Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From MESH Admin

The blog at MESH differs in an important way from most multi-expert blogs. We have some advice about how to make the most of the website, and how not to miss any of the action.

At most multi-expert blogs, the contributors write posts, and any reader can submit a comment. At MESH, our contributors—we call them members—write the posts and the comments. Comments aren’t open to readers, so when a comment appears, you can be sure it has been written by an authority in the relevant field. (If we don’t have a member who knows the subject, we will try to find a guest commentator who does.)

The main advantage of this system is that with one link, you can access a post and the entire exchange or debate that follows it. A good example is this debate over the prospects of democracy in the Middle East.

But there is a disadvantage. The latest comment, no matter how substantive, doesn’t appear at the top of the blog. You have to look for it, under “Latest Comments” on the sidebar to the right.

To make sure you don’t miss a comment, you have three options:

1. Regularly consult “Latest Comments” on the sidebar.
2. Enter this combined feed in your news reader. It includes the full text of all posts and comments, as they are published.
3. Subscribe to MESH by email. You’ll get one email a day, containing the full text of all the posts and comments published over the previous 24 hours. Click here, enter your email, and confirm it.

If you don’t plan to visit the blog every day, we recommend you chose the second or third option. You’ll get all the new material at MESH, including all the comments, which you don’t want to miss.

(And if you want to comment and haven’t been invited, anyone can comment on the MESH Facebook page. Each post is mirrored there.)