Cynics Unlimited

How it Began

The 2005 formation of Cynics Unlimited (CU) was sudden and unscripted. After several months of reading blogs, ranging from the political to the perverted (and all points in between), it was clear that pretty much anyone could write a blog. The worst I could do was equal some of the more obscure corners of Blogspot.

Alas, to a self-described hacker, Blogspot would not suffice – nor would any hosted service. The site had to be totally independent, driven by configurable software and supplemented by selectable plugins. Among blogging software, Wordpress offered the most options in terms of plugins, themes and general support. I’ve since experimented with blogging under alternative frameworks, including Joomla, Drupal and b2evolution, but Wordpress continues to lead in terms of simplicity and expandability (at least from the user perspective).

The name “Cynics Unlimited” is a swipe at the Toronto Unlimited ad campaign, which according to the designer for this site’s logo, is considered by the to be one of the worst-conceived campaigns in recent memory. As the tourism bureau’s best response to city’s SARS-driven economic fallout amounted to a twisted ‘T’, cynicism came rather easy to this layman. “Cynapse” is a cross between the words cynic and synapse, conveying the idea of cynical thinker. The pseudonym was also created to distance new writing from … erm … disturbances that I may or may not have created on chat boards under other handles.

Early Success

After a month of testing the waters, CU broke through with “The Jane Creba Factor”, a slightly embittered diatribe about the inordinate attention given to the Boxing Day slaying of the Toronto teen. My argument that Canadians only cared about the shooting because of the victim’s Barbie-like appearance attract a fiery debate in the comment section, along with a year of steady Google traffic and a mention in the Toronto Sun. Unfortunately, the Toronto Sun quote was incorrectly attributed to a then small and unfamiliar blog called Jack’s Newswatch (JNW). The site owner was decent enough to track down the real source and drive some of his new-found traffic to CU. Respect was won instantly and we forged an association that resulted in my hosting several future generations of JNW (including the current one).

The second positive consequence of The Jane Creba Factor was the combative yet superbly-communicated comments of poster who went by the handle “Emilia Liz”. Her writing was so elegant that I had to persuade her to write an entire essay about her thoughts on the incident (she was in close proximity at the time of the shooting). Emilia continues to contribute to CU, both as a writer and in the comment section.

The Traffic Game

Regardless of what bloggers may state about inner fulfillment and spreading the message, virtually all of us check traffic statistics religiously. More visitors means more bragging rights, which substitutes for revenue in the blogosphere, and in some cases more real revenue. CU currently draws about 5,000 unique visitors per month, which is decent given:

• Posts are sometimes infrequent and become available as we become available
• CU has no specific political slant or target audience. Left-leaning readers brand us as heartless right-wing bastards for failing to bless the latest social ponzi / redistribution scheme; The Stephen Harper rank and file dismiss us as bleeding-heart lefties for showing even slight conscience about those “conquered” folks. Some of CU’s most popular threads have nothing to do with politics.

What also separates CU traffic from the traffic of other blogs is that most of it is driven by search engines. While we do get some repeat traffic for hot-button threads and a small core of regulars, a strong majority of visitors are Google-spawned surfers looking for information. The result is a site with a relatively inelastic traffic flow – few other blogs can cease posting for several weeks without a sharp decline in visitors. It’s a bonus for bloggers with busy lives who nonetheless want to remain somewhat relevant.

Noteworthy Posts

• The Jane Creba Factor. For the reasons stated above. It put the on the map, inadvertently lead to the what is now my blogging circle of friends, and attracted CU’s second-in-command.
• Tutorial: Internet Gaming with Age of Empires 3 and Hamachi. The most popular and traffic-inelastic thread to date still supplies more weekly traffic than many current threads.
• Should Religious Schools Receive Government Funding? The issue that brought John Tory down spawned a very hot debate between believers and doubters
• Caribana 2006 Jump Up Part 2. Not so much for the writing, but the colorful pictures that showed Toronto’s largest festival in a positive light.

Special Thanks

Of course, nothing is accomplished in a bubble, and CU was essentially a group effort even when it was a “solo” blog. My thanks go to:

• Emilia Liz for her tireless participation as blogger, administrative assistant and comment combatant. Her posts have added dimension to the site and provided CU’s readership with a wealth of original material. Thanks as well for minding the site while I was on holiday!
• Jack for his helpful suggestions, promotion on his hugely-successful site and support. His kind words and input have saved this site from being mothballed.
• Witchdoctor, NewsJunkie, Blink7, Quadrant Interceptor and Dashmaster for their periodic contributions.
• Mac, Sandy and B Psycho. My blogging circle. I’ve also had the pleasure of hosting the latter two, and it is exciting to watch from the inside as new sites develop.
• Shay at Booker Rising for being a first-responder when this site was looking for initial linkers (I’ve since fallen out of favor in that community, but I wish Shay all the best with her future endeavors)
• The Wordpress development team for making setting up blogs so dead-simple.
• Google. Nuff said?
• Last but certainly not least I must thank my wife, who not only provided a wealth of high-quality photos for various posts but also endured the ranting and pacing around one encounters when living with a perfectionist. She has the patience of a saint.

The Future

The future is uncertain … and I’d have it no other way. Blogging, like most activities, will continue for as long as I can find a new way to experiment with it. Once there is no opportunity left to try something new, CU will vanish as quickly as it appeared. After all, isn’t it is a sin to waste spare time on the mundane?

As some of you may be aware, Cynics Unlimited is hosted on a general site called Cynasta.com. While the web space was originally intended for CU, there are several other sites hosted in the same space with a few under consideration.

This week, we welcome Crux of the Matter, a new and improved version of the blogger.com classic. For awhile it looked like Sandy (the blog’s author) was going to leave the blogging game, as she shut down her original site and announced an early retirement. Fortunately, she accepted a guest-writing spot at Jack’s site and later had a change of heart about having her own space. Since Sandy and I are both perfectionists, there will be much tinkering with the template over the next few weeks; however, Crux of the Matter is essentially open for business and you are encouraged to check out her posts. From the site description:

Crux-of-the-Matter is a registered domain and Sandy is the blogger here, as well as a guest writer at Jack’s Newswatch. She is a retired educator and academic, as well as having several years experience as a political writer and strategist while working for an Ontario MPP in the first Mike Harris government. She currently supports the Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario and the Stephen Harper government in Ottawa.

Apart from political writing, Crux of the Matter deals with education and learning disability issues. It is well worth your while to have a look at this welcome source of original material.

Other Cynasta sites:
Cynics Unlimited - Somewhat of my soapbox, but also home to the the meanderings of several diverse people with strong opinions
Psychopolitik - Libertarian blog from an unlikely sourced located down South
Jack’s NewsWatch - News and editorials from an ex-police officer who is not afraid to lay a smack down.

Changes coming up within the next 24 hours:

1. The site is being moved to a new server with a fresh installation of Wordpress. There may be some minor disruptions to service within the next 24 hours
2. A new template will be chosen. Jack was kind enough to point out that the current template with installed plugins renders garbage under Internet Explorer 7, which an unfortunately high number of people will be using within the coming months
3. New content will actually appear. It’s election time in Toronto - I would like to be one of the first Toronto bloggers to rap the knuckles of fellow Torontonians for re-electing “his blondness” (acknowledgment to Lorrie Goldstein), David Miller.

Cynics Unlimited on IE7. Lovely.

Update: Finally got the permalinks working and I’m back in business. The template still looks a bit ugly in IE7 … so use Firefox! IE doesn’t play by the rules anyway.