State of the Blog: I’ve Got a Big Ol’ Idea

The Modern Man’s Guide to Life, now tragically out of print, was the primary inspiration for Dethroner. So much so that I have forced myself not to consult it while working on the site, lest I rip the content right out of the book and slap it onto the screen.

What made Modern Man (and its sequel) such a useful resource was the variety of perspectives provided, compiled from submissions by hundreds of men, often with conflicting opinion about a topic. It remains, despite a few outdated sections, a useful distillation of knowledge for living life as a human male in Western society. And by embracing the spectrum of opinion, it reinforced that most valuable lesson: think for yourself, stupid.

Another maxim I’ve tried to steer Dethroner by has been “every man is an expert in something, which is the impetus behind our theme weeks. I know a fair amount about some things, but despite my ability to compile sources and write up summaries—that’s sort of what this sort of lifestyle writing is all about—I’d much rather hear from experts. Unfortunately we’ve a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario: we’re not big enough to woo experts every week, but we’ve drained my pool of talented and generous friends willing to step in to share. So that’s one problem I want to address: how to create a place for experts to pass on their knowledge that doesn’t involve the hassles of posting items in a theme week?

The second issue is one of permanency: I’m not convinced posts in a weblog are the best place for this sort of knowledge to rest. For one, comments get mentally weighted by readers as less important than the content in a post, which isn’t always fair; we’ve had our fair share of brilliant comments. Also, the really useful bits of wisdom are filed alongside silly videos and dick jokes, which could be addressed by a better category or tagging scheme, but still doesn’t get the end product I hope to be able to consult in the future.

What I’m thinking is some sort of guide that will allow user submissions, either a voting-based comment system a la Slashdot or Ask Metafilter, or a wiki with a strong editorial policy. I’m actually leaning towards the latter, although I’m not sure if people will have the courtesy to build out the guide with all the dissent and thoughtfulness that Modern Man was able to do in print. A policy of “edit facts, but not opinions” is about what I’m thinking; I’d love for an entry in the guide to have a section about, say, pick-up artistry, with three or four well-edited, conflicting opinions about the merits of clinical dating techniques, all on the same page. My friend Matt suggested that a ranked comment system would allow the most highly regarded responses to questions to float to the top, but there’s something inelegant about that; I’d much rather have a format that didn’t force everything into a call-and-response format, nor do I think a conversational back-and-forth between commentors is the best idea. But then again, I wouldn’t want to try to create something like this and then just limit it to certain editors. Everyone is an expert at something.

So that’s the idea I’m chewing on this week as I sit on my parents’ back porch and play with their old dog Asimov, whose joints and giving out but not so badly he won’t climb the steps for a hot dog. Dethroner in its current form isn’t holding steady, for reasons that are almost all my fault. In fact, let me give you guys an update on where we’re at with the site.

Basically we’re not making enough money to go on like we have been, because I made some assumptions about revenue and ad sales based on fourth-quarter numbers that haven’t held steady throughout the year. Our traffic was been growing slowly—and hey, at least it’s growing—but it’s going to be a long slog to get to the point that I can even consider working on Dethroner full time. And as I’m easily discouraged, it’s been even harder for me to get off my ass every day and put in the four or five hours the site really needs every day to come together. That’s totally an attitude problem on my part and one I’ve not yet figured out how to work around in my life; I’ve got a history of getting discouraged by less-than-perfect scenarios and then letting myself mope while the problems mount instead of dealing with them one day at a time.

I’m not trying to get all maudlin about it or anything. Life is actually going really well for us right now, except for the fact we’re pretty broke. I’m just letting you guys know where we’re at, because so many of you have been ardent supporters of Dethroner and I think you deserve to get a clear picture of what’s going on. I actually had an offer to sell Dethroner a couple of months ago to a person who would have then paid me to work on the site full time, but it just didn’t feel right. I left Gawker last year because they wouldn’t give me an equity stake and it seemed horrible to turn around and lose ownership of the site I’d built myself, even if Dethroner is penny ante compared to most of the bigger sites out there. Unfortunately that decision also means that Dethroner may fizzle out as I take work elsewhere, but I’ve always taken the prideful option before the lucrative one, even when if it has been less than prudent financially.

So I really don’t know where Dethroner is going. I’ve got another job lined up that I will likely take simply because it sounds like a fantastic opportunity, but it will certainly affect the amount of time and energy I have to spend on Dethroner. We’ve gotten far enough with this site that I hate to just shutter it, but I’ve also got to do some honest analysis of my ability to persevere against the reality that Dethroner isn’t going to be an instant success.

What is very likely is that I’ll have the summer months free before I take another full time job, so I want to continue plugging away at the site. I’d like to at least try to hold on until the fourth quarter of this year, because if we can keep building the traffic out I may be able to afford to hire more help or do something that will make it possible to keep the site chugging along. I think there is still potential for Dethroner to be a fun and useful resource for people, but it may involve a focus on the “Guide” idea I talked about earlier instead of trying to post eight to twelve original content pieces a day. I really just don’t know what to do and if this is just a rough patch or a sign I should shut ‘er down.

Fortunately this trip away from Brooklyn has been good to help me get some perspective and a little breathing room to consider the next steps and I remain confident that everything will work out. Worst case, I took a stab at running my own site and realized I’m not able to do everything on my own and that I’m not quite the workaholic powerhouse that I imagine myself to be. It’s just difficult to parse the difference between being lazy and being realistic.

So there you have it. I’m going to be back in New York next week and we actually have a really awesome pair of guest bloggers lined up to do a theme we’ve been excited about since we first started the site, so it’s not like I’m saying you should never check back. You certainly should! But it helps to let you guys know where I’m at and I think it’s only fair to do so when you have been such good sports and daily encouragement.

What do you guys think about the guide idea? Is that something you’d be interested in working on with me? What do you think the right system is?