OntheWilderSide

Top Ten Posts (in reverse order for drama…)

10. Nassau County Election Results This post is mostly a link to the Nassau County Board of Elections results page. We have found that people care about electoral politics, and local outcomes. Often, the press only focuses on the top of the ticket and celebrity candidates, so by giving people complete information, we can fill a market demand and get a scoop.

9. Ways to Prevent Afternoon Drowsiness This post began in April of 2006, when Ian found a research article about trying not to succumb to napping at work. Evidently, there are a lot of tired and bored people out there, because this post is in our list of perennial top hits. Kimberly, always one to follow the action, has added to the post over the years. Her favorite part has been finding various videos that she feels will wake up the tired people who click for help. The current video is a man who tap dances on his hands. You should see it, really.

8. Nassau County: Showing photos of people accused of DWI This story has a moderately happy ending. (As in,  moderate Democrats.) The Nassau County Executive and Nassau County District Attorney (both Democratic) had a program where people pulled over and accused of DWI would have their photos released to local newspapers for a “Wall of Shame.” Kimberly was shocked by the fact that this violated the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, and also was a tool to glamorize politicians and make them look tough. Kimberly was right all around, even predicting some of the unfolding events. The ultimate resolution of all this for Nassau County is that the Wall of Shame was changed to only include people after they are found guilty. (Kimberly is still not sure this is a positive measure. Though, it is much less a violation of civil liberties.) What we are proudest about is that this post has links to places people can genuinely turn for help with alcoholism, and that many people have actually clicked out to those links.

7. Presidential Primary Dates: Campaign 2008 More voter information. We are glad that we can provide it, and we can bring people into our activist universe by reporting on it. Though, it seems sad that the information is not more available from the government and mainstream media.

6. Election [A page]Ian is very proud of the number of hits on this page. It has gotten so much attention, even though we don’t publicize or push it a lot. And, the information on this page, is the kind of detail and motivation about electoral activism that is at the core of our mission. (And, if you click on the Election page and/or this article from there, you can learn more about how you – yes you! – can run for office. Come on, interesting project for the New Year, huh?)

5. New poll: Ralph Nader polls at 4% (see below) This post was originally published early in the campaign, on November 18th, 2007. We like to follow our readers interests and keep posts timely and up-to-date. Often, that means when an old post gets hot again, we investigate why and fill in the new information as an update to the old post. Taking the time to post updates of the Nader polling on 10/31/2008, 11/1/2008 and 11/3/2008, all at the same post that people kept pulling up, probably kept the hits high for this post and for our blog.

4. Last day to register to vote in NY is now Saturday, October 11th. Another post that gave much-needed electoral information to the community, another post that we kept modifying as the information changed. During campaign 2008, an odd thing happened, that there was one more day to register to vote in NY, tacked on after the usual deadline, based on a special community registration day that the local Board of Elections had not advertised enough. We were glad to advertise it on our blog, and the information got us a lot of hits.

3. Prez ’08 “People’s President Page”.  Kimberly set up this page as a way to reach out to the broader, electoral activist/third party community (besides just the Greens.) Kimberly thinks it was successful in that it:

• Brought independent and write-in candidates to our page, where they could find other candidates to support when they dropped out;
• Gave publicity to candidates who the mainstream media (and even some left media) do not cover;
• Affirmed the right of everyone to run for President and be taken seriously. Note that a person’s right to run for office is a direct extension of their right to vote.

The People’s President Page takes a lot of work to keep up, and the work is somewhat thankless, since it is not at the service of our own party. Kimberly hopes to evaluate the page, decide if it is worth keeping up the old version, and decide if and when to start a new version for 2012. In lieu of a “People’s President Page” on the wilderside, it is always useful to see the fairly broad list of candidates posted at www.politics1.com.

2. Picture of Presidential Ballot in NY State. The ultimate post for bringing ballot information to the local community. It is amazing that with all the art, music, video and politics on this blog, one of the best posts was simply taking an absentee ballot and scanning it in. Every piece of information that you have about this intense, powerful ritual called an election, can be a powerful tool to share with others.

1. NY 2008 Presidential Election Ballot with FAQ Another post which brought much needed information to voters. One thing we have learned at the Wilderside: If the regular media did not want to mention “Green Party”, in the old days, it was simply a loss for the Green Party. But, now, new media and independent media have given the regular media a run for their money. If the regular media leaves out the “Green Party” or the Green Party candidate, and I write “Green Party” and the name of the Green Party candidate, I will grab readers when they do a google search. So, at least there are small specs of media justice happening in the world. Another lesson is that lists and Frequently Asked Questions help people to find your posts and your web-site. At our WordPress dashboard for the web-site, we can see which search engine terms brought people to the site, so we realized that it was good to write “Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate for President” and “Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney”, if we do it in a FAQ at the “read more”.

Honorable Mentions:

Why Georgiana the Duchess of Devonshire is so important which is by far the top post for the the 30 day period, and number 14 for the year. Kimberly has been enthusiastic about Georgiana, her life, and her contribution to history and party politics since reading the Amanda Foreman book a few years ago. Having the movie come out has meshed well with bringing in new audiences to the blog. Look for more writing about Georgiana, and maybe even a spinoff, feminist project.

Green Party [A page] which came in at number 11 for the year. There are so many aspects of peace, justice and activism that are important to us. But, the actual Green Party is probably the project which is the most difficult to get media coverage on. So, we are proud to have spread the word, and glad so many greens come here to keep up to date with the goings on of the party.

Filed under: 3rd party, activism, Anti-War, Ballot issues, election, Election 2008, elections, Favorite Muses, green, Green Party Websites, Holidays, local, long island, Long Island Politics, News, Peace, personal, Political Websites, presidential race, progressive politics, Ralph Nader, third party, US Politics, war Tagged: | 2008, holiday, ian wilder, kimberly wilder, list, new year, top ten, wilderside