First, most political information sites have sponsors either in the form of advertising or revenue from some interested party. The fact that PoliWatch is sponsored by Vote Out Incumbents Democracy in now way affects the fact that the site is open to writers of all political persuasions and all major parties.

I never said anything to the contrary. I, like you, said that PoliWatch is sponsored by VOID, but I wish that was highlighted on the front page.

Second, the authors, save one David R. Remer, have no affiliation with Vote Out Incumbents Democracy in any way, shape, or form. As you would have noticed had you read the articles on the site. In other words, your review did not review the content, but, made assumptions based on the open disclosure that the site has a sponsor.

I’m sorry, but how would have I known that the authors weren’t VOID members? Would they have said that in their posts somehow or be identified as such? Your site said they may or may not be VOID members, “Writer participants at the PoliWatch site are not necessarily associated with the VOID organization, nor do their views or perspectives reflect the mission and purpose of the Vote Out Incumbents for Democracy organization.”

So given that nobody was identified as a VOID member, I never said any of the authors were VOID members.

Also, I did read the content. That’s why I said, “Generally I found the content I read to be informed, but not terribly insightful. And this is actually a big problem.” It’s under the heading “User Generated Content.” Not only that, I also reviewed how to submit content, as well as the auto generated content pages. So I covered the content story quite well I think.

As far as not getting the idea of the site…the idea of the front page is pretty obvious, and I acknowledged that each column is dedicated to its own partian viewpoint. However, your stated goals in the About section were such…

1) Provide voters assistance and guidance in becoming political bloggers themselves. For this purpose, PoliWatch provides the PW FORUM, where voters may learn the skills of blogging and publish articles of their own, and invite friends and family to view their articles and discuss and comment on them.

2) Political news, issues, and research resources needed for political awareness by informed voters.

3) Civil discussion and debate focused on improving government and political offices, acknowledging the fact that voter behavior at election time is, in part, determined by voter awareness of the issues, the politicians, and the policies in play.

So nowhere in your own description do you talk about it being set up to show each partisan view in its own column. As stated, that’s obvious. So I’m not going to give you points beyond the B I gave you in design idea.

However, on your front page you do say this as the tagline: “Political Views and Solutions. Our Common Goal: Good Gov’t.” And since VOID’s goal is voting folks out of government so you can get good government, you can understand how I’d think that you’re pushing VOID’s agenda as one of the points of the site. Otherwise I never would have said that. And it’s not like that’s a bad goal. So the fact you’re attacking me for saying that is frankly very weird. And then to somehow interpret that as me justifying the design for my own site is even weirder.

But let’s dig into this supposed prejudice against the design. As stated, I don’t like the look, but I liked the idea. And, by the way, WatchBlog would get an A from me. Yes, I can like another site that doesn’t look like mine. It is possible. WatchBlog’s design is crisp and contemporary and the format is solid. So maybe VOID should just buy that site since it’s up for sale instead of building a inferior facsimile of it. Or maybe you should just get a better web designer and state the purpose of the site on the front page (like WatchBlog does) so you don’t have to play this nonsense “gotcha” game with people you PAID to review your site.

In any event, sorry you didn’t like the review, but I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. It was very average, and so I gave it an average grade. But I told people to go and find out about it for themselves. What else do you want?

Much of it reflects your personal preferences and does little to provide an objective evaluation. Additionally, you make a fair number of assumptions, some of which took a wrong turn, which I will address here.

First, most political information sites have sponsors either in the form of advertising or revenue from some interested party. The fact that PoliWatch is sponsored by Vote Out Incumbents Democracy in now way affects the fact that the site is open to writers of all political persuasions and all major parties.

Second, the authors, save one David R. Remer, have no affiliation with Vote Out Incumbents Democracy in any way, shape, or form. As you would have noticed had you read the articles on the site. In other words, your review did not review the content, but, made assumptions based on the open disclosure that the site has a sponsor.

Your review falsely assumes that the content reflects VOID’s agenda, which a reading the articles on the site readily disproves.

I found your prejudice toward multiple column formats to be rather unenlightened. WatchBlog for example has the 3 column layout, each with a different party represented, and 100’s of thousands of visitors each year seem to like that format.

In fact, your review complete fails to take into account how the form follows the function. This is a multi-partisan web site requiring a multi-column format giving equal weight to each partisan column. Your mindset seems to be cemented to a one person blog with one perspective which a single column with sidebar format accommodates quite nicely.

While I have no problem with your indicating whether you personally liked the site or not, your review made no apparent attempt to evaluate the site objectively from the perspective of its intended purpose and whether the design fulfills that purpose or not.

The purpose of the site, which one would think would be obvious from the design, is to give equal voice to writers of differing partisan views in one site, and promote dialogue and debate between them as well as between the authors and visitors to the site. I find it rather humorous that you overlooked the obvious in order to find justification for your personal preferences for your own site.

Anyway, as they say in show biz and politics, any exposure is beneficial, up to a point, and this review caught the attention of one person, at least, myself.