The network only came into existence because I wanted all eighty-eight bloggers in the network to join, and because I received their personal approval that they wanted to join. Last May, without compensation of any sort, I personally emailed over sixty bloggers and urged them to join, arguing that it would make us all a lot more money. Each email was written and sent by hand, by myself. Each question was answered though personal emails. I spent basically the entire month of May 2005 pulling this network together. I did so because I wanted all progressive bloggers to make more money, and I believed this was a way to make it happen. I was right.

Over the summer of 2005, I struggled over the definition of what websites should be included in the network, and which should not. I worried that if I included everyone who asked to join (hundreds have asked to join), that it would dilute the network, making the network worthless. As such, I started rejecting some requests to join. Then, I started rejecting a lot of requests to join. Eventually, many of the people I rejected started arguing that I included websites no different from their own. In order to save myself time, headaches, and moral dilemmas in this volunteer position, I knew I needed a standard methodology for determining who should be in the network, and who should not be. In mid-October of 2005, I sent out that standard methodology to the membership of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network. I told everyone to comply with that methodology, or be removed in two weeks. Two weeks later, I removed five websites from the network.

I also told people at the time that any decisions I could not make on my own regarding whether a given website fit the methodology or not would be referred to a three-person panel: myself, Markos and Jerome. The majority decision would prevail. In early November of 2005, I submitted seven websites to the panel for consideration, five that I recommended be removed, and two that I recommended be kept. In the end, five were removed, and two were kept. As I said earlier, not a single decision has ever taken place without my personal approval. This was no different.

Less than a week thereafter, Jerome resigned the panel, because he had resigned regular blogging at MyDD. The lead writer of one of the sites I had recommended for removal, Annatopia, was asked to join the panel in his stead. Since that time, she has been one of the voting members on the very rare occasions when I refer a decision to the panel. In all four or five cases where I have referred a decision to the panel since that time, once again, my personal opinion has been the majority. Overall, I would estimate that 99.5% of all decisions on the network have been entirely my own, and 0.5% have been referred to the panel. And, like I said, in all of those cases, my personal inclination has won the day in voting.

Anyone with a Blogads account can create an advertising network at Blogads. The one I created--that I built with my own emails, my own criteria, my own judgment, and my own free time--has turned out to be one of the most successful. The idea that anyone else controls this network is not only inaccurate, but actually offensive to me. I spent over 300 work hours putting the network together, with no compensation, and while I was doing tons of other work. To this day, I spend more than five hours every week maintaining the network, always for free. I do receive some money from Blogads for sponsoring other bloggers to join Blogads (Blogads in general, not the LBAN), but that is not connected to the network and in one year I have made all of $750 doing that. (I once told the Hotline that these sponsorships were given in compensation for my work on the network, but it now seems to me that my sponsorship deals were not specific to my work on the network).

Many people, now led by the New Republic, want to believe that Kos controls everything in the progressive netroots, and that he enforces his will through the Liberal Blog Advertising Network. That is simply untrue. Markos doesn't control the Liberal Blog Advertising Network: I do. Not only that, I do so by following a strict set of criteria for membership. I made one exception, but only after four months of negotiation. Further, that exception has now become part of the rules. To try and argue that Markos is using the network in order to enforce his whims is absurd and offensive to a volunteer such as myself that has put this thing together single-handedly. It may be hard for the New Republic to understand that our new movement has several power centers, not just one. It may be hard for the New Republic to understand that the four million, progressive online activists are changing the country in a way the New Republic utterly disagrees with, but it is happening.