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[[File:Conservative Camp.jpg|right|250px]]  

[[File:Conservative Camp.jpg|right|250px]]  

'''The Conservative Camp]''' is an [[United States|American]] political website that is targeted to a "center-right" audience, mainly [[conservative]]. The site advocates a "return to the tested, proven and reliable core conservative principles and values that in the past have created economic stability, security through strength and creating an environment of entrepreneurship through individual freedom. A return to the [[Reagan]] Doctrine of lower taxes on all Americans and a firm, but fair, foreign policy."

'''[http://www.conservativecamp.com The Conservative Camp]''' is an [[United States|American]] political website that is targeted to a [[conservative]] or "center-right" audience. The site is a full, interactive information and resource portal as well as a collaborative blog. Features include news, editorials & opinion, multimedia, humor, issues, commentary, interactive community, blogs, links to several resources & documents, as well as analysis and information on current political and policy issues. In addition its role as a news [[aggregation]] site, The Conservative Camp  also features its own columnists who write opinion and observational pieces.  The site also allows visitors and guests to submit original content for publication.

The Conservative Camp is is a full, interactive information and resource portal and collaborative blog, featuring news,editorials & opinion, multimedia, humor, issues, commentary, interactive community, blogs, links to several resources & documents, as well as analysis and information on current political and policy issues. While the site is a news [[aggregator]], it also has it's own columnists who write opinion and observational pieces, as well as original content created by several guest contributing authors.

Founded in 2003, the site has had two different active periods online with the first lasting from February 2003 to January 2004. The second period of activity began when the site was re-launched in the autumn of 2009 to the present. Between both periods of activity, the site continued online as a parked page featuring advertisement links.

==History==

==History==

The Conservative Camp was originally founded in 2003 as an independently-owned and run website portal to journal the early stages of the [[Iraq War]]. An early conservative blogger (called [[weblogs]] at that time), Robert Ditmar had become interested in challenging what he saw as a mainstream traditional media dominated by left-leaning, liberal views. His interest in promoting a more conservative viewpoint, coupled with his desire to see a conservative "[[blogosphere]]" grow to challenge the [[liberal]] blogs on the Internet (which vastly outnumbered conservative sites in the early 2000's)were the catalyst that drove the launch of The Conservative Camp in February of that year.

The Conservative Camp was originally founded in 2003 as an independently-owned and run website portal to journal the early stages of the [[Iraq War]]. The original site was a largely static site that needed to be manually updated. It was also a primitive form of an early "[[collaborative blog]]" in which several internet columnists were encouraged to submit work for publication on the site.

After almost 12 months of activity, the site suspended its online presence, citing the continual maintenance required to keep the site's content fresh as being too time consuming. The site remained in a state of suspension from 2004-2009, with the "Conservative Camp" [[domain name]] active as a parked web domain that served as a portal of advertisement links.  

The original site was largely a static site that needed to be manually updated. It was also a primitive form of an early "[[collaborative blog]]" in which several internet columnists were encouraged to submit work for publication on the site. As the [[War on Terror]] was still in its early stages, with the [[Al Qaeda]] attacks of [[9/11]] still fresh in the national psyche, The Conservative Camp was favorably biased toward the [[Afghanistan]] invasion and [[Iraq War]] and the security policies of [[President]] [[George W. Bush]], yet it was critical of Bush's departure from true Reagan conservatism. The right-leaning commentary that was featured on the site led to various criticism of its claim of being objective from a conservative standpoint.  

In 2009, The Conservative Camp was re-launched in an entirely new format, with automated [[syndication]]; password-protected control panels for individual columnists to control their own submitted content, and a place for guest columnists to submit articles of their own. Now a full scale conservative [[website]] [[portal]] and collaborative blog, designed with the latest [[.php]] and [[.css]] code, the site became interactive to visitors and members alike. The site introduced several new features such as the ability to organize contributor and user blogs from the front page; action centers allowing users to take action related to emerging political issues; polling and voting options by users to questions of political relevance, a new document library from which several [[U.S.]] [[public domain]] document transcripts and images could be unloaded. The new version of the site also allows for guests to become members via an automated login form, as well as providing members with a free newsletter with the site's latest updates to their emails on a daily basis. Links to share posts via other networking sites such as [[Facebook]], [[Digg]], and [[Twitter]]; and easier searching between related content on the Internet were also added.

==Content==

==Content==

The Conservative Camp is a full-scale conservative information website portal that is modeled in the style of a [[Yahoo!]], [[MSN]] or [[AOL]] standard home page. The site contains a fully collaborative blog which aggregates the collective articles of the site's regular columnists.  

The Conservative Camp is a full-scale conservative information website portal that is modeled in the style of a [[Yahoo!]], [[MSN]] or [[AOL]] standard home page. The site contains a fully collaborative blog which aggregates the collective articles of the site's regular columnists.  

 

According to the site's "[http://conservativecamp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=152962&Itemid=63 about us]" page, visitors to The Conservative Camp ''will find articles and opinions from both contributing columnists that have a conservative point of view as well as feeds from national and international syndicated columnists. They will find links to all the major international news organizations from the United States and all around the world. And they will be able to navigate through a myriad of various current topics of interest, including such sensitive topics as [[abortion]], [[divorce]], [[religion]], [[father's rights]], mother's rights, [[environmental issues]], [[military]] and [[foreign affairs]], [[economic policy]], humor, etc.''

According to the site's "[http://conservativecamp.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=152962&Itemid=63 about us]" page, visitors to The Conservative Camp ''will find articles and opinions from both contributing columnists that have a conservative point of view as well as feeds from national and international syndicated columnists. They will find links to all the major international news organizations from the United States and all around the world. And they will be able to navigate through a myriad of various topics that affect both sides public opinion, including such sensitive topics as [[abortion]], [[divorce]], [[religion]], [[father's rights]], mother's rights, [[environmental issues]], [[military]] and [[foreign affairs]], [[economic policy]], humor, etc.''

The site is both a [[Aggregator|news aggregation]] site, in which selected [[syndicated]] [[RSS]] news [[feeds]] are pulled into the site's newspages as links to the full articles. The links typically contain an image from the story, the headline and [[teaser]] line to the article, and a link to related articles. When the links are opened, a "transparent window" opens the article in its original site where the visitor can then read the content.

The site is both a [[Aggregator|news aggregation]] site, in which selected [[syndicated]] [[RSS]] news [[feeds]] are pulled into the site's newspages as links to the full articles. The links typically contain an image from the story, the headline and [[teaser]] line to the article, and a link to related articles. When the links are opened, a "transparent window" opens the article in its original site where the visitor can then read the content.

The Conservative Camp also contains original content, created by the columnists, bloggers and guest contributing authors to the site.  

Finally the site features original content, created by the columnists, bloggers and guest contributing authors to the site.

Finally, there are several links to external resources, itemized under category headings, and links to the site's [[YouTube]] channel, where visitors can watch video play lists under several category headings.

==Growth and Influence==

==Growth and Influence==

Since it's relaunch in September 2009, The Conservative Camp has seen rapid growth of its audience from virtually a couple hundred visitors near the launch date up to 30,000 unique visitors just six months later. Despite the site's audience growth and the respect it is gaining from regular visitors, it is still a relatively small website as compared to other, more established sites.

Since it's relaunch in September 2009, The Conservative Camp has seen rapid growth of its audience.  

Almost from the outset, the site was being noticed by surfers who were looking for reliable information. When the <ref>online magazine, [http://usconservatives.about.com/u/ua/gettinginvolved/Top_Conservative_Web_Sites_UA.htm About.com], asked readers what conservative sites were their favorites, one reader said "Found this new portal, www.conservativecamp.com and it seems to have links to all sorts of really cool conservative sites."</ref> On <ref>[http://www.networkedblogs.com/topic/Opinion/ Networked Blogs], a catalog of approximately one million blogs under several diverse categories, The Conservative Camp is in the top 50 most-followed websites under the Opinion and Conservative categories. Only the top 50 sites are listed per category.</ref>

The site was mentioned in <ref>online magazine, [http://usconservatives.about.com/u/ua/gettinginvolved/Top_Conservative_Web_Sites_UA.htm About.com], </ref> On <ref>[http://www.networkedblogs.com/topic/Opinion/ Networked Blogs], a catalog of approximately one million blogs under several diverse categories, The Conservative Camp is in the top 50 most-followed websites under the Opinion and Conservative categories. Only the top 50 sites are listed per category. </ref>

===Objectivity===

===Objectivity===

The Conservative Camp advertises itself as "Conservative News,Editorials & Opinion, Multimedia,Humor, Issues, Commentary, Community, Blogs, Resources and Analysis and Information that the state-run media will not show." However, several visitors and web surfers have called out the site for being too biased as a right-leaning online magazine. Readers leaving comments to various articles or issues often mention the site's bias as clouding its value as a resource for getting reliable, objective information and news.

The Conservative Camp advertises itself as "Conservative News,Editorials & Opinion, Multimedia,Humor, Issues, Commentary, Community, Blogs, Resources and Analysis and Information that the state-run media will not show." However, several visitors and web surfers have called out the site for being too biased as a right-leaning online magazine. Readers leaving comments to various articles or issues often mention the site's bias as clouding its value as a resource for getting reliable, objective information and news.

The site has sometimes been accused of promoting a radical, right-wing or extremist agenda, however, most accusations of this sort have been made by anonymous guests, trolls or those who admit to being of an opposing political opinion.

The Conservative Camp does not pretend to be totally neutral, as it is an admittedly conservative, center-right site. However, this is mostly in its opinion columns and blogs, as well as the issues that the site chooses to highlight. In providing aggregation services where the general news and updates are delivered, the site does so in a relatively objective manner.

== External links ==

== External links ==

* [http://www.aboutus.org/ConservativeCamp.com About The Conservative Camp]

* [http://www.aboutus.org/ConservativeCamp.com About The Conservative Camp]

* [http://www.youtube.com/user/ConservativeCamp Conservative Camp Youtube Page]  

* [http://www.youtube.com/user/ConservativeCamp Conservative Camp Youtube Page]  

== References ==

== References ==