Crexit

A warm welcome to the new and, hopefully, improved Poll Bludger.

For the better part of a decade now, The Poll Bludger has proudly been part of the Crikey Blogs network. However, all good things must come to an end, and that now applies to Crikey’s interest in funding a psephology blog that has ceased to contribute much to its business model. If you’re a follower of Poll Bludger specifically, and the media environment more generally, you will be aware that this has nothing to do with the vitality of this particular corner of the blogosphere, and everything to do with the fact that mere web traffic now generates a tiny fraction of the revenue it did in the good old days. So while I will continue contributing to Crikey’s subscriber email, the blog is on its own.

I am somewhere between hopeful and optimistic that Poll Bludger can remain viable in this new form. For reasons just noted, advertising revenue will be of limited help (though if you do use an ad blocker, you can do a small amount for the cause by adding pollbludger.net to your whitelist). What I’ll be relying on is the support of the blog’s faithful and, in some ways, long-suffering readership. To this end you will find, courtesy of the good people at PressPatron, a facility at the top of the page through which you can do your bit for the Poll Bludger cause. Needless to say, donations will be very gratefully received in whatever form, including the one-off variety. However, it’s the recurring, monthly variety that stands the best chance of keeping the shop open.

The upside of all this is that Poll Bludger is, as Brexiteers like to say, back in charge of its own destiny. Regular readers will know all too well that the blog architecture provided by Crikey was not designed with Poll Bludger in mind, and contained a number of bugs-not-features. With the first of these shackles removed, everything can be arranged with no other end in mind than giving the blog community with what it wants from a comments facility, leavened just a little by my own judicious perspective on what it needs. For starters, what you will find below the fold is a return to the beloved old regime of chronologically ordered comments broken down into pages of 50. As for bugs, it would perhaps be going too far to say they will be a thing of the past, but I believe I can state with confidence that they will be less bothersome than they have been.

So welcome to Poll Bludger Mark 3, and thank you one and all for making the site what it is, and hopefully will continue to be.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

124 comments on “Crexit”

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  2. Woohoo!

    Congratulations William. Will have a look at how I can reorganise my alternative media budget to include Poll Bludger Mk 3. Putting in a small initial donation.

  10. Nice job. I’m looking forward to the new format.

    I have two comments on the change.

    1) There is a redirect at https://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/ to https://www.pollbludger.net, but by chance I have https://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/federal-politics-2016-2019/ bookmarked and was in the habit of using that to come to this blog. This page still shows the “Maintenance mode” page. I waited, got bored, and eventually stumbled on the redirect page. Others may be similarly affected. Perhaps the maintenance page could give the link to the new pollbludger address?

    2) Is it possible to change the timestamp to reflect my local time zone? I looked through the WordPress help sections but didn’t find what I needed to do.

    Best of luck.

  11. I’m not able to bring up the new Pollbludger on my phone.
    The redirect works but I then get a 404 message from Hostgator and the https is struck out and red, indicating the link is not secure.

    Tried a few things including closing the browser cache but no luc so far.

    No problem on the desktop – which is why I can post this.

  13. William

    Congratulation.

    My next Crikey sub will be re-channelled when subs are due.

    This is a promise… err, not a threat!

    For me 95% of the Crikey value lies in this blog.

  14. Hi William

    Feedback: I am not seeing numbered posts – were you anticipating that this would happen?

    There does not seem to be an edit function.

  16. I’ve been a long time lurker and occasional poster. Think I should contribute financially. This blog should survive and prosper. I shall take such steps shortly.

  19. Good on yer William! I do miss the few minutes to edit after posting, but this looks good. What’s that image you’re using? A Hindu god or some King William from the past?

  20. Jack @2:16pm: Appropriately, WB’s avatar is God from MP’s Holy Grail. I’m not sure if Terry Gilliam used WG Grace or Karl Marx as the original.

  23. Boerwar – social media analysis would also indicate that almost every poster agrees with the following statement – “I am the most important person in the world and everybody agrees with everything I think”. Followed by a duckface selfie

  26. Hi William, thanks for putting up your blog sans Crikey.

    A few issues with my browser not accepting certificates? then sent to some hostgator site with a 404 warning but all seems fine now.

    Will make a contribution for sure after checking with the home finance department 🙂

  27. Just a heads up that there doesn’t seem to be a “create login” link or page anywhere on the site that I could see, so only those with a grandfathered account from the old site will be able to comment.

  28. Good luck with this William.

    I’ve also just chipped a small amount to start but hope to be be able to continue to support this Blog on a regular basis as for some reason I can’t seem to leave it alone.

  29. Congratulations, William. Glad to see you leave the Crikey fold and strike out on your own. Will definitely become a supporter, but this might have to wait till next payday!

  32. Ive been a bit tight lately to be donating to even good causes, but happy to chip in for a one-off here.

    I hope you get enough to justify continuing the journey…

  33. Good luck with your new venture William. I don’t post as much nowadays but your contribution to psephology and the provision of an environment for political discussion is invaluable.

  35. Congratulations William. I don’t think I’ve posted since I was in Washington DC in March when the Russia stuff was first starting to break – just too busy, and knowing that your blog will draw me in like a black hole (in the nice sense!).

    Looking forward to following you more closely again, and catching up with many other commenters here. I have just found out about the sad passing of Ben Sandilands – his Plane Talking blog was my main other interest on Crikey.

  37. > “all good things must come to an end, and that now applies to Crikey’s interest in funding a psephology blog that has ceased to contribute much to its business model. ”

    It’s a little bit sad to read that Crikey decided to cut-off funding to Pollbludger.

    I try to become a supporter of the new blog. Best of luck with the new site.

  38. Also a few suggestions:

    1) It would be nice to have some sort of ready-reference to common formatting commands for comments. Things like how to do bold text, quotes etc.

    2) If possible, some option to reverse the order & show the newest comments on top.

    3) An edit button would also be nice.

  40. I never thought Crikey that hosted the blogs they did for the money, I always figured it was just for the prestige / marketing. Unless they’re paying moderators, the marginal cost of an extra blog on their platform can’t be too much.

  46. Boy things move so quickly……………think I am back in though the password is a gobstopper! Well done William for striking out……………………

  49. As I mentioned elsewhere, the 16 character, is it? password set up is a bit of a challenge even though it is automated. I had to use it here and then again to get on the live blog – and I missed one of the damned items and had to do it all over again……..gone are the days of ABCD1234 as a password I suppose.

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