While Newsvine says it is international (and strives to be such) it been my experience that it is rare for stories that do not directly involve the United States to get much discussion or votes. (A recent possible exception is Turkey but that's because we have a Newsviner there, one well deserving of an RAV.)
I think part of the problem is that many of the most prolific seeders (myself included) are Americans and so we seed stories that affect this nation, be it the war (that's where we see those exceptions I noted, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey), politics or political issues.
Granted, there are some issues that are universal such as religion but take a look at the stories at the top of the vine and count how many of them do not directly relate to the United States.
We have great writers outside of America - I'm looking at you, Raat, Ms Cyphah, Dennis, Celestina, Claus et al - and I'd love to see them have more places to discuss what they've seen and know about certain international issues.
I want to do something about how many International stories are seeded and popular. I'd like to help make Newsvine a place where if someone signs in from Madagascar or Argentina they'd easily find stories – with more than one just comment and vote – about issues involving their nation.
I think this is especially important now that MSNBC is getting more people involved and we have the opportunity to attract people from other continents.
So how do we do that? Well, I decided about two weeks ago to start a form of Newsvine tithing, vowing that at least 10 percent of all of my seeds would be on stories that did not directly affect the United States. You can look at the group to see some examples of what I mean.
Could we do more? Yes. Is this a good starting point, though? I think it is.
I challenge others here – especially the many seeders who live in Americans to do the same as I'm doing. This means seeding stories that probably won't get a lot of discussion.. at least initially.. but over time I bet we'll find much to talk about .
Is this a hard task? It might be tricky as the "world" or "foreign" section on many news web sites are often featuring stories that are international in title but in reality often focused on America.
I don't know how many of you read the paper version of the newspaper. I read the New York Times and the Washington Post daily and while those two also give more foreign coverage to, say, nations the U.S. is currently fighting with, it also includes some great stories about life in other countries.
Here are three stories I spotted today in the New York Times and seeded. Each is not about the United States but about Americans and others can find some ways to relate to the experiences:
How hard it is to get a driver's license in South Africa
and
Poverty In India Inspires Altruism
Anyway that's my idea.
Here's the new group which accepts seeds and articles.
(***** Edited to add
I didn't think this one completely through: Don't just seed international stories but also comment on international stories seeded by others. I set up this group partially to aid you in doing that. I'm going to try to comment on each article seeded there (barring things like time needed for sleep.)
Maybe a good goal would to leave comments in as many seeds as you seed yourself (if I seed five stories than I'll leave comments in five stories beyond those five.)
Thanks to Pasi (comment 18), Irma (13) and others for pointing this out.
