#p2 Twitterchat Monday (2/23), 6:30 PM Pacific/9:30 PM Eastern. Tentative agenda here. Feedback, please … and hope to see you then!
It’s been an encouraging first week for the new #p2 Twitter hashtag that Tracy Viselli and I proposed in The Exception last Friday. Usage has steadily increased (more people, more tweets), especially after Sarah Granger’s #p2 Takes on the Progressive Twitter Challenge in techPresident on Monday. The quality of information is generally very high, the gender ratio has stayed fairly well-balanced, and their have been lots of posts on race, lgbtq, an women’s issues.
We even have two of the candidates in the Democratic primary for Rahm Emmanuel IL-05 Congressional seat using it, with both @Quigley_Campaign and @Tom_Geoghan highlighting their progressive credentials. A promising start!
Also, we set up a Wetpaint wiki last weekend, and while much of which is still in skeletal form, several people have already told me they’ve found the page discussing Twitter useful.  It’s got getting started and accessibility information, including a link to Dennis Lembrée’s Accessible Twitter; and a list of hashtags that are potentially useful for progressives. Check it out at http://p2pt0.wetpaint.com/page/Twitter — and as always, feedback welcome.
Of course, there are unsurprisingly some growing pains as well.
While everybody agrees that there are synergies between #p2 and the two other active progressive hashtags (#rebelleft and #topprog), we’re all groping with how best to handle the interactions. When to cross-post? When to forward? It’s something we’ll work out as we move forward, and one of the topics for Monday’s Twitterchat. If you’ve got thoughts, please leave them in the comments or tweet them — I’m @jdp23.
Another challenge is one that has already come up with other hashtags on Twitter, and for that matter occurs in pretty much every online environment: how to keep people from disrupting the discussion. Last night, for example, useful content was almost completely drowned out by a series of debates with people from #tcot.
This is a meaty enough subject that I went into detail shift it to a separate post. One important thing to mention here: the #bipart hashtag that @martinschechter and @txvoodoo proposed last Friday; Martin’s A modest proposal on Common Mistakes for more. See Dealing with trolls on Twitter for a lengthier discussion. Once again, this is a topic we’ll cover in the Twitter chat.
Still, these kinds of things are only to be expected. Like I said, growing pains.
So to summarize: off to a good start, some growing pains, stay tuned for more. Have a great weekend, and hopefully see you Monday at the Twitter chat!
jon
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