Dear friends,
TOC began with a simple aim in mind: telling the stories about Singapore and Singaporeans that weren’t being told in the mainstream press.
Now, as TOC celebrates one million page views since our creation, we can honestly say we never expected to come this far. With growth comes the very practical need to rationalise our content.
The objective of our migration to this new site is to allow as many of our contributors as possible to have their work featured, and to give you, our readers, as much content to choose from as possible.
TOC now has a stable of regular volunteer contributors, with writers from all walks of life. From students to the retired, from the working class to the self employed to the upper crust, the TOC team has grown to resemble the Singapore demographic. TOC has truly become a community of Singaporeans.
The power of the Internet is its ability to empower people to be both consumer and creator, reader and writer. Many in our writing team started off as random pseudonyms in our comment boxes, but eventually came to believe in our project enough to come forward with their own stories to share.
This is precisely why we believe the Internet is the best platform for developing an honest reflection of Singapore: there are no barriers to entry.
Readers, writers, friends and supporters of TOC: you have made us who we are today, and it’s only with you that TOC can continue to tell the stories that matter.
But more important than reflecting the real Singapore, we hope you will seize the chance to grow TOC into a microcosm of the Singapore you want to see. Hopefully, like the TOC team, you believe and want to build a community that respects the free flow of information and ideas, regardless of how uncomfortable, politically incorrect, or downright silly those ideas might seem.
We may not be polished professionals, or have as high recruitment standards as the PAP, but we take pride in telling it like it is.
From the TOC team, thank you for being a part of us.
Choo Zheng Xi
Chief Editor
On behalf of the TOC team
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With special thanks to:
- The Intelligent Singaporean, who began aggregating TOC stories and directing traffic to us in the early days. You made getting noticed much less difficult.
- Special thanks also to the many non-bloggers, who have helped us with advice and words of support, and the ex-writers who once contributed to TOC.
TOC announcements:
- We’re happy to welcome on board Gerald Giam, who is our new second Deputy Editor and Selene Cheng as sub-editor.
For the nostalgic, TOC’s former blogsite is still available at theonlinecitizen.wordpress.com
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Dear readers, please bear with us as we finalize the migration to the new TOC site. The site will be up and running very shortly.
Regards,
TOC Webmaster
I’ve been clicking F5 for hours on theonlinecitizen.com trying to reach it. I kinda guessed u guys were migrating. I guess I’m the first outsider to leave a comment!
wahaha. :)
Great job. I love the format.
Finally, a real working Revolution theme in action. Good work on the migration, we’ll hang on till the dust settles. Congratulations on the new fully-functioning self-hosted website.
Good job. Cheers.
Congratulations on the new layout. Looks simple yet very sleek and streamlined. Take care and all the best!
Hope you grow from strength to strength. ;-)
One thing I like to comment about the new site. It seems to uncanny resemble the format and layout of partisan MSM and give the impression that comment is not welcome. Unlike the old format, comment is easily entered, and the latest comment list can be shown, and the topics are not cluttered around.
Wonder why the site takes on a newspaper format that seems “discourage comment and remark”.
Wonder if others feel the same ?
I enjoy reading the thought provoking articles on TOC which usually gaves another perspective from the main stream media.
Thank you TOC.
I am also looking forward to see JBY winning a seat in the Parliament. His presence will keep our sleepy MPs awake.
Somehow my earlier comment didn’t get in for some reason. Probably the new system is still not stable.
I do agree that the new layout does not encourage participation, and with the different section such as Feature/Columnist/Main Story, it does give me a feeling that certain articles are given special treatment for selected group of people. The old format gives an all-are-equal kind of feeling.
Most people come here not just to read the articles, but to engage in discussion with people from everywhere. And who is to judge whether a comment is immature or uncivilized? The best way to regulate Internet discussion is to let the users do it themselves.
Just my humble opinion, congrats anyway :)
Hi Starchild,
Thanks for sharing your views about the new site.
It is not our intention to discriminate against any writer or any article. But with more and more writers/contributors coming on board, we really have no choice but to rationalise the presentation of content.
The “Our Columnist” section is for our writers who have committed and are able to provide regular weekly articles. Considering that all our writers are volunteers with day jobs, this indeed is very laudable. Thus, we feel that it would be good to have a section for them.
The “Feature” article is one which we feel should be given special mention and prominence. This of course is the editor’s decision.
As for the new site discouraging participation through posting comments, I take your point but I disagree with you. The way the site is (with limitations to layout), is something which we will to improve on.
We will see if we can provide the indication of number of comments for each article on the front page – just as we do for the Top Story, Feature, TOC Extra and TOC’s Most Popular.
There are shortcomings, no doubt, about this new site. But at the same time, there are many advantages as well – one of which is to allow us to give as many of our writers as possible to have their work presented.
There are some teething problems which we’re working to improve on.
Please bear with us.
Thanks!
Regards,
Andrew Loh
Hi TOC
Congratulations.
How do we see the blogosphere at the 2000000th hit?
I hope that we will not be just content with the usual knee-jerk response kind of posts pointing out blunders and stumbles of govt leaders but more Leong Sze Hian/ Alex Au & Tan Kin Lian’s types of objective and incisive analyses of Singapore’s body politic etc.
Let’s try to get non-IT savy readers on board or else we will just be preaching to the converted.
Even now, many of my friends/colleagues still do not surf the net or read blogs. The main reason is ignorance and laziness although I suspect apathy is more likely.
Since the ministers earn millions, why should I help to make this place better? They are overpaid for this job, let them try to do it and better still, stumble and all of us have a good laugh. But is this optimal?
Thanks and wishing you guys “many million hits of the day”.
I prefer the old format better. This new layout seems to be discouraging comments. A rather clean but cold layout.
Raymond,
agree with you. Maybe is a perception kind thing because the new layout remind of MSM that many come to dislike. MSM’s layout is structural and non-engaging and tried to put every news as same importance, which is something the MSM tries to do when they want to make something important look unimportant.
What’s good about the old format is that focus topic is always on top followed by rest of past topics, and it is easier to enter comment for topics since the layout look like a list. Online Citizen probably need to realize that the blog format is a effective way of channeling and fostering communication and discussion and that’s why the blog layout is designed as such. The current format is tatamount to a NEWS layout that is more akin for disseminating information than discussion.
The NEWS layout is effective for glancing and browsing news quickly just like paper newspaper. It is not a effective way to discuss focus topic as topic should be focus one by one to be more effective as the topic takes time to discuss and nurture. By usng the new layout, it actually lost the “focus topic” kind of feeling.
Though I see the reason why Online Citizen want to use NEWS layout is because eventually to build themselves as a online alternative to MSM, it will backfire because the last thing the commenter here need is another MSM.
I do hope that Online Citizen understand the characteristic of site layout and how it affects the commenter.
Do reconsider bringing back the old layout that look like a “Blog” and add a search capability, and do not fix something that is not broken (Which reminds me of ministers which make thing worst and expensive by fixing thing to help the poor).
Hi Daniel,
The new layout is to facilitate the presentation of articles. In the previous blog, one problem we had was that a new article gets ‘pushed down’ too soon – especially when the author had spent much time and effort in writing it. I feel that these articles deserve more exposure. This new site and layout allow new readers and readers who have not yet read the article a chance to see it.
To be honest, I myself am trying to get used to this new site but all in all, I feel that it does have more advantages than the old one. Whether the layout resembles a “MSM” website is not quite the point, I feel. The important thing to note is that you still get to see the number of comments on each article and you also get to post comments just like in the previous blog. What’s more is that there is a feature now for our readers to email the article to friends. This is something which several of our readers asked for. (We’re working on improving the feature, though. )
Lastly, there is a search facility at the top right hand corner of this blog.
Please bear with us and give it some time. I am sure we will all soon get used to this new layout.
Regards,
Andrew Loh
congrats to TOC.
I still like the old site very much. It is more engaging to reader and the comments are easier to read and post.