Looking for Big Thinkers

Something short and sweet, and a prelude to my next post.  A question, a request of sorts.  How big can we think?  What can we build here?

I’ll go first.  I’d like to see this place become the go-to scamblog.  Big enough?  Perhaps I’m thinking too small.  My idea of what this blog can (and should) become might seem selfish, dangerous, unachievable perhaps, even utterly contrary to the diverse scamblog movement, with its multitude of victims and extraordinary scope, but let me explain.

Part of the strength of Professor Campos’ blog was the fact that it brought us together.  All voices were welcome.  Debate was healthy.  Most importantly, it showed the law school Establishment that We Mean Business.  (Do you all get the Robert Vaughn PI law firm commercials, or is it just me?)  Instead of dispersing support and ideas across ten or so separate scamblogs, each of which alone attracted a tenth of the readership and were a tenth as visible, a tenth as important, Inside the Law School Scam brought everyone together in an impressive show of force.  It was talked about, and it thrived.  And because of that, it was respected.

And I’m once again putting out a call for the scambloggers to join us, even the non-scambloggers who write about these issues.  Not – absolutely not! – that they abandon their own separate blogs, all of which are valuable, but just that they join us.  Shoot me an email at outsidethelawschoolscam at gmail.com.  Become a writer here, with full autonomy.  Cross-post with your own blog.  Write once a week, once a month, but write.  And in return, I’ll add you to the list of blogs that will be shown on this site.  (That was one item missing from ITLSS, and I don’t intend to isolate this blog from the larger movement.)  A mutually-beneficial relationship.  Write here and gain the traffic and support that will boost the profile of your own blog, you as a writer, and benefit the scamblog movement.

We all win when we work together.

I’m asking that current scambloggers consider joining us, and use our traffic to get their message out.  I’m asking lapsed scambloggers, of which there are many, to join us and get involved again.  I’m asking concerned third parties to consider joining us.  And I’m asking new scambloggers to consider this as a forum in which they can get their message out to a huge crowd with very little effort.

Blogs die when they are not visited, and they die when their writers do not write.  We can solve both those problems by working together, for us and for you.

It’s especially critical at this moment in time, when one blog has ceased and another started in its place.  While we have traffic right now, trust needs to be built between us and our inherited readership, and between us all as bloggers, writers, activists, and victims.  We could just be a continuation of what went before, a couple of writers working alone amidst a sea of other blogs.  Or we could take it to the next level, come together, and come together in a way that does not kill autonomy or become a monopoly.  I’m holding out my hand, a pen in the other, asking you all to consider becoming a part of this blog as well as your own blog.  That way, I truly believe we can make the difference for which we have hoped over the past few years.

Okay, speech over.  To put it very practically and simply, we need a critical mass of writers here so that there are at least one, hopefully two, quality posts here per day.  Without that, this place will wither, readers will get bored and disappear, and the scamblogs will be left in a terrible state of decay.  Scanbloggers past, present and future, you know who you are, and I'm talking to you.  I think this is worth fighting for, something worth rebuilding, a network of voices that work together.  I hope you do too.