Virtual Rally #1

Virtual Rally #1
Site:  digg.com
Goal:  Elevate OMBFP to front page of digg.com.
Mission:  Spread word about OMBFP to a wide audience.
Participant Actions:
(1) Register as a member of digg.com (28 March - 3 April 2007)
[Register]
(2) "Digg" OMBFP article which will be linked (Wednesday, 4 April 2007)
[link available April 4th]

I am very pleased to announce Virtual Rally #1. As explained above, you may participate by registering as a digg.com user over the course of the next week. Then on Wednesday, April 4th, I will post the designated article about OMBFP, which will be linked for everyone to "digg" (vote for). With wide participation, it should be easy to reach our goal!

Please spread the word about this Virtual Rally! As with all of these, participants need not be part of OMBFP, nor do Bloggers for Peace need to participate in Virtual Rallies.

Second Tuesday Topic

Have you convinced anyone else to change their opinion about the Iraq War?

If so, describe that experience and how you convinced them.

If not, imagine what would change your mind if you felt differently about the War.

Virtual Rallies

I want to briefly discuss an upcoming aspect of One Million Blogs for Peace: Virtual Rallies.

This philosophy of Virtual Rallies for OMBFP will be to create an active presence on the web for the movement to accomplish certain aims. Early on, most of these aims will be to spread the word about the project. Later, the focus will be to demonstrate the size and breadth of pro-peace sentiment across combatant countries and the world.

You may be envisioning something like all entering a chat-room and chanting a text slogan. This is not exactly what I mean by a Virtual Rally. Rather, the concept is to use the simultaneous presence and agreement of many unique individuals at websites where this can make a meaningful impact.

A key example (and the likely first Virtual Rally point) is digg.com. This is a website that tracks news stories, videos, and other links of interest through a system of voting amongst registered members. The Virtual Rally would involve participants registering as digg.com users and then all voting for an OMBFP article within a short period of time, thus vaulting the article to the top of the page. This site (81st most visited site in the world, according to Alexa) carries enormous weight with the hearts and minds of internet users. By influencing such a site with a brief, dedicated impact, we can help spread the word and/or change opinions.

The Virtual Rallies will be the core point of action for One Million Blogs for Peace and one of the key ways we can make a real impact on peoples' opinions and, ultimately (hopefully), the tide of this war.

Notification of upcoming and active Virtual Rallies will be via e-mail to members, posting here, and likely a Virtual Rally subpage of OMBFP.

If you have suggestions for possible Virtual Rally ideas or sites, please don't hesitate to let me know!

Update Frequency

I just wanted to post a note about how often the list of blogs will be updated, since 22 blogs have signed up in the last 12 hours or so, since the last update.

I will be aiming to update the overall list roughly every 24 hours. This may not always be possible and is not a guarantee, but that is the goal. It may end up closer to 36 or 48, especially once the volume starts getting higher.

The regional lists will be posted shortly, but may not be updated as frequently, as it takes some time to sort those out.

Updates will tend to be made in the evenings, Pacific time, since that's when I have the most time to spend on them.

I have been enjoying reading your Tuesday Topic responses, both in the comments and on your blogs! Keep up the great work and keep an eye out for similar weekly or one-time projects that may be coming soon...

First Tuesday Topic

Think back four years ago, to when you first heard that the Iraq War had started.

Were you for or against the war at the time?

If you were for it, what has changed your mind over the last four years?

If you were against it, why were you against it?

LAUNCH!

I am proud to announce the official launch of One Million Blogs for Peace!

Please check the website for newly updated content, including links to participating blogs and the first Tuesday Topic (which will be cross-posted here shortly).

Thank you to everyone who has signed up as an Inblogural. There are 217 Inblogurals, representing 28 countries. 180 of them represent 5 combatant countries (USA, UK, Australia, Romania, and Armenia). 37 represent 23 non-combatant countries.

As the fact that we have only a fraction of 1% of our 1,000,000-blog goal should indicate, most of our work is still ahead of us. Please continue to spread the word and get involved. Tuesday Topics will be a good way of keeping your content relevant to the movement every week. If you have any comments or suggestions about how to improve involvement, please let me know!

How to Add a Graphic Button

I should put this on the front page as well. But for now, many have been asking about how to add a graphic link using one of the buttons I've created to the Blogs for Peace website.

Here's the code to paste where you want the button link:
<a href="http://bluepyramid.org/peace"><img src="http://bluepyramid.org/peace/Iraq.png"></a>

This is for the first graphic in the series (the large Iraq/Peace logo). If you want to use a different graphic, find out its name by right-clicking and then selecting "Properties". This will tell you the URL of the graphic you wish to use. Then replace the "img src" URL with that URL.

Confidence in War Slipping

I credit a lot of the peace activism surrounding the anniversary of the war for the news reported in this article:
Poll: confidence in Iraq war down sharply (CNN)

In 25 hours, One Million Blogs for Peace will officially join the fray.

Speaking of which, I have been asked by some why the start date is the 20th of March, rather than the traditionally observed anniversary of the 19th.

The answer is symbolism. The first shots were fired in the early morning hours of the 20th of March in Iraq. War was then declared in the United States on the night of the 19th. So while those who declared war were doing so during their 19th, the war actually started (where it was being fought) on the 20th.

The point here is that Iraq and its people are the victims of this war. The timelines for Americans and the America-centric perspective of the war matter less to me than the reality on the ground in Iraq. That's where the blood has been spilled, where the foreign combatants have been killing, and where a civilization and a society is being decimated for profit.

You may have many disparate reasons for supporting the end to this war, and I heartily welcome them all. But my main reason, and thus my focus, is for the victims in Iraq.

Need a Blog?

If you're looking to sign up for One Million Blogs for Peace, but don't know where to start a blog, we have a suggestion... Lee at PeaceJournals is offering support for the project and would love to set you up with a free blog!

You can check it out at peacejournals.org.

Two Weeks Till Launch!

Just two weeks to go until the official launch of One Million Blogs for Peace! That means you have less than 14 days to secure your position as an Inblogural.

That also puts us two weeks away from the first weekly Tuesday Topic, which will be a specific subject to blog about every Tuesday. This optional part of our project will help keep people focused on talking about the Iraq War and ways to end it.

Keep spreading the word! Don't let your friends miss out on being an Inblogural!

Why Separate Countries in OMBFP?

I have received some negative feedback regarding the decision to create separate categories for blogs based on the base country of an individual's blog. I wanted to offer my explanation for this decision and hopefully demonstrate why people of any country should sign up...

There are two main purposes to the One Million Blogs for Peace project as I see it. One is to change hearts and minds, to help convince people that it's time to end the Iraq War. Another key purpose is to demonstrate a wide base of support for this perspective and to demonstrate the strength of the movement against the Iraq War.

Keeping a separate count is important for both of these purposes.

In changing hearts and minds, it is important to recognize that the focal point of the change needs to occur in countries currently prosecuting the war. Countries that never entered (or have withdrawn from) the war are already convinced that the Iraq War is not in their interest, and probably predominantly believe that it is a bad idea. Even if there are some supporters of the War in these nations, they are not impacting the war or contributing to its prosecution, so it is less important to change their mind.

Similarly, the demonstration of a wide base of support is more vital in countries currently involved in the war. We have to be prepared to defend this project in the face of skeptics and critics, especially in the United States (where almost all of the troops are actually from). If the bulk of the project is from countries who are not involved in the war, or if the count from all the nations is fully integrated, this leaves the project wide-open to dismissal. Where is the significance in a citizenry whose government never supported the war being in favor of other governments withdrawing from the war? I personally believe there is value in this sentiment, but clearly it does not carry quite the same weight as opposition from within a country currently fighting in Iraq.

Thus, I have decided to keep separate counts, and to classify those in already non-combatant countries as "Support Blogs". Perhaps I should find a more inclusive term and revise some of the project's front page to clarify this distinction.

I want to be very clear that Support Blogs from non-combatant countries will be able to participate in this project and contribute to One Million Blogs for Peace. After all, readership tends to cross borders given the wide accessibility of the internet. I still feel it is important to make the distinction, however, to fully demonstrate how much opposition to the war there is within countries currently involved.

Momentum!

The word is starting to get out. The list of Inblogurals is piling up. I really appreciate everyone who has been out there linking and promoting One Million Blogs for Peace.

We still have a long way to go, though. We're not close to a percentage point of the 1,000,000 target yet. Keep spreading the word!