Over these past six months it's been awe-inspiring to watch everyone just dig in, work, plan, sweat, get stressed, get depressed, catch a second wind, and carry on.


by Cho on Wed Jul 27, 2005 at 08:07:16 PM EST

Then I fell away for a bit (new job and all) and then came over to beta test here on July 22.  And that's it!

RenaRF: All you can possibly want and them some at my blog

by RenaRF on Wed Jul 27, 2005 at 08:26:38 PM EST

Signed up on what was then the Propagannon site on Valentine's Day. I have done a tiny bit of research, and some downloading and archive work, but have been away from here recently due to the downingstreetmemo.com project.

A year ago, I would never have imagined that I would do what I have this year... this group started me off.

by highacidity on Thu Jul 28, 2005 at 01:17:38 AM EST

Seriously, I hadn't paid any attention to blogs before.  I was still disgusted with all of the voting shenanigans, saw a hotlink off the Political News page on Yahoo and landed in the world of DailyKos.

I felt like I had come home.

by kfred on Thu Jul 28, 2005 at 07:06:38 PM EST

It's really ALL his idea and baby before everyone else came along. I never would have dreamed of aiming for such an ambitious project. He's really the dad of it all.

And all the rest of you made it happen. I'm just along for the ride at this point.

by SusanG on Thu Jul 28, 2005 at 07:14:08 PM EST

...and I was amazed at what I saw.  I jumped in here.  I wrote SusanG after that and said, "Shall we go for it?"  

Standingup was the first to contact me about doing some FOIAs.  

Well done, ePM.

by NYBri on Thu Jul 28, 2005 at 07:59:39 PM EST

i think it was a week that i saw the diary about looking for volunteers to work on a site. i was going to send a note volunteering, then thought "nah. they probably have tons of designers already."

and then i thought "well, maybe they'll need a logo or something." since i had a week or so before i got really busy with work again, plenty of time for a quick logo, i wrote brian and asked... "need any design help?"

:-)

by kiw on Sat Jul 30, 2005 at 04:45:21 AM EST

After the election I was depressed and pissed off. I began telling anyone who'd listen that the biggest threat our country faced was not terrorism, but that we were losing our freedom of the press. Not so much interest.

So I registered NewtSoup.com, was learning about WordPress and 'designing' a stunningly amateurish front page when I saw Gannon's now famous question lampooned by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. That was my tipping point.

Through Google I found AmericaBlog. After being utterly ignored for few days, I followed a link to dKos -- it hurt my brain and to be honest, I found the whole "kossacks" thing a little worrisome. Thankfully that led to Propagannon.

After a week or so at ppg, someone named SusanG pm'd me and asked if I like to be more involved. I said "yes" and someone named Tanya emailed me. I replied to Tanya and someone named Brian Kelly emailed me an invitation to a conference call.

Just five minutes after that conference call, I emailed my first group-wide apology for being so outspoken. Soon, I received multiple replies stating I had nothing to apologize for, and welcoming me to ePluribus Media.

And 21 weeks and 5 days later, they're still regretting it.

todd
They said, "kick all the illegal aliens out, then build a super-fence so they can't get back in." And I went, "Um, who's gonna build it?" --Carlos Mencia
by txj on Sat Jul 30, 2005 at 12:13:33 PM EST

email led to emails lead to invitations to help here and there, and hey presto, whaddaya know.   now I'm one of those people.  I still feel kinda bad about bailing out on Leo, who I was originally supposed to help with the contact list, but he seems to be managing without me :-)  we'll get there...

scoop and drupal are just a start BTW.  CJ is not going away, and there's a years-long learning process ahead of us about what works, what doesn't, and how to turn these abstract ideas into stable communities of well-informed citizens...

by radish on Sat Jul 30, 2005 at 01:50:32 PM EST

Someone wonderful convinced me that ePluribus was the way of the future and that so much more could be accomplished working with a ton of talented researchers, gifted writers, tech savvy programmers, accomplished editors, publicists and legal minds than just going the write and whore traditional blog route.

It was a real struggle to get the work I did on my own, especially the plagiarism of the msm by Talon News, noticed by the blogosphere....and the mainstream media has yet to report it.  But I think these Websites are going to change the face of the left side of the blogosphere.  The work we've all been doing here is extraordinary..and the fact checking...the digging...the focus on being right instead of just being first...is going to do more than just change the media's perception of blogs...it's going to show the media what they should be doing to change the blogs' perception of the media, as well.

by Ron Brynaert on Mon Aug 01, 2005 at 12:33:47 AM EST

When I look at this site, when I think back to all of the "citizen journalism" pieces that have resulted over the past months, I am just amazed.

Pat yourselves on the back, everyone!

by Aaron Barlow on Mon Aug 01, 2005 at 10:15:59 AM EST

Subsequent diary talked about the physical setup, and y'all hit the ground running.  Lost the place for a couple months, and just recently came back.

Love the t-shirts.  

I think going forward that, in addition to news, this morphing entity could easily become a premier vetting site.  There are others out there, but none built the way ePluribus is.  Something to think about.

by rba on Tue Aug 02, 2005 at 08:55:30 AM EST