Is It Vegan: Starting a Quality Blog

[Dan.Linehan]

It's July 1st, 2008! E.g. the perfect time to start a new goal, with exactly six months left in the year.

I started thread like this once before, when I documented my progress on developing a new blog - Mean Mails. Problem was, mean mails was just too mean of a concept for me to really want to pursue. I don't want to run the #1 portal dedicated to mean messages! What if some kids started picking fights to get their messages posted on Mean Mails. No way. Too dirty.

I want to run something love centered. Respectful to all aspects of life. In my own life this has manifested through the adoption of a vegan diet.

One thing I always searched for when I first went vegan was ingredients that I didn't recognize. I would constantly Google stuff like "Is Calcium Carbonate vegan?" That made me want to register Is It Vegan.

When I think about how inspiring it would be to run a high traffic vegan journal, versus something like Mean Mails, the difference is night and day. Also, I recently have a lot of newly found free time on my hands, so that helps too. Finally, I've recruited a very smart partner to help with things this time around. So, here we go! Wish me luck..

[JimOfferman]

Good luck Dan & Bruce!

[Dan.Linehan]

Thanks Jim!


Some ideas to write about:

Vegan advocacy.
What do vegans eat?
Vegan profiles.
Recipes.
Forums.
Vegan versions of recognized food. Raw versions too.
Photos.
Cost of foods / eating vegan.
Trend of food prices.
Organics versus non.
Scientific studies of health.
Why vegan.
What your money funds if you don't eat vegan.
Veganism and the environment.
Book reviews.
Interviews.
Ethical product guide.
Vegan fitness.
Definition of vegan / natural.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

So nifty. I just adore you, Dan.

Good luck guys. I think this site will be very awesome and provide great value. There's definitely a need for a one-stop place that will tell you what ingredients are vegan/not, along with all of those other things you mentioned!

[Dan.Linehan]

First part is to work on the layout and functionality of the site.

This is the hardest part for me, and actually why I posted this thread in the first place. I am really torn on whether or not to use wordpress.

I like the attention grabbing theme that is on there now - but I'm not too keen on the relying on the wordpress platform in general.


Issues with Wordpress:

1. Everyone is using it = lame.
2. If I use WP I won't learn anything about programming during the site development.


So, I am thinking about just taking some visual cues from the current theme and developing my own system on HTML / AJAX / Python / MySql platform.

I'm trying to think of reasons not to, the only reason I can really think of is that I'm scared to. Developing a custom system is scary. No easy permalink changes. No easy plugins. Manual updating. Real database design. Having to learn AJAX and Python. Sigh.

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

Great and useful idea for a website !!

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Issues with Wordpress:

1. Everyone is using it = lame.

Well it's a way of looking at it. I personnaly see Wordpress as a wonderful collective work. Yes everyone is using it, but it works great, and it provides with many plugins, functionalities etc. One person alone would need a lot of time to do as well as that.

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

2. If I use WP I won't learn anything about programming during the site development.

It does not seem to me that this website is about programmig. You won't have a lot to learn about programming so that you can spend more time learning about vegan food and writing valuable articles.

If you have to learn about programming first, will it not delay the actual delivery of value to the readers?

I am not an expert, but I would definitely go with Wordpress.

[Rose of Cairo]

Or Joomla?

Excellent idea, Bruce and Dan I'm especially looking forward to reading the "why vegan" part. You have my full support!

[Dan.Linehan]

Thanks Knight.

I know what you mean. I've tried to get on board with the wordpress program. I really have. I just can't use it long-term though. I just don't think it's working out, and I want to see other platforms. Maybe we can still be friends.

I always have some random idea that is way too custom for wordpress to support, then I kick myself for not using something more flexible, then I don't want to convert the entire site over to some new system when it might not be any better, but I still feel stifled by the wordpress framework so then I get demotivated, etc etc. It's completely neurotic.

I've worked with Wordpress long enough for it to drive me crazy, basically. Here's an example. Take a quick look at this page. Now pretend the category was pizza recipes, instead of ingredients.

As a user, what functionality would you want on a page full of vegan pizza recipes? What if you wanted big pictures on some posts? Wouldn't it be nice to vote for your favorite recipes? How about sorting the list based on ingredient? What if you wanted to save a recipe in your profile? What if I wanted to encase each post into a div?

Stuff like that is highly improbable to setup in Wordpress. Even if you find a plug-in, it may or may not work the way you want, it may or may not be supported in the future, it may or may not have issues with the next WP update, or another plug-in, etc. That kind of stuff terrifies me. What if I get a bunch of genuine traffic to the site then something totally breaks and I don't know the PHP to fix it? I don't even want to learn PHP! I want to learn Python!

Wordpress is a great publishing suite -- but I want something more interactive / immersive. That's not what Wordpress was developed for. Wordpress is one way communication.

I think I'm just going to code things from scratch this time around. Hopefully I won't feel so trapped if I take 100% responsibility for the code on the site right from the start. I think it'll be much better long-term, despite any short term pain.

[JimOfferman]

Hey Dan,

My previous website (actually, the one before last, but whatever) was a home brew system built on top of ANEWT (Almost No Effort Web Toolkit).

The upside was having total control, the downside was never getting around to actually implementing a good back end and doing all my post updates through phpMyAdmin (ouch!)

I switched to WordPress for my current blog and it is just sooooooooooooooooo much nicer!

For example, are you going to implement auto saves of draft blog posts in your home brew system? Will you built your own comment spam filter? (trust me, you'll need it) Etc.

Lastly: are any of your visitors going to care or get more value out of your blog, because you wasted a bunch of time reinventing the wheel? I'd say: nope!

Why not spend your time working on great content instead?

Of course, if you really don't want to go with WordPress, there is also Blogging Software, Business Blogs & Blog Services at TypePad.com, MovableType.org - Home of the MT Community, www.blogger.com, PHP-Nuke and a dozen others probably.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Hey guys!

So I figure I should chime in inside this thread and talk a little about what I'd like to do with this project. And to me, this is really more of a project—an improvement in consciousness. IsItVegan will represent this improvement.

With this in mind, lets think about the wordpress vs coding issue Dan's been having through the lens of what I mentioned above.

Really, what Dan is saying is that he would like to grow and stretch himself into new areas, but he feels the environment he has created won't allow him to do that.

I think that is that inherently limiting to Dan, and it also has the side effect that the site will stay stagnant. Dan can't grow, neither does the physical representation of Dan: the site.

Dan feels that he's kind of trapped in this environment, but he also likes the feel of it for certain things. So what's the answer?

Well, why have one thing when you can have more? Steve's site isn't just a blog. It's a HTML webpage with a blog seamlessly inserted into it. If one thing has nice options, and another has equally nice but different options, I say have both.

What you're looking for is a solution that just feels right. Something that blends all the advantages of every factor in question. An elegant solution that seems to internally flow. That's what we're looking for here. The solution just needs to be let in. You will feel when the solution is right, Dan.

Fun trivia:

• As I wrote the first part of the first paragraph of this post, my PC clock was showing 11:11(!!), so instead of rambling about myself, I channeled whatever guidance I was getting and helped Dan out with his plight.
• Since Dan's been so kind to give me a cool name ("Very Smart Partner" ), I'd like to coin Dan a name: Darn-awesome Dan. Because Dan's just so darn awesome. (Really, he is. You have to be pretty awesome to work with me, lest you end up in a straitjacket thinking your name is Martha.)

[Dan.Linehan]

Frustration and anger with myself.

It has been ten days now, and I still haven't even started to covert the site over to the new backend. And I have plans all weekend too. Maybe a bit of free time Sunday.

I think this is really a matter of trying to take on too much. I'm going to have to really organize myself and change some habits make this project work better.

I'll be doing some visualization, mediation, journaling and brainstorming about this over the next couple days. I'm also thinking of buying GTD and using the methods there.

Staying on task --> not my strongest suit.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

Frustration and anger with myself.

I want you to hit yourself. Again. Harder!

(That's a Beavis and Butthead reference, btw. )

People who aren't Bruce: only Very Smart Partner can trivialise this otherwise serious thread with obscure references--lest you incur the wrath of Darn-awesome Dan!

I hear that Darn-awesome Dan has 2x the moderator ability and power of a regular mod.

Phew, ok, that's out of my system. I'll proceed to make constructive posts in this thread for a time. (Am I implying that this post isn't constructive?!?! Blasphemy!)