The Commentary

Saturday, 28 August 2004

Remodelling thecommentary.ca: An Editor's Note - THE COMMENTARY

By Joseph Planta

VANCOUVER - Two months ago, The Commentary celebrated its fifth anniversary. In a couple of weeks, we celebrate the first anniversary of being online at thecommentary.ca. In the interregnum between these two auspicious occasions, two significant developments have come about. First, as you may have noticed, is the redesign of the site. Deciding that it was time for a new look, Associate Publisher Vishal Dhir has come up with a new design. The pages you see now reflect a publication going into its second year online, and the sixth overall. We hope you'll come to enjoy the new look, and come back often.

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For over five years, I have written columns on a great number of issues of local and international consequence. The breadth of subjects covered reflect my own interests, but more than that they reflect the cornucopia of issues that people are talking about, and that pose relevance on a number of different levels. With the new look comes a new segment on the site. On the Line is a new segment produced by myself, Vishal Dhir, and Deputy Managing Editor Richie Leung. What we want to accomplish with On the Line is to provide visitors to the site, not only the written word that they've come to expect, but also an audio component that builds on the thought-provoking opinions that appear on these pages. Just like the wide array of subjects we cover in print, expect On the Line to feature an equally varied group of guests who'll talk with me on our new interview segment. Developing On the Line has been an exercise in expanding the site and extending our efforts in the medium we work in, the internet. We hope to vary the experience of visiting thecommentary.ca a bit, as well as bring you conversations from interesting personalities from all walks of life, who have something interesting to say.

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In the past year, having a bullpen of contributors along for the ride has been interesting and valuable. For they too have added their varied and varying perspectives, and provided readers with unique outlooks on equally varied issues. Though the contributors do not appear on these pages as regularly as I do, owing to other commitments, I hope you have come to appreciate, as I have, their work, however infrequently that may be. We hope you'll come to read them on the site, whenever they appear, and I hope you'll check them out on On the Line, when I bring some of them on the new segment to chat and kibitz so that readers will get to know them a little bit better.

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Finally, as Publisher, more often than I'd like, I pay attention to the statistics. As such, improving traffic and boosting circulation is always a concern. We thank you for visiting the site however often you do. If you do, and do so on a regular basis, I appreciate it. If you visit with less frequency, we hope that with these new developments you will visit more often. None of us makes any money off this endeavour, so it is your support and encouragement that allows us to continue. Moreover, we will appreciate it further, if you help us out in spreading the word about the site by telling a friend and inviting others to visit the site, to read our writing, and listen to our interviews. We're not out to change the world, but with our little part of the internet world, we hope you are enlightened, entertained and informed by our opinions, our perspectives and our points-of-view. And if we encourage or provoke a little debate, then we've done more then we've set out to do.

Joseph Planta, Publisher and Editor thecommentary.ca

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Questions and comments may be sent to: editor@thecommentary.ca

An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .