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Lay Anglicana: The Next Generation

I have just had one of those conversations with our webmaster, James Briggs, which turn out to be life-changing. All right, let’s not exaggerate, website-changing.

When we started this website in October 2010, it was still true that the way most people exchanged views and information online was via chat forums. With hindsight, the focus was already beginnng to move to social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, but hindsight was not available to us as a tool at the time. It was decided to start with a forum. A blog was added, and Lay Anglicana also started Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Gradually, over the last two and a quarter years, the contributors to discussion on Lay Anglicana do so on the blog (sometimes with a little encouragement)  but also on Facebook in particular. As recommended by experts in social media, I put a link to every new blog post on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and, where appropriate, Linked In. Subsequent conversation takes place increasingly right there on Facebook, which is understandable. When the conversation seems important, and likely to be of more than ephemeral interest, I have on two or three occasions obtained permission from the participants to copy the exchanges to the blog, so there is some semi-permanent record.

But it seems that cyberspace is sending us a strong message.

We have therefore decided to delete the forum. This was a heart-stopping moment, I admit. But the idea is to move discussion, chat and even idle gossip to the Lay Anglicana Facebook page, which is here. If you are on Facebook and don’t already know our page, do drop by and ‘like’ us and say hello. The idea is to make the page busier than it has been up to now. (This is the page for Lay Anglicana; my personal stuff is on my own page).

Alternatively, if your natural home on line is Twitter, then do follow me at Laura Sykes @layanglicana  if you feel inclined.

Thank-you to all who have contributed to the forum, and made it at times such an enjoyable place to be. We hope to continue the relationship on Facebook and here in the blog.

Where You Come In

I hope very much that the next stage in Lay Anglicana’s existence will see ownership become truly more multiple. Chris Fewings, Wendy Dackson and Taylor Carey have all greatly enriched the blog and I hope that 2013 and beyond will see an increasing number of people willling to write for us on a regular basis. We will also continue to seek out people who just want to write for us once. We hope to have guest writers from the clergy as well as the laity – we are not separate beings, after all, and may find we have a lot in common!

We are also going to expand the ‘Articles’ section, so if anyone feels like writing a piece about the workings of the Anglican Communion, Church of England or any of the component parts of Anglicanism, please make a proposal in Facebook or Twitter and let us make it happen!

Progress to date

We have made some headway in the charts, currently in eleventh place on the Ebuzzing rankings on Religion and Belief and are also doing well on Alexa, the website-ranking site. (In fact if any of you felt inspired to review us for Alexa, I am sure that would be very helpful!) Our global ranking today is 656,520 (as against 748,537 a week ago) and our UK ranking is 23,283. By way of comparison, the Church of England website is 189,599 (you will appreciate that the lower the number, the better) and 13,231. And Thinking Anglicans today is 668,116  and 87,783 (their chief readership is in the US). Anglicans Online today is 705,130.

Lest you think this unduly hubristic, we are well aware that different sites measure different things, and none of them on their own truly rank influence. There are several reasons why we might be currently flying high, and unfortunately none of them guarantee that this happy situation is permanent.

Let us see what Spring brings!

 

13 comments on this post:

Dave Roberts said...
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Onward and upwards, Laura!

Lay Anglicana said...
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Many thanks Dave! It’s been quite a week – look forward to catching up with you after Wednesday?

Dave Roberts said...
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yes indeed! Was thinking of you while passing the M3 Winchester turn off! Its been a long time!

27 February 2013 21:08
25 February 2013 18:26
25 February 2013 18:14
Matthew Caminer said...
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Sorry if I am about to be a dinosaur…. does this mean I have to toggle across to LayAnglicana to read something, then toggle back to Facebook to comment?

Lay Anglicana said...
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What I would like for people who already read the blog and comment on the blog is that they continue to do so. Some people see the link to the blog on Facebook and then either read the whole piece on the blog (or, perish the thought, comment without reading the whole post!) and comment on Facbook. I am going to give up the unequal struggle to persuade people only to comment on the blog, unless what they say is crying out to be preserved for posterity.

There are also a group of people who have been talking to each other in the forum, and it is chiefly those people who will be affected since the forum is no more. I am hoping they will move seamlessly to chatting with each other on the Lay Anglicana Facebook page.

Matthew, please carry on as normal! 🙂

25 February 2013 20:31
25 February 2013 19:35
Pam Smith said...
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Point of information – if people were intending to follow the Lent reading group on The Lion’s World, forum, where would they now go to join a discussion on the book?

layanglicana said...
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Thank-you for the question Pam – life has been complicated by my having to get a new computer in the middle of all of this. We are all joining in the Facebook discussion being run by Bex Lewis (and of which I am a co-moderator) at BigRead13: https://www.facebook.com/groups/231814273548632/ Hope to see you there? 🙂

Pam Smith said...
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Thank you L – I was asked by someone else so I thought it was best to come straight to the source – hopefully she’ll be able to pick it up on Facebook.

02 March 2013 01:27
01 March 2013 18:06
01 March 2013 15:15
Joyce said...
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That link doesn’t lead to a discussion about the book. I’ve been looking for one too.

Lay Anglicana said...
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Good morning Joyce. The link is correct, in that it leads you to the Facebook page for BigRead13. Just to recap, the Big Bible project chooses a book for Lent each year. Last year we read Tom Wright on Mark’s gospel – Big Read12. We had discussion in the Lay Anglicana forum, and there was discussion on the BigRead12 Facebook page and there was other information on the internet available to download.
This year, there wasn’t enough interest in participating in both the Lay Anglicana forum and the BigRead13 page to justify trying to run both. Some people were very sweetly trying to contribute to both, but the effort involved was disproportionate and, we have now decided, simply not worth duplicating.
The discussion on the FB link was first about The Magician’s Nephew, and today is from ‘The Horse and his Boy’, linked to on that Facebook page, but I will give it to you here again: http://bigbible.org.uk/2013/03/bigread13-day-20/

04 March 2013 11:26
04 March 2013 10:28
Joyce said...
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Yes,it’s a link to the Big Read page.I didn’t mean to say it wasn’t, just that it doesn’ t lead me to a disscussion. It takes me to where I’ve often been going so far to no avaiI. I still can’t find where anybody on there is actually discussing the book. There’s an extract every day plus a Scripture passage and a question which is hardly ever answered but no link to a book discussion. Am I missing it ? Do I need better reading glasses ?? I see links all over the site to all sorts of other Lent-related things. What is being said ?Are people impressed by Dr Williams ‘ points ? I’ve been looking ever since the day you told me about the book in the facebook message when I facebooked you back with my post in reply to yours here about horsemeat and Talking Beasts because I couldnt get back in to Lay Anglicana that day. Yours was the only post I managed to see before the forum closed. I didn’t know anyone else had posted. Have you still got the posts ? I’d like to see other readers’ impressions if you have and can send them,please.

Lay Anglicana said...
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Sorry, Joyce, we seem to be going round the mulberry bush here. This is the place on the web to discuss Rowan Williams’ book. Every day Bex puts up a related text from C S Lewis and then it is up to us to discuss it. If no one does, there will be no discussion. Please do go ahead and comment on any of the linked passages. If there is something you want to discuss, it is open to you to put in your own comment and wait to see if anyone reacts to your point. See you there?

Joyce said...
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I’d have said it’s like The Hole in the Bucket but perhaps The Mulberry Bush fits better 🙂 I thought I was asking one thing but am getting answers to another. Either I didn’t ask properly or there’s a problem with semantics. Lilibulero might be even better. LOL.I woudn’t blame you if you were regretting telling me about the book now,Laura, and suggesting I’d like to talk about it.
Indeed I would be happy to add a comment on the BR page on something from The Lion’s World or on something someone has said about it.Unfortunately I can’t find anywhere to do so.The links you gave don’t go there for me,only to the daily page.The passage for the day is from one of C.S. Lewis’ works, not TLW, so that’s obviously not the place to comment on TLW. The Big Read site said the place to disuss TLW was Lay Anglicana forum,believe it or not.
What I need is for someone to give me a precise link, please, since I’m too dense to find it from the links you’ve given me. There must be somebody here who’s involved in talking about ++ Rowan’s book instead of/as well as reading blogs about Africa,preaching in York,lending lawnmowers,acting 40 or helping old ladies – interesting though they be.

05 March 2013 13:55
05 March 2013 09:53
04 March 2013 14:05

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