are not spinning effectively enough for Mr Salyer and he wishes to set that straight and he has a right to his valid opinion.
At this point it kinda depends on the guy’s savvy as to whether this was gonna work for me. I’m a politics graduate and have done my time reading half baked politicalese. I wasn’t optimistic.
The design is straightforward. The text used is readable, blue on yellow. It has a left side panel which just didn’t fit in my browser (IE6). There are a bunch of links to blog related sites which seem cool. A links page to “insightful” stuff, the aforementioned about C-I page and an archives page which as yet does not contain any archived posts but a categorised list of Scott’s articles. Political, environmental and minutia. The majority of this works. A couple of links to Blogdump and Bloghop didn’t producing a file not found error.
Scott has posted fifteen times in his first month and kept to his political agenda for a couple of weeks before veering off into the world of “cool stuff on the web” and what he calls minutia. Trivia by a different name – and uninteresting trivia at that. The political and environmental posts tend to end prematurely and link to a fuller post on a separate page. I don’t get the reason for this. It makes reading a hassle. I don’t like that back button. He also links from the posts to his articles or small essays on the political and environmental issue du jour. Like I mentioned the guy’s political “savvy” was gonna make or break this for me and unfortunately it doesn’t work. His mission to make a better job of presentation proved impossible. His writing has a mixture of straight academia, vernacular, unsupported opinion and sarcasm. He appears to be politically naïve which is no bad thing, but the site doesn’t do what it says on the tin. It muddles the muddled.
The site makes a liberal use of links and they open in a new window which I like and all work. The down side was a porn pop up. I don’t need this kind of thing in my life thank you.
There is as yet no comment facility.
Eyesight to the blind it isn’t and still pecking it’s way out of the egg. Maybe Scott will go on to thrill and enlighten, but this reader will not be back to find out. I’d give it a 1 out of 5. Here’s hoping things improve.
This site was reviewed on 2004-05-28 by Duween.
They felt this site belonged in the News/Links category.
Duween felt that Common-Insight deserved a rating of 1.
2 reviewers gave Common-Insight an average rating of 1.7500
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Site Category: News/Links
Reader Rating: 0.0000 based on 1 votes
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