Change has come to Wesleying, the student-run blog read by thousands of students and alumni. The site, unaffiliated with the University’s administration, recently began soliciting donations to keep the blog running for the next two years, and surpassed its goal of $200 in only three days.
Xue Sun ’08 and Holly Wood ’08 founded Wesleying two years ago, passing down unofficial leadership positions to bloggers Justin LaSelva ’09 and Ashik Siddique ’10 last year. The two have since generated ideas to improve the blog and its capabilities, though they wish to keep the specifics under wraps until after winter break.
“We have the manpower, but it’s not efficient enough,” LaSelva, who posts under the name “Justin L,” said. “The current blogger software we have is pretty restrictive. It’s ridiculous that we use such a simple system. We hope to get that efficiency with the move to WordPress.”
WordPress is Internet publishing software that claims to focus on aesthetics while being user-friendly. The current software, Blogger, has had difficulties handling the burgeoning traffic on the site.
“We’ve been considering [the fundraiser] since early last year,” Siddique, who blogs under the pseudonym “Sheek,” said. “Since Wesleying started, it has expanded so much, and isn’t capable of sustaining the kind of content it originally started with. We didn’t used to have a lot of event posts, now we get maybe 10 or 15 a day, and it’s really time-consuming. That’s not what we intended.”
Readership has also grown beyond anticipation. Few people visited the site in the beginning, but now daily hits average around 3,000 individuals, only half of which are actually current students. The rest are a combination of staff, alumni and parents.
According to Wesleying, this pattern has been mirrored in donations made, of which a little more than half are from current students, while around 40 percent are from parents. The rest comes from groups labeled “Alumni” and “Middletown.” Money was obtained from donations made in cash or online via PayPal, and from bake sales. Wesleying T-shirts have also been planned and will be available for pre-order soon.
“Our mission is to talk about what’s going on on campus and to stay in touch with the student body,” Siddique said. “Tons of professors and staff check Wesleying, and we get suggestions from alumni and parents all the time. We really don’t need all that much. Our goal was to help put us over for the next two or three years. We didn’t need to sell ad space.”
Instead of accepting money from corporate sponsors, advertisements or the University itself, Wesleying members made the choice to remain dependent solely on readers.
“We’d have to register,” LaSelva said, referring to requirements for University funding. “We’ve always been independent, and if we take money from the University then we may not be able to criticize it when necessary. Besides, we’ve gotten some generous donations, specifically from alumni and parents.”
Aside from the technological improvements, the Wesleying staff will attempt to add some structure to their organization.
“Most of us didn’t even know each other until this year,” Siddique said. “We’re making an effort to meet a few times a semester, at least. We’re planning major changes to the site, but we don’t want to change the basic formula. There’s no editorial staff, but these changes are going to require organization we haven’t had before.”
Word of these changes has not gone unnoticed by students, many of whom often visit the blog to get updates on upcoming events or news.
“I think the new Wesleying is a good step to get our campus blog independent from proprietary blogging services like Blogger and also makes the news source more legitimate to people outside of Wesleyan,” said Devon Hopkins ’11. “I would totally buy a T-shirt to support the switch over.”
Anthony Smith ’11 agreed with this sentiment.
“Wordpress is definitely the more powerful blogging tool, so if Wesleyan feels the need to make that shift, then more power to them,” Smith said. “And it’s been a staple of this campus for so long that if they feel the need to raise money, I believe that we shouldn’t be stingy with giving back.”
Others care less for the technical specifics and concentrate on the accessibility of the blog.
“As long as I can read Wesleying I don’t care what format it’s in,” said Emma Lewis ’11.
Considering the donation quota has been met, the University will definitely see some sort of change in its trusted blog in the near future.
“This isn’t the end [of Wesleying],” LaSelva said. “We’re trying to build the foundation. Expect big things after winter break.”