UPDATE: 4/4/2015 UPDATE 1/15/2020
TO OUR 17 "MEMBERS" THANK YOU!
Unfortunately we have to admit that while we are genuine, certified, commissioned, licensed, published, and recognized maritime experts of various sorts we are flat out cyberspace novices. We here at American Admiralty Books have all been members of crews
Photo courtesy MORE THAN A LIST OF CREW site.
This site is a terrific historical research resource. Please visit and support : https://www.mun.ca/mha/mlc/
But somehow we think that members of a blog look different, since many don't post a photo, just a facial symbol so we are sort of left with a vague impression sort of like this:
But somehow we think that members of a blog look different, since many don't post a photo, just a facial symbol so we are sort of left with a vague impression sort of like this:
Some "members" have left us comments and we certainly appreciate those and feel that we "know" these members better than others now that they have "spoken up". But we are in a bit of a puzzlement. You see the blog dashboard arrived with the "member" program installed. Thankfully some members "signed up" but we haven't figured out yet what our role is relative to our "members". Besides eternal gratitude for clicking in as members and thus assuring us that we aren't putting a lot of work into transmitting information into cyber space only to disappear, we're not sure what our obligations are supposed to be to "members".
Perhaps our members can tell us. Perhaps if you click into us regularly we should invite you to become a "member". Another word in cyberspace that seems to be associated with "member" is "Follower". We certainly appreciate anyone who "follows" our site with any regularity. But we think our "members" have done more for us than "follower" would indicate.
Perhaps our members can tell us. Perhaps if you click into us regularly we should invite you to become a "member". Another word in cyberspace that seems to be associated with "member" is "Follower". We certainly appreciate anyone who "follows" our site with any regularity. But we think our "members" have done more for us than "follower" would indicate.
We aren't quite sure what we should be doing for our "followers"/"members" at this stage of our development, but we know they have helped shape us so far. So at the risk of seeming to look at this blogger/"member" relationship as a one way street we'd like to invite more of you who "follow" us to click on the "Membership" button and join us as "members". We'd like to ask all "members" to comment more often and help us shape the future of the blog/website. We can assure you that "membership"is free and that we intend to keep it that way. But we really would appreciate it if you would consider "membership" in terms of a commitment to comment when you feel that you have something to add to a post, or a constructive criticism. Help promote the site by "liking us (actually "Johnas Presbyter, our editor) on Face Book. And retweeting Johnas Presbyter tweets on Twitter. So far we have one member who has become a "Correspondent" by actually submitting several posts that we have published. If you have something to say about a maritime subject consider sending us a post. Of course we don't pay for such and can't offer any sort of copyright protection. But if we are able to publish your post your idea gets exposure to an audience that now numbers in the hundreds of thousands. So as our friends at the U.S. Naval institute say "Dare to think, speak, and write".
Here are some of the things we are working on where we'd appreciate constructive criticism. (1) We were developing two "parallel blogs", these consist of expanded sections of our existing "special interest pages such as SAILING , FISHING, ADMIRALTY LAW, SURFING, DIVING, etc. that will allow us to pack in more content without more scrolling . As the content has expanded in the blog we've found that the scrolling format is getting lengthy and cumbersome. Tell us how you feel about that. We tried reducing advertising to virtually nothing in the blog but used one of the parallel blogs to create a virtual on line shopping mall that was much more than a book store. Then a democrat was elected to be governor of our state of incorporation and immediately decided to charge sales tax on Internet sales. We lost all of our advertisers and commissioned portals such as Amazon. We eventually have to make enough money with this effort for it to be self sustaining.Unfortunately the "Shopping Mall" is no longer a viable idea. We continue to carry hot links to the Amazon book section wher ewe think it is a reader convinence but we receive no sales commissions. Tell us how we are doing and how to improve. (2)We are using one of the parallel blogs to create an archive expanding the RETAINED HEADLINE SERVICE of our NEWS SECTION. In that Archive section we are also trying to sort and organize for rapid retrieval the collected works of NAMAZU, and our series "HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON SWIM?". We are considering for the archive permanent storage of our in progress on line book "PROTOCOLS" first published as a series of posts titled "SPACE AS AN OCEAN". We are also considering storing for on line reading there the NMA's maritime labor work "BLOOD ON BROWN WATER". (3) In our AUTHORITATIVE LITERATURE section we have now published three of the five American Admiralty Bureau's COMMENTATORS. Should we move them to the archive to shorten the scroll in the Authoritative literature section? We would describe them in AUTHORITATIVE LITERATURE and provide a hyper link to them. How far should we expand the on line legal research services of our Admiralty Law section? What do you think? (4) Finally we are considering going to a sort of PBS style of advertising on the blog itself, disallowing non Amazon display advertising but allowing credit lines and links to "sponsors" and content providers. Use the comment section below this post, or below the HOME PAGE AND NOTICE BOARD to tell us what you think. When you clicked on the membership button, we didn't quite know what that meant, but we presume that you took some level of ownership in our content. We need you to tell us how we can improve, and how we can generate revenue to continue to improve. As we near the finish of year 7 with our parallel blogs we are already experimenting with software to shift from blog to web site. When that shift comes we hope to have much more developed content than what we have now. If you read us here with any regularity please consider becoming a member and help guide and direct THE PORTAL TO THE MARITIME WORLD.
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