Today is the last day that this site will have postings, and now would be a great time to decipher the effectivity. As blog site administrator, it was my primary duty to observe our website and attempt to engage an audience in our 'small' attempt at democracy. Although our blog may not continue near the amount of comments that one should, the comments that were made brought up valid arguments as well as creative discussion. They were not mere attempts to 'get as many comments as possible from friends' but were instead individuals attempting to discuss the issue and how it relates. The contributors of this site did a great job of engaging these few commentors by answering each comment and engaging in a discussion with these individuals.

This site was only running for 3 weeks; it is difficult to cultivate an genuine audience in such a short amount of time. Attempts were made, such as placing the blog within blog search engines (3 to be specific), emailing other individuals with blogsites pertaining to our issue, asking people to link our site with theirs, etc... However, it is difficult to provide a valid argument as to why our site is a valid site to link to in the sense that our topic was not just concerning the rainforest but was also meant to look at all aspects of the media and how the media is covering this topic.

Unfortunately, because this was a class project, many blogsites were not willing to link our to theirs because of the fact that after 3 weeks this site would no longer be posting as well as the fact that, these bloggers did not believe our intention was genuine. I have received many emails complimenting this site and how it is set up--claiming that it is 'user-friendly' and 'very well designed'. Does this mean that it was effective?

I believe that this website fulfilled what it claimed to be its objective: to fairly evaluate the Coralville rain forest proposal. We as a group offer this site in the belief the public has an enormous stake in the project however it may come out, and that it is useful to give the public, media, and government officials the access to as much factual information as possible, along with the range of opinion the project has generated.

The contributors to this site may have an opinion regarding this issue; however, in general I believe that this site evaluated the issue from a fair and objective stance. Contributors scanned the media and reported what was either being covered, not beingcovered, effective, or updating what was going on. Each individual took on a role and presented valuable information regarding this role. It was an effective attempt of informing and engaging the public... for the small amount of time it was running.

For those of you who engaged in this topic and visited this site often... thank-you!