Onnik, new eurasia was seeking to promote blogging from within Armenia, not least by having you on the team. I would still like you on the team, because you would be indispensable in helping that to happen. However, instead of debating this with us you have again commented on Nathan’s site, which has no links with new eurasia. I have posted a request for you to remove my e-mail from your spamming list to this very end, but it has not passed the moderation process. Can you please consider this issue before the debate continues.

And, although I agree with your assessment of the Armenian blogosphere in the main, attacking Armenian bloggers on Registan.net was inappropiate to say the least. Even though some of these people have no love for my work, they at least represent the real conversation going on among Armenian bloggers in the Diaspora.

As for promoting blogging from within Armenia, New Eurasia is not seeking to do that and moreover, by dictating subjects to a few students outside of the country isn’t going to help when attention could be turned to supporting bloggers inside Armenia.

In my opinion, you can not encourage young people to blog. However, there are many young activists and students INSIDE Armenia who are currently using discussion boards and who could be encouraged to put their thoughts, ideas and experiences on a blog.

Basically, what we’re talking about is the need to create a genuine blogosphere from inside Armenia as opposed to doing something outside ONLY because Katy has (limited) contacts outside the Republic.

All I really want to get across is that I don’t care who gets young people blogging in Armenia. I just hope that whoever puts in effort succeeds, and I do plan to link to that stuff at GVO. I’m not trying to dictate to anyone what they can or can’t do in the way I choose the links. I’m just making a good faith effort to do my job and execute GVO’s mission.

That no one attacking me has taken the time to point out anything I’ve done wrong makes this all the more absurd.

Regardless, this is why I think we need to get young bloggers posting from within Armenia now.

Like I said though, there are certain types of posts that are a better fit than others for GVO. No offense to the bloggers who write these kinds of posts, but “I went to a really cool store today!” posts, for example, are not what we do. Reprints of stories from RFE/RL or Hetq Online aren’t going to get linked. So, some people will get more links than others.

No one who might have a vested interest in promoting some blogs over others should be given the responsibility to effectively define that section of Global Voices that is effectively a portal to the Armenian blogosphere.

There is no confidence among most of us blogging on Armenian issues that this is the case and there now needs to be whether you agree with us. Ultimately, is Global Voices meant to be defining the Armenian blogosphere or monitoring the conversations being held within?

As for GVO, my personal opinion is that someone totally unconnected to Armenian blogging should be the one to do so, and in the interest of impartiality that includes me.

It would probably be better that given the exchanges that have happened in the past few months that someone totally unconnected to any Armenian-related blog be responsible for summarizing and linking to Armenian blogs.

That means, you, me, Ben, Katy and anyone who is directly in a personal or professional relationship with us or has their own blog touching upon Armenian issues.

This is the ONLY way that trust is going to be built up again, and my favored approach if a genuine Armenian blogosphere is going to be monitored and highlighted.