Dearest Friends,
This post concerns the future of our beloved Plight, but first, a huge thank you.
Since our switch to wordpress as a host and getting dot commed, we’ve experienced massive growth. It took 3 months to get the blogger site to 60 hits per day. Within a week of the switch, we were averaging around 160. The response is exciting, and we want to thank everyone for checking out the blog. (If you’re curious, our best days are generally on Sundays where it’s not uncommon to have well over 200 hits. It seems a lot of you are sitting in front of your computers reading the Plight when you really should be writing papers you’ve procrastinated completing over the weekend. We appreciate this, since it is normally when we should be writing papers that you’ll find Bernstein and I writing Plight articles.)
The future of the Northern Plight is a major discussion topic for the 2 of us right now. From the very beginning, we had a big vision for the blog as something that would last beyond our time at North Central and mean more then simply an entertaining venue for people to vent their opinions. The growth of the blog since September has given us new insights and ideas into just what our readers would want our site to offer.
That is where this post comes in. Some of the items we’ve discussed thus far include:
1. t-shirts and merchandise
2. a recurring guest editorial contest and/or eventually a separate section where non plight staff could post their articles
3. well maintained, positive, and appropriate forums
4. a bulletin board for various student events both in and outside of the school
5. expanding the staff to include more writers as well as web publishers, musicians, and visual artists
6. Northern Plight Tamagotchi Club
Much of this is already in the works, but we want to hear your ideas. What can we do to make The Northern Plight more useful for you? a better conversation starter? a catalyst for positive change at North Central? Right now is a critical time for the Plight. If you have an idea, a comment, a suggestion, a criticism, or a favorite color, please let us know.
Thank you.
Your Editors,
Woodward and Bernstein
Woodward
Bernstein
Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 7:50 pm
your t-shirts should have head lines on them. I’d buy one that said STREET WITNESS OUTING ENDS IN STUDENT’S CONVERSION TO ISLAM and 2 NCU STUDENTS SLAIN IN SPIRIT, FUNERALS MONDAY
Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 8:24 pm
i would like some funny shirts
Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 11:18 pm
/agree
Friday, October 5, 2007 at 8:51 am
Vote- Tamagochti Club. I’m a a Nano Pet girl but I will switch for this
Friday, October 5, 2007 at 10:01 am
T-Shirt’s would be cool. As would another writer - no music artists PLEASE. I don’t want to hear about the same old OA or Worship Live, or other praise bands here too.
Friday, October 5, 2007 at 12:11 pm
An idea that comes up again and again are forums. This would allow for greater participation in the ‘conversation’ aspect of the site. It just seems like the comments alone aren’t enough. If we set up forums, do you think you would use them?
Also, we’ve considered adding music/show/movie reviews. (these are the additional writers I was referring to) Would this be something you’d like to see on the plight?
Friday, October 5, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I love the idea of setting up a shop! it will be awesome! And the tamagatchi movement is coming back (fingers crossed, fingers crossed) Good Luck!
Oh, by the by, forums sound cool, it will only give us insight for more clues of WHO YOU GUYS ARE!
Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 5:47 pm
you should try to get the northcentral bookstore to sell northernplight shirts
Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 6:18 pm
the addition of “music/show/movie reviews” will take northernplight.com one step closer to facebook.com or myspace.com status. is that the goal here? if so, my visits to this site will certainly become less frequent. unless, of course, the reviews are to be written as satire…then by all means.
Saturday, October 6, 2007 at 7:53 pm
im with Friday … Headline Tshirts all the way!
Sunday, October 7, 2007 at 12:09 am
T-shirts: yes.
Tamagatchi: …I think I’m out of the loop on that one.
Forums: …? Maybe? If they didn’t get out of control…the Onion doesn’t have forums…
New idea: Get the plight in PRINT so it can be distributed by hand. The effectiveness will triple. It would be so incredible to have a real printed satirical newspaper to compete against the “Northerner,” I would bet that you’d have more readers than the Northerner does.
In the bookstore: Brilliant - if they go for it.
Expanded staff: I’m all for this, but I’m biased of course, and you guys know my reasons.
Oh, and FYI for all of you who aren’t familiar with “The Onion,” it’s a satirical newspaper that is free and in print nationwide (or almost nationwide) and has sponsors that buy ad space in the magazine (getting sponsors would be a good idea too if you wanted to try to print it up). The Onion also does movie and music reviews that are NOT satirical, but are often straightforward and honest with maybe a touch of sarcasm here and there. It fits into the genre very well and doesn’t make it very “Myspace” or “Facebook”-like.
It would be pretty cool to have CHAPEL REVIEWS in there! Maybe not daily, but somewhat consistently would be nice, especially with how outrageous some of our chapels can be.
Okay, that’s it for now.
-Ed
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 9:47 am
LoL… that last post is supposing the authors actually GO to chapel….
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 10:01 am
I’d love my own Northern Plight virtual pet. A t-shirt would be nice too, I wear medium.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Touche.
Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 11:54 am
I would like to see the Northern Plight have a clan in the Kingdom of Loathing.
Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 11:41 am
t-shirts for $11? $20? $21? please…check out other printers to keep costs down and i’m sure your shirts will sell. hell, i’d buy one!
Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I’d pay way more.
Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 10:52 pm
yeah. beta is a funny thing. just know… there will be mouse pads and wall clocks soon. almost too soon for you to even prepare. if your not mouse isn’t gliding over a northernplight mouse pad in a few weeks it may as well not be gliding across anything.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 12:09 am
I think selling the shirts in person (or having an emissary do it for you if you want to remain anonymous) would be better. A nice round price like 15 would be perfect. The problem with that is that you actually have to buy the merchandise in advance first…I’m certain we could figure out a way to facilitate that though…
Oh, and “theproclaimers”? I love that song, “I would walk 500 miles.” Well done.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 1:54 am
i get it.