Welcome to OnlySky Media

A new blogging network opened up this month – OnlySky.media, which bills itself as the “first explicitly secular multimedia platform” (quote from Adam Lee’s blogpost about the new platform). I think the choice of the word “multimedia” is intentional, since both Freethought Blogs and the Orbit are secular blogging networks, and the same could probably be said of ScienceBlogs. So far, I haven’t seen any other media context, so I find it a bit premature to make that claim (also, Freethough Blogs make the occational pod-/vlogcast, so in a sense, this network can be called multimedia as well).

OnlySky is an exodus of atheist blogs from Patheos, due to new restrictions made to secular bloggers at Patheos. It is a long time since I have visited any blog at Patheos, due to the incredible invasive ads and the horrible layout, so I applaud the move, which will allow me to read some of the many great bloggers there. It might also mean that links to blogposts on social media, will make it clearer which blog it links to, making it easier to avoid giving click to bloggers that you don’t want to support.

Anyway, aside from the quibble about the claim about being the first network, I am entirely happy to see a new atheist network. My only worry is the attempt of defining the network as a movement

SUPPORT THE Movement
Help support independent secular storytelling and journalism.

OnlySky covers the human experience from an explicitly secular point of view. Support from our readers safeguards our essential editorial independence, emboldening us to find and publish stories that others won’t. We seek to secure an influential place for secular values in our culture, and change the cultural narrative regarding the nonreligious.

From the Support OnlySky page.

Having had too many bad experiences with atheist movements, which often provide cover for the worst kind of racism and misogynism, I have absolutely no intention of supporting anything claiming to be a movement. Also, isn’t it a bit arrogant to try to cast your own commercial venture into a movement? Hopefully, they will realize that they are heading down the wrong path with this language.

One area of worry, is the fact that OnlySky media has a science section, but as far as I can see, the ranks of contributors don’t really contain any scientists – hopefully this will change over time.

Thank you all

In my last post, I mentioned that FreethoughtBlogs was doing a Mothers’ Day fundraiser, to cover some of the debt left over from the legal costs of the Carrier lawsuit. I promised to match up to $1,000, and I am happy to say, that my limit was hit within hours. All together we raised $7,349.04, which is an amazing amount.

As an result we will be reducing the legal debt by quite a large chunk.

To thank you for the contributions, we’re doing a livesteam soon (technology allowing, obviously)

Mother’s Day fundraiser

As many of you might be aware, several blogs on FreethoughtBlogs are doing a Mother’s Day fundraiser to raise money to pay off the left-over debt from the Richard Carrier lawsuit.

I am unfortunately not really talented enough to help in many creative efforts, so I have thought of a different way of helping.

Instead of being creative, I have decided to step up and support financially, by matching any contributions that comes in during this month, up to $1,000. This means that any donation will count for twice as much (at least until we reach the $1,000 mark).

A bit of radio-silence

As people might have noticed, I have been fairly quiet since the whole COVID-19 pandemic started in Europe. It is not because I have been sick, but rather it is because I have been very, very busy working on some essential IT-systems, used while paying compensation to Danish companies in the lock-down.

Obviously, I cannot talk too much about it, but it has been challenging to work on such systems in an ever-changing world.

But I consider myself lucky – I have had something really meaningful to do, which has been beneficial to a lot of people, at a time where others have lost their job, or haven’t been able to do their daily job.

We are not quite out of the COVID-19 crisis yet, not even in Denmark, where we have started to open up again, and I am not quite out of this extra-ordinary work situation just yet, but things are quieting down, and I hope to post more often.