I am here to report to you that the the State of the Sparta Report is strong!

[Insert wild applause here.]

This seemed like a good time to restate the mission of the site as well as where we’re going in 2019.

The Mission of the Sparta Report

To provide an outlet for a select group of conservative writers to publish their thoughts. We are pro-Trump, Republican, and totally frustrated by the GOP-e.

The Sparta Report exists because the writers enjoy writing and the reason we enjoy writing is to clarify our own political opinions and to be both validated and challenged by like-minded people who choose to comment.

The mission of the Sparta Report is not to create a revenue stream, grow a subscriber base, grow readership, grow the number of comments or in fact do anything that resembles developing a business. On the other hand, if people like what the site provides, some of these things will naturally occur.

Change of Ownership

In late 2018, ownership of the site changed to my company Resonance Promotions. This was for two primary reasons:

1. The “Big Dogs” (NWC, Doomberg, and Fossten) had their own personal reasons for needing to back away from the day to day operation of the site.
2. The financial accounting was a large expense and none of the “Big Dogs” were really equipped to handle the task.

It turned out that I do have time and an interest in maintaining the site and the accounting comes “for free” as part of the operation of  my company.

The Open Thread

The Open Thread contributes very little to the mission of the Sparta Report. It exists because people like it and because it sometimes gives the writers ideas about things to write about.

An analysis in January indicated there is low correlation between the number of article views and the number of people on the Open Thread.

A number of people who were on our Open Threads have gone to rightstrategy.org. I’m glad there is a place that better meets their needs for a continuous chat room.

Readership

Typical article readership is in the range of 200-500 views.

We’ve been fortunate that Whatfinger frequently links to us. When this occurs, articles receive roughly 1,000-2,000 views.

Addition of Contributing Writers

I added Rob Morse and Sam Jacobs (Ammo.com) as contributors to the site. This helped fill in for the anticipated reduction in articles from the “Big Dogs.”

Moderators Back Channel Communication

The moderators have a chat room where we have deep intellectual and philosophical discussions. If any of you were curious, now you know. NWC, Doomberg, and Fossten are just as active today as they were prior to my acquisition of the site. I mention this just to let you know discussions about the overall direction of the site are still discussed by the same group of people.

Plans for 2019

1. As long as the Open Thread remains self moderating, it will remain as is.
2. I’d like to find another one of two people to augment the content we provide. In particular, I’d like to add someone who is college age.
3. We’ll probably have a fundraiser that’s more akin to how public television does it with premiums provided for different levels of donation. This would hopefully be more fun and allow people who wish to support the site to do so without a long term commitment.
4. NWC has been doing all the site maintenance and updates. I’ll need to find a replacement for him in this role.

My personal goal is getting back to writing more humorous articles as well as finishing the book I started in 2018.