Folks,
I am toying with bringing the StraightTalk newsletter to an end and that the next issue will be the last issue.

My main reason is lack of support versus the effort involved in creating it.

I produced the first two issues in English and Afrikaans – hoping that Afrikaners might want to support an Afrikaans newsletter. But I don’t think a single Afrikaner subscribed because of that reason.

Producing a bilingual version was a LOT of work, and even with volunteer help, it needed a lot of co-ordinating and a lot of fixing up. The proof-reading and final fixing and editing was no joke. It is a lot of work. So I abandoned the Afrikaans version after the 2nd issue.

The newsletter in general does not seem to have grabbed people – despite the tremendous amount of research which went into the early issues. I saw many people wanting to subscribe – for Free – but never coughing up anything.

I produced the newsletter in part so that I could write something again and also so I would have some sort of “subscriber base” helping to fund me in bearing the various costs that I have to bear for the website.

But the amount of work involved in this is so much. I had truly hoped people would find it interesting, but evidently it doesn’t grab them.

Also, the more MODERATE tone of voice seems itself to have been a huge failure actually. I thought a more moderate style of writing might bring in a bigger client base – but guess what – ZILCH. Absolutely nothing. In effect, StraightTalk was supported by people only from AfricanCrisis despite my efforts to market it more widely.

What has made me rethink things are the problems I had on AfricanCrisis in June due to volumes. AfricanCrisis is growing fast. And rewriting it and putting it on Linux is really important. But I want a total rewrite, and a whole new look.

So when I started StraightTalk earlier this year, I did not realise that AfricanCrisis would break down due to volumes and that AfricanCrisis needs some serious changes to it. I had expected it to happen – but not so soon.

For example, a lot of experimentation has now shown me that AfricanCrisis should really focus on NEWS, NEWS, NEWS and PHOTOS – by the TON… along with the forums AND with Volunteers. We’ve got the new forums up. So I’m happy with that and shortly we’ll switch off the old forums for good.

But it appears to me, that what I had not realised all along was how much “customer participation” is really needed in AfricanCrisis and how keen people really are. People ARE KEEN – but in a certain kind of way. People will do some things – but they won’t do others. So we need to tap into “natural support” mechanisms. e.g. people posting news or sending in emails. I was always inundated with posts and mails, but never realised that this is really what I should be “enabling” more of.

It also appears to me, moderation is not something people want any more. I’m not talking of AfricanCrisis visitors, but people in general. People WANT opinions, want hard talk, etc. The demand for Politically Correct speech is falling.

The current design of AfricanCrisis is breaking down. It is not designed for handling so much news. I only put 40 stories on the front page. Behind the scenes we have an archive of 9,000(43)+ articles and a bad search facility.

Other experiments on AfricanCrisis have not been that successful. The Activists is not a big thing. Neither are the Petitions. Radio is also not a great thing either.

The first and foremost thing really is news, comments and opinions, and that needs to be pumped out in a much bigger volume. The way things are going on AfricanCrisis, it really is not hard to put out volume. We get in far more than we can handle. We could easily… put out 30 news stories a day – but I am certain with just a teeny bit more organisation we could put out much more – like 50(43)+ a day! 100 news stories a day is not unattainable. With a little bit of work, its doable. Now this all builds the AfricanCrisis ARCHIVE – and this is a very valuable thing.

However, posting large amounts of new needs organisation and control so that mailing lists aren’t overloaded, etc.

Perhaps also, I should run a poll on the new forums asking people what makes them keep on coming back to the website.

I did do a Crime page on StraightTalk, but the launch of Neil Watson’s website just killed that dead in one shot. So StraightTalk seems to have been doomed for more than one reason. I had thought of giving control of StraightTalk’s newsletter to someone else – but I don’t think that will work.

The Volunteers concept seems to be working. A few of the volunteers work very hard indeed, and these days, sorting out and organising the volunteers is itself an important task which I am not attending to properly because of lack of time and yet, the volunteers are playing a very crucial role. And I think they can do so much more – but I need to create the means for them to do it. With the volunteers we can create a real organisation – and that is already happening bit by bit. I should be giving the volunters more power.

So I would like to focus on:-
a) Rewriting and moving to Linux
b) Organising and creating the means for the Volunteers to be MORE EFFECTIVE…

b) is important because finally, after years of harsh, centralised control, we can move to a less Jan-centric system. In the past I felt it was needed. But now I’m happy that we can move forward and do that.

The Archive of AfricanCrisis is extremely important. It is filled with tons of info and I’ll be the first to admit that my search engine SUCKS and times out and is completely useless now. It needs a real rewrite. Yet it is a mine of valuable info which I know people are constantly trying to tap in to but cannot.

So a total reorganisation of the entire site along with a sophisticated search mechanism and proper filing mechanism seems to me to be the key thing we need.

Bringing in more Video and Photos can help too. Audio seems to be a loser. I would like Photos to be another hot button for the site.

I had hoped that StraightTalk would solve the funding problem. My little book store helps me to handle some costs. The new store will be more advanced – that will come online shortly and you’ll see the eBook releases. I have been working on plans to turn the store into an Affiliate Scheme that other people with blogs and websites can tap in to. I will release that shortly – so that other websites can have a free store, run through StraightTalk – with their own products, etc in it.

But I had wondered if there was some other way of raising funds for AfricanCrisis. Would people be interested in some kind of membership scheme with a small annual fee? But what would they get in return?

I think turning it into a type of organisation which can fund itself is important. But should I register a non-profit company? What exactly should one do?

Perhaps these things should be put up for discussion in the new forums shortly.

If anyone has any further thoughts, drop me a line at: [email protected] – let me know what you think.

One thing which is evident from my server statistics is that AfricanCrisis is growing quickly. The last 2 years, growth is about 90% per annum. And the growth seems to be fuelled by the news articles and quality of info as well as the opinions expressed on the site.

I am curious to know from Readers why they keep coming back to the site what are its strengths and weaknesses from their point of view.

I notice too we also have a few non-white regulars who support the site – which pleases me. It would be great to grow that group. I am a great believer in creating conservative non-whites because I believe that would open up a whole new REALM of politics that would just be astounding. Jan