Interact + Engage

Welcome

We decided to relaunch MotherJones.com for some of the usual reasons: We wanted to freshen our look, to overhaul the back end, and to take advantage of Web 2.0 technology. Most importantly, we wanted to actively include readers in the journalism we produce. Yes, we'd love to have you leave more comments on our website; but beyond that, we're taking very seriously what you have to say. And we want you to be able to interact with and inspire each other.

Investigative journalism can shed light on a problem, but where do we go from there? We hope that the people who read our investigations have an inherent desire to solve problems—to be the whistleblowers, the people on the front lines, the idea makers. Collectively, you can do far more than we ever could.

So if you haven't registered as a user, please sign up. After that, take a look at some of the ways you can get involved with the Mother Jones community: You can now see which conversations are getting the most attention. You can see whose comments have merited the high ratings. You can sign up for podcasts and our three-times-a-week newsletter.

Most importantly, you can engage in the stories we cover. Let us know what we're missing, what we need to look into, and what you and your community plan to do about the things we expose.

How does commenting work?

Start by creating an account, or logging into an existing one. (For a limited time, it's still possible to comment anonymously without logging in.)

1) At the bottom of any article or blog post look for "Post a comment." Just enter your thoughts on the subject. You can start a new thought, or reply to anyone else's by hitting "reply" under an existing comment. You can also vote comments up (but not down, haters).

2) If you want to propose an action or solution to a problem addressed in the conversation, tag your comment "Proposed Solution" by checking the appropriate box. A proposed solution might be "write this congressperson" or "let shareholders know" or "see this movie instead."

3) You can also tag a comment as a "Documented Result"—meaning you (or somebody you know) has taken action on the issue (i.e. written a congressperson) and gotten results (a bill has been introduced). 

Why is this important? You’ll be able to suggest a course of action to other readers, and we'll be able to know which of our efforts have been embraced by readers. We hope that this forum will eventually become a vibrant place for people to hash out policy, to suggest stories for our journalists to investigate, and to organize around issues that are important to them. (To learn what prompted us to do this, read this.)

Your MoJo Identity

Like many sites, we allow registered users to upload avatars and otherwise personalize their MoJo identity. But we have a new twist. Underneath each avatar is the potential for three small icons: The first indicates whether you are a Mother Jones magazine subscriber, the second indicates whether you subscribe to our free email newsletter, and the last indicates that you provide us other financial support. Think of it as MoJo "flair." Unlike the poor slobs in Office Space, you are not required to wear flair, but we thought you'd appreciate the chance to show how involved you are with the MoJo community. In the future there may be special privileges for frequent commenters, even the option for you to directly message each other. But first, you’ve got to get involved.

Forums

In addition to the conversations you can have via the comments section, we’ll be conducting moderated forums. Over the course of 2009, we'll be introducing some really neat new features. Check out our "Comments Central" page for some idea about where this is all heading.