10 questions chart your ideas on the political map....
And if you wish to spread your ideas, you can also become a political columnist.
A new political website that features opinion columns, blog entries, and editorials from all over the political spectrum on a wide variety of political issues announced today that it is seeking aspiring columnists.
Virginia-based Nolan Chart LLC launched its new website August 19, 2007 for people who like to read about political issues from a wide variety of perspectives. Since then, a beta-testing period has been completed, and the site is now looking for people interested in publishing their own political columns on the world-wide web, regardless of their political leanings. "I strongly believe that this website is going to become very popular, very quickly among those with an interest in the political realm," says Nolan Chart LLC's founder, Walt Thiessen.
"It's the only political website that intentionally brings conservatives, liberals, centrists (moderates), libertarians, and statists (authoritarians) together in one place to discuss the issues of the day, issues that affect all of us. It will not surprise me if this website soon becomes one of the most popular websites on the World Wide Web."
The Nolan Chart is based on an idea originally created by political scientist David Nolan, who sought to expand the left-right spectrum to include political viewpoints that don't fit neatly on a single political line. He expanded the one-dimension line usually used to express the range of political views into a two-dimensional chart (similar to a graph), which in addition to liberals and conservatives also differentiates libertarians and statists (or authoritarians, as they're sometimes called). Nolan Chart LLC has taken the basic concept of Nolan's chart and turned it into a website for discussing political issues.
Aspiring columnists can easily sign up for an account online at the company's website at: www.nolanchart.com . The entire signup process only takes about five minutes, after which the columnist can immediately begin to publish their first article using the site's built-in control panel. Besides supplying their contact information, they are also asked to confirm their agreement
(a) not to use theircolumns to issue personal attacks (ad hominems) against others; (b) to honor the copyrights (or other rights) of other people;
(c) not to spam the website for the purpose of promoting products or other websites.
The focus is on maintaining lively political debate based on the facts (and opinions) relating to the issues, and the website's policies will be actively enforced. Readers will have numerous opportunities for reporting violations of the website's policy. All reported violations will be investigated and appropriate action taken as deemed necessary by company management.
Finally, aspiring columnists are also asked to take a short, 10-question survey on major political issues, in an effort to identify approximately where the columnist in question would fall on the Nolan Chart. The survey bears some similarity to the World's Smallest Political Quiz offered by the Advocates for Self Government, yet it is quite different in many ways, particularly in the way it offers options for each survey question representative of all the main political camps.
Also, many of the issues surveyed are different from the issues included in the Advocates' quiz. The columnist is only required to take the survey once. After that, the answers supplied by the columnist are saved and used to show the columnist's political viewpoint on the chart with each future article he or she publishes.
"This is the perfect opportunity for people who already actively contribute to political discussions online to take their messages to the next level. Bloggers, Yahoo! Group participants, people who right letters to the editors of their local newspapers, and political activists are all likely candidates for being a columnist," Thiessen added. "Nolan Chart LLC will make columns available to all interested persons, without any pre-selection process. We'll let the readers and visitors to the website decide which columnists deserve the more prominent positions on the website."
Readers will also be given the opportunity to give their comments and feedback on articles they read on the website by the various columnists. They will also be able to give their "thumbs up" to individual articles that they like.
One of the more interesting features of the website is the Nolan Chart itself. Every article on every topic will include a picture of the chart, showing where the columnist normally appears on the chart. The chart will be reader-interactive: by clicking on a quadrant or "camp" of the chart, the reader will be taken to other articles within that same topic by columnists who are represented within the camp clicked on by the reader. In this way, readers will be able to easily compare and contrast differing political viewpoints on any given issue at the click of a mouse!
The company hopes to earn profits by selling Google advertising on the website. Once the site begins to earn income, revenues will be shared with columnists based on their readership and popularity on the website. Details of the revenue sharing program will be made available at a later date, once the website starts seeing revenues.
To create a columnist account and begin writing a column, visit
www.nolanchart.com.
