We’re being invaded!

I’m not to sure if any of you have noticed, but newsvine is in the midst of being invaded. No, not invaded by aliens from space, or of the illegal variety, or even by bot advertising (actually that may or may not be true, I’m taking artistic license here). No, we are being invaded by refugees from the New York Times Forums and that is a very good thing.

Apparently not so long ago the Grey Lady decided to close down most of her Interweb forums, and left only very limiting and tightly controlled means for readers to share their opinions and views. This left many of their forum users without a proper home.

Well, the New York Times loss is our gain. A few of the forum users found newsvine (perhaps through the seed newsvine button featured on many of their articles…), started a group of their own and are now busy recruiting their fellow NYT forum refugees to join newsvine, and break through the greenhouse.

I only discovered their presence a few days ago, and I’ve been fascinated watching their group dynamic adapt to the environment of newsvine. Perhaps it is the hidden anthropologist in me, but it has been absolutely interesting to watch an entire group join our community, and interact within their own subgroup as well as with newsvine users at large.

Many of you have probably already encountered a refugee or two. Both jfxgillis and Melody Pearl have jumped right in and started contributing right away. Many more refugees have followed their example. As of this writing, there are nineteen refugees listed in their group, which I hope will grow even more.

Most of the refugees that I have encountered are clearly veterans of Internet forums and have blended right in as well as any newcomer can be expected to. I can definitely predict with utmost confidence that more than one refugee will become a top contributor to newsvine, probably sooner rather than later.

What’s even more exciting is that this is not a homogeneous group. They do not all share the same ideology and they will not be parroting the same talking points. They are actually quite the opposite. From a few threads I’ve participated in with some of the refugees, I can attest that their opinions are rather diverse, and sometimes quite original. They bicker and debate amongst themselves as much as we do. They should fit right in :-)

In fact, if I can pick on the two refugees again that I mention previously, browsing Melody Pearl’s profile, she already has quite a collection of the usual suspects from the newsvine right as friends. While on the other hand, jfxgillis is a self proclaimed (mostly) liberal. But have no fear, after a few discussions he seems to be one of the good ones, along the lines of Killfile or evano.

Now it us up to us, the newsvine community, to do our best to welcome each new user and help them adapt and learn more about newsvine, both our community and the various tools and features of this site.

If any of the refugees have any questions, feel free to ask them below. Either I or another viner will be happy to respond. If any of you want to introduce yourselves go ahead as well.