Chinese Metaphysics Section?

[David Stanford]

Hey everybody,

I want to get y'all's opinion before proceeding on this. I'm thinking about having a Chinese metaphysics section on my website, which would mean that y'all would be able to create that section. If some of y'all would be interested in participating, let me know. The site is open source, so you could create whatever you want, refine each other's posts, and when completed, it would be uploaded to its own section on the hellenistic-astrology.com website. Keep in mind that Hellenistic is an era, and astrology crosses all boundaries, so feng shui, and Chinese astrology are astrology, and 2000 years ago, it saw some pretty great advances, as did western astrology. In this sense, I see it being relevant.

David

P.S.

I've uploaded a new definition to the term 'astrology,' at this URL: http://hellenisticastrology.pbwiki.com/Astrology

If you want to edit it, just send me your email address, and I'll include you as a writer.

[Danny VdB]

Hi David,

Since you ask for an opinion.
I think in general it is quite difficult to get other people spend their time to write articles for somebody else's site. Exception will be when you have a very heavy traffic site, portal site...

People are busy, often have their own sites or blogs, and then whatever little time is left they will often want to spend away from the computer. Can't blame them..
So contributing to other people's sites is something that naturally comes quite low on most people priorities lists.

Setting up a Chinese metaphysics section on your site is not a bad idea, but probably the easier road to bring in outsider materials is by simply linking to those articles on their site/blog that you find interesting or relevant for your hellenistic-astrology topic.
When people want to publish articles, they usually want to do it on their own site, where they also have full control to edit or remove them whenever they want.

[David Stanford]

Hi Danny,

I meant to reply to this days ago, wrote a whole big response, and my computer died. Long response short, thanks for the advice. I set it up this way, because people kept talking about wanting a place to archive posts and what not, but it doesn't look like it's happening. I'll create the site myself later, when I'm not so busy. I suppose the important thing was to upload the framework of it at the elected time (which was controversial enough).

Perhaps it can be my business website in the distant future, or I can sell out when Hellenistic astrology becomes more publicly available (joke).

David

[Danny VdB]

Hi David,

Creating a good site is much like the chicken-or-egg question.
Without good content little or no traffic will come, and without traffic the content does not got seen by many (so there is little incentive for others to contribute more content as well) .
So it's difficult to start a site.

Best way to begin is to create content and/or tools for your topic, then work to attract an audience. This takes time.

One of the most effective ways is to create free e-books and spread them.
I use the most common pdf format ( with free pdf printer, see: http://www.pdf995.com/ )
People love free ebooks, they can attach them to emails and send to other interested friends, they can discuss them in email lists, etc...

As you can see from Paulo's post yesterday, even a 10 year old pdf ebook can still generate interest.
Now he is taking it to forums and other mailing lists to discuss this ebook article, which again prompts new visitors to check out my site.
That's the magic of internet.

Danny