Atheist Revolution

Read Atheist Revolution on Your Phone

2009-10-21T05:45:00.001-05:00

If you have a Blackberry, iPhone, or other web-capable portable device and Atheist Revolution doesn't look right when you try to view it there, try the new mobile site. You'll find it at http://atheistrev.mofuse.mobi

I haven't had a chance to test it yet, so please let me know if it doesn't work for you.

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Atheist Bloggers, Take Care of Yourselves

2009-08-25T05:27:00.003-05:00

And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

--Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future

When one spends a significant portion of one's time helping others who are suffering from emotional problems, one cannot expect to emerge unscathed. Psychologists often refer to "vicarious traumatization" when talking about this because of the manner in which treating survivors of trauma can affect the helper. I personally prefer the broader term, "compassion fatigue," because it reminds us that trauma is not the only way that the helper can be affected by his or her work. A helper who does not utilize effective self-care strategies is particularly vulnerable to this type of burnout. I mention this here because I think a related process can be observed among atheist bloggers, as demonstrated by our friend Mojoey at Deep Thoughts.

Anyone who spends enough time dealing with the dregs of humanity (i.e., pedophile priests and the church which conceals their crimes) is going to be affected by it. Mojoey has been doing just that, bringing us his Hypocrisy Watch series for some time. He wouldn't be human if this didn't affect him.

So what are some of the self-care skills that therapists have been using and from which atheist bloggers and activists might learn? Here are some examples:

Take a break, a real break. Even the most dedicated therapists take vacations from time-to-time, and nobody's blog is going to fade into obscurity simply because the author takes a break.
Prioritize. Not every battle has to be fought with the same intensity.
Ask for help. If you have supportive others in your life, utilize them.
Indulge in an enjoyable distraction. This may sound silly, but when I was doing a lot of intense clinical work, I found that playing video games shortly before I went to bed helped me sleep better.
Give yourself permission to focus on something else for awhile in your work. No blogger should feel so constrained by his or her niche that deviation is impossible. Do something different for awhile, and you'll likely return better for it.

Before you dismiss these as overly obvious, just remember that knowing what to do isn't the hard part. No, the hard part is convincing oneself that one needs to implement some of these for oneself. Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that many of us struggle with this. I'm still not exactly what I'd call good at it even though I most certainly know better.

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Five Twitter Tools You Should Try

2009-07-30T04:46:00.000-05:00

Image by oneblackbird via Flickr

I have found that Twitter is an excellent way to interact with readers of Atheist Revolution and learn about what is happening outside the U.S. But I am always on the lookout for new ways to add capabilities or simplify Twitter-related tasks. In this post, I'll introduce you to five Twitter tools you should be using.

In no particular order, here are five Twitter tools I use regularly and recommend to others:

1. TweetLater

TweetLater provides many functions, everything from automatically sending tweets on a predetermined schedule to automatically following users who follow you. I do not use all of the many functions, and in fact, there is one that I will caution you to avoid like the plague, but I do regularly use TweetLater's auto-follow and follower vetting functions.

First things first, I strongly caution you against using TweetLater (or any other service) to send automatic welcome direct messages to those who follow you. I made the mistake of doing this before I knew any better, but it is considered bad Twitter etiquette and will lead people to unfollow you.

I use TweetLater to automatically follow anyone who follows me, however, I always use the "vet new followers" function. Whenever someone follows me, TweetLater gives me 72 hours to visit the TweetLater page and decide whether to approve (i.e., follow) the new follower, ignore them, block them, etc. This prevents me from following spammers, Christians who want to convert me, or people who have not been on Twitter long enough for me to be able to evaluate whether they are worth following. I also use TweetLater to automatically unfollow anyone who unfollows me.

2. Tweepular

Yes, Tweepular has one of the most unattractive interfaces imaginable (unless you are a 13 year-old girl), but it is another tool I use regularly. Remember how I said that I vet new followers in TweetLater and that one of the groups I tend not to automatically follow are those who are too new to Twitter for me to evaluate? With Tweepular, it is easy to give them another chance and to make sure I haven't missed any good folks.

With Tweepular, I can see all followers with whom I have a reciprocal relationship, those who I'm following who aren't following me (I do keep a small number of news sources in this category), and those who are following me but who I'm not following. This last category is the one I pay the most attention to. By merely holding the cursor over their name, I can see their Twitter bio, last tweet, location, etc. Tweepular allows me to follow them individually or all at once. Very handy.

3. Mr. Tweet

Simply put, Mr. Tweet is about helping you find relevant people to follow. Mr. Tweet provides you with daily updates listing Twitter users you might be interested in following. It lets you recommend others that you find worth following and get recommended by others. I caution you against spamming requests for people to recommend you and simply trust that it will happen if you continue to use Twitter effectively.

One of the coolest things about Mr. Tweet is how much information it gives you about the people it recommends you to consider following. For each recommendation, it shows you which of your friends are following them and how often your friends interact with them. This is extremely useful in helping you figure out whether to follow someone by showing you what sort of user they are.

4. Twibes

Twibes is one tool every Twitter user should use, especially you atheists. It is a way of forming Twitter groups on various topics so that those interested in the topic can come together for more focused interaction.

Twibes has an "atheists" group, and this can be useful in a couple of ways. First, browsing those who belong is a great way to find relevant people to follow. Second, one can interact with members of this group by sending tweets through the Twibes page. That is, if you want to tweet something only to members of this group, you can do so.

5. Monitter

Monitter is a very different sort of tool in that it is about content rather than follower management. If you want to use Twitter as a source of information, Monitter is for you. You enter up to three search terms and can see three simultaneous live Twitter streams in which the term is relevant. I used Monitter to keep track of developments in Iran after the election by entering #iranelection in one window, but because I didn't want to miss out on atheist-related info, I had #atheist in another window. I can't remember what was in the third window, but knowing me, it was probably something like #horror or #mac - you get the idea. Just be forewarned, Monitter can be terribly addictive.

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How to Save Blog Carnivals

2009-07-24T06:36:00.000-05:00

Image by carf via Flickr

A recent post at Tangled Up In Blue Guy got me thinking. The post was reproduced from Leo Lincourt of Neural Gourmet fame. Leo is the one behind Carnival of the Liberals, and his post asked readers to consider whether it was time to end the long-running carnival. I've made no secret of being a fan of blog carnivals. Not surprisingly, my initial reaction was, "Hell no! We need a blog carnival celebrating progressive political blogging." But it isn't quite that simple. The influence of blog carnivals has been declining steadily, and there is no denying that they just aren't what they used to be. In this post, I'll share some thoughts on how we might save the blog carnival. However, you'll have to decide for yourself whether we should work to save them.

There are many reasons for the declining influence of blog carnivals. Leo describes a decline in the number of worthwhile submissions, and I have heard from those involved in other blog carnivals that this reflects a wider trend. Leo also notes that it has becoming increasingly difficult to find hosts for upcoming carnivals. Again, the same problem has been described repeatedly by those in charge of other blog carnivals such as Carnival of the Godless and the Humanist Symposium. Leo also questions whether blog carnivals are simply becoming obsolete in this age of Twitter, FriendFeed, Tumblr, etc.

Nobody wants to be in charge of a carnival in decline, so Leo's query about whether it is time to pull the plug is perfectly understandable. Managing a carnival is a lot of work, and it has to be frustrating to feel like one is losing an uphill battle against forces beyond one's control.

Ideas for Saving Blog Carnivals

As contributors, hosts, and readers of blog carnivals, we need to decide whether we want to save the medium. I can't decide this for anyone but myself, and the reality is that the effects of any efforts on my part to persuade you one way of the other would be short-lived at best. Instead, I offer the following thoughts about how we might save blog carnivals:

Educate the authors of newer, smaller blogs about the benefits of hosting and contributing to blog carnivals.
Reduce overlap in existing blog carnivals.
Encourage contributors who have posts accepted to do a better job of promoting the carnival post via social media (e.g., StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, etc.).
Encourage those who manage blog carnivals to reconsider editorial policies.

I know some of these suggestions might not be sufficiently clear, so I'll elaborate on them one-by-one.

For more established blogs, hosting a blog carnival involves considerable effort in exchange for little added traffic. Those running newer or smaller blogs are those most likely to benefit from hosting a blog carnival, and yet, these bloggers are the least likely to be familiar with blog carnivals. The same can be said for submitting posts to a blog carnival. This can have a big impact for less established blogs because a good post will bring the author considerable attention.

The overlap issue isn't really a problem for Carnival of the Liberals, but it certainly is for Carnival of the Godless and the Humanist Symposium. On weeks when these two carnivals overlap, it is difficult to know where to send contributions that might be appropriate for both.

For authors who have posts accepted by various blog carnivals, it goes without saying that you should do a post on your own blog directing readers to the carnival. Beyond that, make sure you submit or vote up the carnival on every social media network possible. This brings the host additional traffic and brings you more visitors as well.

Carnival of the Liberals generally only accepts the 10 posts which the host likes the best. Given the current state of blog carnivals, I think this is a mistake. Over the years, this practice has earned Carnival of the Liberals a reputation as a rather picky carnival. The problem is that this discourages many bloggers from tailoring posts to the carnival. As someone who has had multiple posts rejected by this carnival, I know I do not submit as much as I might otherwise. Admittedly, there is a trade off - poor quality posts should be screened out, but some modification of editorial policies seems warranted.

Other ideas?

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Blogging Tip #16: Using a Feed Reader Effectively

2009-07-16T05:02:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

For those of us who blog primarily in one niche or another, it is vital that we remain aware of what others in our niche are doing. We also want to be able to efficiently track relevant news without getting bogged down in irrelevant information. This blogging tip focuses on the RSS side of things and assumes that you are using a full featured RSS reader.

First things first, there are a number of ways to read RSS feeds, ranging from web-based clients (e.g., Google Reader, Bloglines, etc.) to stand-alone applications. As noted above, this tip assumes that you are using a stand-alone application, as these generally offer more advanced features like the one I am going to explain here.

If you use OS X and want an excellent free RSS reader, look no further than NetNewsWire. It is what I currently use, and it does everything I could want and more. For those in the Windows world, I recommend FeedDemon. It is also free and full-featured.

I have my feeds grouped into many different folders. For example, I have one folder in my reader called "AR Blogroll" that contains the feeds from every blog included in the Atheist Revolution blogroll. This makes it easier to keep up with the blogs I read regularly and recommend to others. I have another folder called "New Atheist Blogs" that contains feeds for blogs I have recently discovered and am evaluating for possible inclusion in my blogroll. I have an "Atheist News" folder, and...I'm sure you get the idea by now. If not, see tip #12.

On to the tip. Suppose that I have a very large collection of feeds in a folder such that whenever I open my application, several hundred unread posts will show up for that folder. Quite a lot of information to wade through, isn't it? It would be helpful if I could narrow it down to save myself some time, at least on the days when I am rushed.

I'll give you a specific example of how this works. I have a "Mac" folder containing so many active Mac-related RSS feeds that I can count on at least 300 new posts each time I open my feed reader. The thing is, I have no interest in all the iPhone material that clutters these feeds. I am looking for Mac-related news and products and have no interest in owning an iPhone until Apple develops an e-mail system as robust as the one on my Blackberry.

The solution was to create what NetNewsWire calls a "smart list." By setting up a simple smart list, I was able to filter the entire Mac folder to eliminate any post with "iPhone" in the title. This cut the amount of material to wade through nearly in half.

How can I apply this to my atheist-related feeds? Essentially, I can construct this sort of filter to capture and exclude virtually anything that I find annoying or that I'm simply not interested in. The beauty of this system is that I have have the choice of reviewing the original folder with everything included or the condensed smart list.

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Blocking Scientology Ads

2009-07-10T14:08:00.000-05:00

Hopefully, we won't see this again. I've had a few recent e-mails from readers who spotted this ad for Scientology in my AdSense banner. I had not seen it myself or I would have blocked it already. It should be blocked now. To prevent this sort of garbage from showing up on your blog, you might want to ad scientology.org to your filter.

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Intense Debate Accounts Now Required to Comment

2009-07-09T05:19:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Last month I tried to sell as many of my readers as possible on using an Intense Debate account when commenting here instead of simply commenting as a guest. In addition to wanting to inform readers about the benefits of using such an account (especially now that so many blogs are using Intense Debate for the comments), I revealed another motive. Specifically, I said that I thought requiring Intense Debate accounts might be a helpful way to crack down on trolls without necessarily having to enable full-blown comment moderation.

My efforts met with a fair amount of success. Many of you who did not already have Intense Debate accounts created them. However, some expressed their displeasure at having to get such an account. This led me to postpone my decision...until now.

Over the last few weeks, I have realized that reducing troll activity is only one of the reasons I've been considering requiring these accounts. The one involves wanting to get to know those of you leaving comments a bit better. You see, in the current system, anonymous comments are permitted and some users seem to comment under many different names. This makes consistent conversation rather difficult, lets users impersonate each other, etc.

Will requiring Intense Debate accounts magically eliminate trolls and bring us all together? Of course not. I think it will facilitate selective moderation and improve our experience interacting with one another. But I am fully aware that it may accomplish little. Still, I have decided to try it. As of now, Intense Debate accounts will be required to comment. If you do not already have one, you can get one here.

This change may not be permanent. One of the nice things about the system is that I can disable the account requirement at any time. Maybe this will be a failed experiment. Then again, it just might work. I guess we'll see.

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Ecto 3: A Brief Review for Blogger Users

2009-06-28T07:41:00.002-05:00

I have been playing with the Mac version of Ecto 3 for a couple weeks now. After investing several hours into not only using the application but also reading all available documentation, I thought I'd share my thoughts. I've been using Ecto with Blogger, so this review will be most useful to those of you with Blogger blogs. However, those using other platforms may still find something of value.

I came to Ecto after reading many glowing reviews. Again and again, Ecto was described as the best desktop blog editor available for the Mac. I downloaded the 21-day trial and have been putting Ecto through its paces.

What Do I Like?

The main reason to consider a tool like Ecto is that it makes it easier to write blog posts when one is not connected to the Internet. For me, this is not a big deal because I rarely do this. However, I can see how valuable this would be if I was traveling regularly. In such a situation, I am fairly sure I would want an application like this.

The clean interface has grown on me, and I do like the Rich Text editor. The built in integration of Amazon and Flickr (now that I've managed to get the Flickr part working) are really nice touches. Not only is it easy to add my own photos from Flickr, but I can search all of Flickr by photo tags. Some of the image setting features are nice (i.e., being able to specify margins, float settings, and padding around the image). They do take awhile to learn, but it is clear that they are more powerful than I initially thought.

I also like how easily Ecto handles multiple blogs. It allows me to set general settings and blog-specific settings. Users with multiple blogs will find this valuable.

What Do I Not Like?

One of the first problems I encountered with Ecto was that there does not appear to be any way to replicate Blogger's post template functions. I have this set up in Blogger to do two things. First it contains the code to allow peek-a-boo posts. Since I can find no way to get Ecto to do this, I'd have to add the code manually to every post. Second, it contains the code to include the reminder to subscribe to my RSS feed at the bottom of every post. You'll see that I added that manually at the bottom of this post, but the point is, I had to do it manually.

Aside from the Flickr integration mentioned above, I am not crazy about how Ecto handles images. While it couldn't be any easier to get an image into a post, positioning it where one wants it is an entirely different matter. Of course, one can always move the image to the desired location in the source HTML, but being able to dragging it to the proper location in the text editor would be so nice. When one moves the picture around, the text which was repositioned to accommodate it, does not always return to where it was and has to be adjusted. I was also surprised that there weren't any options to add effects to images. Live Writer does this well, and this seems like a major oversight for Ecto not to include anything along these lines.

The primarily flaw with Ecto 3 concerns the documentation. This is not the most intuitive application, and the "extensive documentation" the developers claim is built into the Help menu is anything but extensive. Although Ecto 3 has been out for roughly a year, virtually all of the supplemental how-to material I could find on the Internet was based on an older version with a very different interface. In other words, it really wasn't of any value.

Ecto does have a support forum, but most of the entries you'll find there are old. Those providing the support do not seem to be particularly responsive. Worst of all, each time I tried to start a new thread to ask one of my many questions that had not previously been asked, I was treated to an error message.

Blogger-Specific Problems

Unfortunately, Ecto 3 suffers from at least one problem which appears to be specific to Blogger: extra spacing between paragraphs will appear unless one changes a setting in Blogger. This sounds like a minor problem except that as soon as one changes the setting in Blogger (i.e., Convert Line Breaks = No), all posts written prior to using Ecto will have their spacing messed up. If this is a new blog with only a handful of posts, this could be fixed fairly easily. For established blogs, it cannot realistically be fixed.

What this means is that one is likely to be stuck with Ecto's extra paragraph spacing on Blogger (you are seeing what that looks like in this post). Only you can decide whether this is a deal-breaker for you.

Although I am not 100% sure that this problem is specific to Blogger, I will mention it here as well because I have not seen it reported elsewhere. Whenever I publish with Ecto, I receive an error message about invalid HTML. It appears that ecto is somehow pulling text from my RSS feed and trying to add it to the end of the post. Fortunately, it will work if I just hit "ignore," but nothing I have tried will stop this error from occurring.

Lastly, it does not appear that there is any way to implement Technorati tags on Blogger blogs with ecto.

Verdict

As much as I want to like Ecto 3 and as often as I keep coming back to play around with it, I have a hard time recommending it to those who use Blogger and are not just starting their blogs (so that the paragraph spacing being wrecked on previous posts would not be an issue). All other issues aside, I think I'd be tempted to stick with it if it wasn't for that problem, especially if I regularly wanted to write posts while not connected to the Internet.

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Proposing a Project for Atheist Bloggers

2009-06-21T07:31:00.000-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I have had this idea for awhile but more urgent things have kept coming up to delay this post. What if several atheist bloggers all started to write down the questions and challenges we constantly receive from Christians and poorly informed atheists? And then what if we could develop a convenient way to share our posts that responded to such questions with each other? If we had some way of group them into a manageable number of categories, we would produce a shared pool of information from which we could each draw.

You see, I am quite convinced that many of the Christians who troll our blogs or e-mail us this stuff are merely recycling a rather small amount of material. From this categorized list, we could write blog posts that provided reasonable thorough responses/rebuttals. That way, when one of us received another one of the comments/challenges, we'd already have the response ready to go - a previous post from our own blog or another atheist blog to which we could link.

To a degree, I've already been doing this. I suspect that most of you have as well (in fact, I know some of you have). But I've been doing it in a much less formal and not especially useful way.

Let me give you a quick example. I have lost count of the number of times I encounter the "atheism requires faith" claim. After realizing it was going to keep coming up and that I was wasting time by writing the same responses over and over in the forms of comments or e-mails, I wrote "Atheism Does NOT Require Faith." Admittedly, it is not one of my better posts, but it at least gave me a starting point for when it next came up.

Here's the embarrassing thing though: I didn't realize when I wrote that post last year that I had already written one with the same title a year earlier! What this tells me is that having a ready supply of such posts is only half the battle. One also needs an effective system for finding them. Of course, this would be even more critical if they were distributed across several atheist blogs.

I'm not sure of the best way to do this logistically. The Atheist Blogroll Search Engine is a great tool, but I haven't found it particularly useful for this purpose. I wonder if something like delicious would be good at such a task. I've been using it to tag posts with keywords to help me find them later when I am searching for recurrent themes (e.g., morality, faith, meaning of atheism, etc.). It can certainly be set up to share this sort of information with others, but there may be better options of which I am unaware.

For all I know, others won't even like this idea. But I thought I'd through it out there in case it appeals to anyone. It seems like it could reduce the amount of time we spend retreading the same ground. It also seems like we would benefit from making it easier to find and use what others are writing on many of these recurrent subjects.

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Why You Should Have an Intense Debate Account

2009-06-13T08:55:00.001-05:00

Image via CrunchBase

This post is not about installing the Intense Debate commenting system on your blog (if you have one). Instead, it is about why those of you commenting on this and countless other blogs which use Intense Debate should create an Intense Debate account. I know most of you already have such an account, but for those who do not, I am going to give you some reasons to do so.

Here are some of the benefits of creating an Intense Debate account from the perspective of anyone leaving comments on the many blogs which use Intense Debate:

You get to have a custom avatar.
You can set up a custom profile to direct others to your blog, Twitter account, website, or whatever you want.
You can leave comments via e-mail.
If you use Twitter, you can have Intense Debate automatically tweet when you leave a comment.
Those who value your contributions can subscribe to an RSS feed of your comments on all Intense Debate blogs.
You can develop an online reputation as a worthwhile commenter by letting you build a reputation score based on your comments across the blogosphere. You'll see a number in highlighted yellow next to the avatars of those who have accounts. Those with higher numbers have received more thumbs-up votes on their comments.
You make it more difficult for others to impersonate you, leaving comments under your preferred handle.

Want one more reason? I may soon require it for persons wanting to leave comments to reduce increasingly hostile Christian trolling. If you don't yet have an Intense Debate account, it couldn't be simpler to get one. All you have to do is go to Intense Debate and fill out the brief form.

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Another Ecto Post

2009-06-12T14:44:00.003-05:00

From everything I have heard about ecto, it is supposed to make using images in blog posts much easier than any of the online editors. I am used to using Blogger's online interface, so yeah, it could be easier. That would be nice because I like to use images, but I am a bit skeptical that anything ecto can do would be much easier than Zemanta.

It looks like ecto has something called "Flickr Helper," and that certainly sounds promising. After I finally figured out how to grant this helper application access to my flickr account, I see that I can search based on photo tags. I tried several keywords, and each time was rewarded for my efforts with "Failed to get data from Flickr!" No matter what I entered, this was the outcome.

I'll try bringing in an image from my hard drive. I've read that I can simply drag and drop with ecto, so I decided to give that a try first. Sure enough, it works. It looks like this might work well for images that are already on my hard drive, but it is certainly not as nice as Zemanta at finding material on Flickr. In addition, once the image comes in, it is not clear how to best integrate it with the post. It looks like there are several settings which can be changed and potentially saved in the form of presets for future posts, however, so that is certainly encouraging.

I suppose I'd have to say that the main flaw with ecto is the absence of any useful documentation, at least for version 3. I still haven't figured out how to have certain HTML automatically included in every post or how to get it to handle Technorati tags.

Quick Update: I've got the Flickr feature working now. It required installing some new components. Evidently, the developers couldn't be bothered to include the newer files in the application itself.

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Testing Ecto

2009-06-12T11:33:00.001-05:00

I just downloaded the 21-day trial version of ecto, the popular deskop blog editor for the mac. I have to say that I am not at all impressed with it so far. The documentation is terrible, and the screenshots don't look anything like the actual software. I am guessing that they were based on an older version and never updated. That may be okay in some cases, but the interface on this version does not look anything like the one I'm seeing in the few tutorials I can find. I suppose this thing may also just have a very steep learning curve, but I don't know if I have the patience to stick with it, much less pay for it.

In the unlikely event that you are an ecto expert, the main issues I am having seem to be with image presets and custom post templates. I have Blogger set up to use a post template, but there does not seem to be any way to get ecto to do this.

Blogging Tip #15: Don't Moderate Comments Unless You Have To

2009-05-28T06:05:00.000-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I have not written anything in the blogging tips series for quite awhile, so I thought it was time to do a quick one. This will indeed be a quick one, as the title gives away the tip. However, let me take a moment to explain why I think this is important.

I don't know anyone who isn't at least a little bit annoyed when they press the submit button after writing a thoughtful comment on someone's blog only to be rewarded with a message about how the comment will be visible after it is approved by the blogger. When we submit a comment, we want to see it appear right away.

When I am commenting on a top-tier blog, this is understandable. The blogger is likely swamped with comment spam, trolls, and the like. Comment moderation is essential in such cases to prevent the thread from filling up with garbage. But why are so many low traffic blogs with next to no comments moderating?

My advice in this tip is simple indeed: Do not enable comment moderation on your blog unless you have to. Unless you are receiving considerable comment spam, it easy to delete the rare inappropriate comment and/or ban the offender after the fact. Your readers will appreciate not having to wait for you to moderate their comments and are likely to leave more as a result.

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Congratulations to Deep Thoughts on 5 Years of Blogging

2009-05-25T04:45:00.000-05:00

I would like to congratulate Mojoey on the five year anniversary of his blog, Deep Thoughts. He may not consider Deep Thoughts to be an atheist blog, but he has done as much for the atheist blogosphere as anyone else. He may be best known for giving us the Atheist Blogroll, but he has also been a great source of inspiration for many of us.

Deep Thoughts was one of only a handful of active blogs dealing with atheism when I started exploring the world of online atheism. His Hypocrisy Watch series has long been the place to go in order to find examples of why religious extremism is so dangerous.

And yet, one of the things that attracted me to Deep Thoughts initially and has continued to do so ever since has been the eclectic nature of what Mojoey does with his blog. Some of his most enjoyable posts have been peripherally related to atheism, if even that. He is a happy atheist with a real zest for life, and this comes through well in his writing.

In short, Mojoey was one of the first atheist bloggers to inspire me. Best of all, he has continued to do so. I hope he keeps at it for several years to come.

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Twitter vs. FriendFeed

2009-03-28T05:43:00.000-05:00

I have been using both Twitter and FriendFeed for awhile. My use of both initially focused on blog promotion but has expanded considerably beyond that as I have recognized that the real power of both services involves their utility for immediate communication. In this post, I'd like to do something of a head-to-head comparison between the services and see if I can't offer some recommendations about whether you should use one or both of the services.

Twitter

We start with Twitter because it is the more basic of the services, offering less functionality but making up for that with far greater popularity. As you probably already know, Twitter is a micro-blogging service which allows users to send "tweets," posts limited to 140 characters, to anyone who "follows" them. If you use text messaging on your cell phone, you already have some idea of what tweets are like. In addition to sending brief text messages, you can send clickable URLs and even photos (actually, URLs to photos).

But sending texts from a cell phone is actually a poor analogy for Twitter. Instead, I'd suggest thinking of it as a sort of group instant messaging system. I have roughly 400 followers on Twitter, which means that every time I tweet, they all receive it simultaneously. In turn, I follow approximately 100 other Twitter users, receiving their tweets in real-time. Because of the immediacy, Twitter permits back-and-forth conversations involving several users.

Twitter can be accessed from the Twitter website, but most users utilize one of the many available Twitter clients. For example, I use TweetDeck on my desktop and laptop and TwitterBerry on my Blackberry.

What about blog promotion? Using a service called TwitterFeed, I set up the RSS feed from Atheist Revolution to automatically send notifications of my new blog posts to my Twitter followers. In addition, I can interact with readers on Twitter, share ideas with other atheist bloggers, etc. I have found the service to be an excellent way to get post ideas, learn what other atheist bloggers are up to, and learn about my readers.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical of Twitter initially and fairly slow to begin using the service. It grew on me. I wouldn't quite call myself addicted at this point, but I really enjoy it and am convinced that it has merit. Bloggers who learn to use Twitter effectively will likely see a many positive benefits, not the least of which is increased blog traffic.

FriendFeed

At first glance, FriendFeed blows Twitter out of the water. It seems to do everything that Twitter does but so much more. FriendFeed allows users to plug all sorts of commonly used services into it, including Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and even Twitter itself. Once set up, it it like a Twitter feed on steroids. Not only can one send messages to one's followers without the 140 character limit of Twitter, but one can configure the service so that followers are automatically informed about whatever one does in any of the other services.

Let me give you a concrete example. I have my FriendFeed account set up so that Twitter, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Intense Debate, Atheist Revolution, Mississippi Atheists, and more are connected. Whenever I do anything in any of these services, those connected to me through FriendFeed are informed - if they want to be. See, unlike Twitter where followers are going to receive whatever messages are sent, FriendFeed allows users to disable certain kinds of alerts. I have little interest in web videos, so I have disabled the YouTube part of the service so I will not be bombarded with updates by those obsessed with it.

As if that wasn't enough, FriendFeed offers two things that most Twitter users would love: a built-in commenting system permitting users to comment on any material sent and a mechanism for voting up posts. In this way, FriendFeed feels far more interactive than Twitter.

In fact, there is so much more that can be done with FriendFeed that I am painfully aware that I am not using the service to its full potential yet. Each time I play with a new feature, I kick myself for not discovering it earlier.

Twitter or FriendFeed?

Given the many added capabilities of FriendFeed over Twitter, why isn't everyone using it? Two reasons. First, FriendFeed is nowhere near as popular as Twitter in terms of the user base. Twitter has the name recognition and buzz that FriendFeed lacks, and this gives an edge to Twitter. I said I had roughly 400 followers on Twitter, right? Guess how many I have on FriendFeed? 28. Big difference, isn't it?

The second reason that many prefer Twitter to FriendFeed is that FriendFeed does not yet have a killer client. If you are using Twitter, you have TweetDeck, which is head and shoulders above any of the other Twitter clients I have used. While there are similar clients being developed for FriendFeed, they lack the polish of TweetDeck. In time, I expect that this advantage will be neutralized, but for now, this gives Twitter another boost.

I have been spending far more time in Twitter, primarily because of the two advantages I just mentioned. With FriendFeed, there is vast but largely unrecognized potential. If you are already a Twitter user, I recommend checking out FriendFeed. It will seem overwhelming initially because it can do so much more, but with some initial configuration and time to get used to it, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. If you are not currently using either service, you will probably find Twitter easier to start with.

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Rwandan Atheist is Stealing My Content

2009-03-23T07:28:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

I was hoping to avoid this unpleasantness, but my cease and desist messages have been ignored. I thought I would try this post as a final warning before I take the next step. The situation is this: Rwandan Atheist, a member of the Atheist Blogroll, has been stealing my entire RSS feed and reposting it on his site. This is a blatant violation of my copyright, as he is doing this without my permission and has so far ignored my requests to remove my content from his blog. I am providing the cease and desist message I sent below in case you someday find yourself in a similar situation (and you likely will). I also plan to keep you informed about whether this dispute is settled appropriately or whether additional steps are needed.

Dear Rwandan Atheist,

It has come to my attention that the content I wrote for Atheist Revolution is currently on your site. I'd appreciate it if you'd please remove this content. It's copyrighted material.

Your copy: http://rwandanatheist.blogspot.com/2009/03/atheist-revolution_18.html [Warning: this page contains malware]

My original article/photo: http://www.atheistrev.com/2009/03/taking-chance-pays-off.html

I appreciate your prompt attention.

Thank you,

vjack
www.atheistrev.com

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A Blog Carnival for Skeptical Parents

2009-03-22T12:03:00.000-05:00

If you are both a parent and a member of the reality-based community, I encourage you to check out Skeptical Parent Crossing #6, the latest edition of a monthly blog carnival for rational/skeptical parents. This edition is hosted by Rational Moms. While still relatively new, in blog carnival terms, atheist parent bloggers may find a perfect home at Skeptical Parent Crossing for posts on the challenges of raising children among a deluded populace. Posts can be submitted through Blog Carnival.

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The Problem with Examiner.com

2009-03-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

I like the Atheism Examiner section of Examiner.com. Trina has some good things to say and often provokes thought in her posts. Unfortunately, the comment system used by the site does not permit commenters to include a URL, only their e-mail address. This removes one of the most important incentives to commenting on someone's blog - the hope that the author or other readers will check out one's site. This is too bad because I think many of Trina's posts are worth commenting on.

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PZ Myers is a Frackin' Genius!

2009-03-20T06:22:00.000-05:00

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Most of us have good ideas from time to time, but truly great ideas are rare. That is what makes them so influential. PZ Myers (Pharyngula) deserves credit for his latest great idea. He has provided atheist bloggers with the best idea I've ever heard for dealing with Christian trolls who annoy our readers: Christian Troll Survivor!

After identifying several Christian trolls on his blog, PZ plans to let readers vote them of the blog one-by-one. Naturally, an immunity challenge will also be held, providing one lucky troll with the opportunity to gain immunity from being booted. And as if that wasn't good enough, PZ has set down the rules for what will certainly be an nearly impossible immunity challenge for our contestants:

Here's the challenge. In a comment that isn't longer than about 200 words, that is grammatically correct and logically coherent, and that does not cite the Bible or other religious authorities (and does not rely on tales about who you went to high school with, or tortured analogies involving necrophiliac pedophilic milkmen), explain how evolutionary biologists resolve the trivial conundrum represented by the common question, "If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?" Remember, answer as a biologist or intelligent layman would, not like Pat Robertson or Ken Ham.

I love it! Something tells me I may have to implement a similar version here one of these days.

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Taking a Chance Pays Off

2009-03-18T12:38:00.000-05:00

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I like participating in blog carnivals even though I do not always remember to submit material in time. As much as I like Carnival of the Godless and the Humanist Symposium, there is an aspect of "preaching to the choir." Sure, many of those who read those carnivals do not subscribe to Atheist Revolution, and so my participation is a good way to reach them. But it isn't like there are lots of believers reading those carnivals, and sometimes it is nice to reach them too. Unfortunately, most of the Christian blog carnivals are very explicitly Christian only. This had led me to contribute to other carnivals once in awhile, usually with positive results.

After Lijit indicated that my readers were interested in the subject of homeschooling, I wrote a post on atheist homeschooling. While recently perusing Blog Carnival, I noticed that there was a Carnival of Homeschooling. Yeah, but they would never take a post about atheist homeschooling, right? I decided to take a chance and submit my post anyway, fully expecting it to be rejected.

Here is the reply I received from the host of the upcoming edition:

Yowza. Thanks for such a though-provoking post. I haven't hosted a CoH in a while specifically because I was tired to sifting through the religious rhetoric by the same posters time after time. THIS one will certainly make things interesting.

Again, thank you.

Looks like taking a chance may have just paid off. Not only was the host receptive, but it sounds like my contribution may be a welcome change in a sea of religious posts. And you know what? Even if the carnival's host is the only one who appreciates my post, I may still expose others to a viewpoint with which they are unfamiliar. Here is the 168th edition of the carnival where my post appears.

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I Need Help Organizing Photos For Blog Use

2009-03-10T05:46:00.000-05:00

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I have great readers, many of whom are a hell of a lot more tech savvy than I'll ever be. It is about time I stopped struggling on my own and asked for your help with something that has been driving me crazy. I like to use pictures in my posts and have been using Zemanta to help me find appropriate ones. However, most of what it finds is not particularly relevant and seriously limited in number. As I visit over blogs, I often find excellent photos that I save for use in later posts (for example, see this one at Stardust). Here is my problem: I have ended up with a folder on my hard drive called "Blog Photos" that has grown so large that it takes me forever to search photo-by-photo for what I might want to use. Clearly, I need a better system for organizing such photos. How do you accomplish this task?

I am using a Mac these days, so I do have iPhoto '08. I've never figured out how to use it effectively for this purpose, but I suppose I could keep trying. I also have Bridge CS3, but that seems more than a little cumbersome for something like this.

I suspect many of you have implemented effective solutions to this problem, and I'd love to hear your ideas. Maybe I can learn to use the tools I have (iPhoto or Bridge) effectively, or maybe I should seek new ones.

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What Is This Lijit Thing?

2009-03-04T05:28:00.000-06:00

Image by JackVinson via Flickr

Astute observers may notice a new widget called Lijit atop my right sidebar. What the heck is it, and why should you use it? Basically, it is a tool for creating a customized search box for one's blog (and more). However, it does quite a bit more for both the blogger and the readers who use it. Best of all, I plan to use it here to allow you the readers to give me input about what topics you would like to see me address in future posts.

I am very new to Lijit, so I will plan to come back and do a follow-up post or two after I've been using it for awhile. For now, I would simply like to mention how I plan to use the service.

Lijit provides me with metrics about what readers are searching for on my blog. It also tells me whether what you are searching for is fairly well covered by previous posts or not. When I notice readers searching for topics that I have not adequately addressed, that will prompt me to post on these topics. Make sense? If it works like I expect, Lijit will provide you with a way to steer future Atheist Revolution content.

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Atheist Revolution Post Frequency To Decline

2009-02-07T06:58:00.000-06:00

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I've been busier at work than any previous time I can recall, and I have finally reached the conclusion that something has to give. I have been protecting my blogging time as long as I possibly can, but I can do so no longer. Don't worry - I'm not abandoning Atheist Revolution or anything drastic like that. However, I have decided to scale back the daily posting schedule I have been employing here for quite some time. I plan to post an average of one post every other day for the foreseeable future. I think this is doable and should give me back some desperately needed time. Thanks for understanding and continuing to visit.

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Good Names for Atheist Blogs?

2009-01-17T07:17:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaThere is no reason to limit our efforts to help other atheist bloggers to those who already have blogs. We can also help out those who are planning to start new atheist blogs. In the increasingly crowded field of atheist blogs, it has to be tough to think of an original name for one's new blog. I remember agonizing over this decision when there were no more than a handful of atheist blogs. I can't imagine being in that position now. If you were going to start a new atheist blog, what would be some names you'd consider?

After reading a recent post about blasphemy at Proud Atheists (great name by the way), I think that an ideal array of possible blog names includes those disparaging the "holy" ghost. If you remember the blasphemy challenge, you'll realize that this is hardly an original idea. Still, I would think that this could be a fruitful domain of atheist blog names.

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2009 Weblog Awards

2009-01-09T05:09:00.000-06:00

Image by goa_entranced via FlickrNominations close on January 12 for the 2009 Weblog Awards. If there are any blogs you'd like to nominate for any of the categories, you'll need to do so by then. They do not have a category for atheist blogs, but there may be some others that would fit various atheist blogs. I nominated several atheist blogs for what seemed like the best category matches. I'd be shocked if an atheist blog won in any category, but at least it might generate some traffic for the nominees.

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