Southology

My official “Southbound is back” post

By Betty ⋅ October 11, 2009 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅

(Photo courtesy of sxc.hu)

Tadaaah!!!

Welcome to the new and improved Southbound. It’s more than just a new header, by the way. Read on to find out what to expect from Southbound’s relaunch.

When I first started blogging, I did my darndest to stick to that most sacred of blogging rules: post regularly. At first it was fun, what with all the information I wanted to share, the new places I discovered each day; then it started to become a chore, and the pressure started to build: I’d try two dishes at a restaurant and feel compelled to come back and try four more, just to have a lot of pictures to post, and a lot to say. Or I’d enjoy a meal, totally forget to take pictures and contact information; people would ask for phone numbers and I wouldn’t be able to give them, and I’d feel like I was doing my readers a disservice. Photos languished in my hard disk; by the time I had enough data to come up with what I had begun to consider a “complete” post, I’d forgotten what my first meal had tasted like. It was obviously time for a change.

I decided to go back to the reasons I had started Southbound in the first place. The main thing for me was to have a repository of information that residents of the South, like myself, would find useful. Phone numbers, addresses, operating hours, type of food, what crowd to expect, that sort of thing. The photos were a huge plus, of course: images are indeed worth a thousand words, especially if the images are enough to make the viewers drool all over their keyboards.

I didn’t really set out to become an authority on food or restaurants, in the South or otherwise; all I meant to do was give people an idea of what they could expect if they went to a certain place, so they could decide for themselves whether to go or not. At some point I had to acknowledge that I would never—not by myself, not even with a team to back me up—be able to give a definitive review or recommendation for every single place in the South. Nor did I wish to restrict myself to restaurants: there are shops, events, sports, hobbies, and all sorts of activities and interests that are all around us, of which I had barely scratched the surface.

Then there were the hundreds of villages, organizations, parishes, and schools that had lots of information to share, but didn’t always have a venue for sharing; I wanted to provide a place where they could make their announcements, which would benefit everyone, after all. But the Community Billboard was just too small and limited by my own capacity to check my email: at the start of the week, after having neglected to go online all weekend, I’d find an announcement for an event that had already passed me by.

Finally there was the whole freedom of expression thing that got to me: occasionally I would get rude comments that tried to pass themselves off as constructive criticism, which I wouldn’t know how to handle. Sure, people are entitled to their opinions, but it really got to me when the preferred method of expression was abrasive and biased and sometimes just plain mean. Running a website as a public service of sorts, did I have the responsibility to uphold their freedom of expression, even if it went against my own values?

And so my soul-searching regarding Southbound continued. It took a while to get things clear in my head, but things fell into place eventually. One of the changes I’m owning up to is the fact that I’m now running this show on my own; editor-in-chief, researcher, writer, photographer, webmaster, that’s me. Contributors are, and will always be, welcome, but in the main, I’m taking responsibility for the site. Which means two things: first, most of what you’ll read will be colored by my own opinions, though readers who are familiar with my writing will know that I’m far from opinionated, and I try to see things from as broad a perspective as possible. And second, things certainly won’t be running at warp speed: I can’t go everywhere, answer all questions asked, or eat everything all by my lonesome (which is a good thing: I’ve lost some serious weight since my New Year posts). I haven’t yet figured out the most feasible post frequency (I’d like to post everyday, but I’ve found myself staying up way too late during weekdays for this to be a doable schedule), so do bear with me as I find my pace.

Which is where the forums come in. I still want to gather as much information as possible on the site, and who better to provide it than all the folks who live here too. I’ve never run a forum before, and I’m slightly daunted at the prospect of keeping all the participants in line, but hopefully it’ll work out well… with the help of some volunteer moderators and an actively participating and well-informed community (I hope that means you people). Some ideas and scenarios: folks who traverse SLEX every day might want to share which areas have active construction and how long their usual drive takes, so those who don’t leave the South regularly will know what to expect (or, much closer to home, people can warn others about things like the random Friendship Route Sticker checks they’re conducting at the BF Resort gates); new restaurant finds can be shared immediately; organizations can post their activities or share their expertise in their respective areas; villages can make announcements about their programs and policies; homeowners or carowners can ask for tubero / karpintero / mekaniko recommendations in the area. The point is, I don’t know everything, but everyone knows something, and if we can pool all that information together, then we all will know a lot more than we’d know on our own. (In the time it has taken to relaunch, Twitter and Facebook have become astounding channels for information exchange; soon enough the Southbound community will be able to share news through these channels, but the forums will still be useful because the information is cataloged differently and stays accessible much longer.)

The great big touchy-feely goal behind all this is not just to be an entertaining site; or even just to be an informative one; it’s to build the community and to tap our community spirit to help everyone, and hopefully to make things even better in this place we all call home. Hence The Rule: no rude posts, no abrasive comments, no uncalled-for insults or mean statements. We can all get our point across in a polite, civil manner; and perhaps if we get really good at doing this, then we can all drive like considerate citizens; or mind our neighbors like an extension of our own families; or take care of our community and work towards urban development and local (then maybe national, and global) progress. Yeah, sniff sniff, rah rah, I know it sounds geeky and idealistic. I hope it works anyway.

Last of all, there’s the look. It’s not a huge change, but I’m proud of it, and I had fun making the new header. If it doesn’t look or act quite right on your browser, please leave a comment—it will be most appreciated (an accompanying solution would be even more appreciated, hahaha).

So, if you’ve read this far, my thanks to you; and if you were one of those people who wondered what was happening to Southbound, my thanks to you too—as well as a request for you to comment on the site and make your presence felt… nothing is quite as rewarding as a pat on the back from a reader I’ve never met before, telling me that they love Southbound and they’re spreading the word to everyone they know. Please excuse the bits and pieces of the site that are lying around unfinished… I’ll get around to them soon. And while I’ve taken ownership of Southbound as my site, my dearest wish is that it becomes everyone’s site—a place to gather, share, put your feet up, and feel at home.

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