Former Kings are friends who actually enjoy complexity and quality of argument. We are all highly academically qualified across numerous disciplines but more importantly, value and cherish knowledge and think sharing informed views should never be a bad thing.
We want to put across things, be that opinions, subjects or level of detail, that we think you do not see on the traditional news or opinion sites. We also want to be a place for discussion. Not a place for short form, shouty comments but a place where people can honestly and openly talk through subjects and opinions. We want to grow this community and see where it goes.
The format for website is currently written articles of about 1000 words in length. We are talking about and will evolve what and how we do things as we receive feedback and see what works best. This may be longer form written articles, to allow more in-depth discussion and greater detail, or series of articles on subjects, or potentially even shorter pieces to allow for more dynamic response to issues. We are also currently exploring the technicalities of doing subjects via podcast and video. We hope we can get these working soon. We aim to publish at least one article a week, although sometimes we will be able to release more than this.
Content is not a total free for all and we will curate and in particular ensure evidence, facts etc are, although not footnoted in the actual articles, standards we adhere to. We want conversation and argument but not wild or unthoughtful views. We genuinely trust each other’s views and knowledge but equally we do read and give feedback before publishing. Our main goal for everything we publish is to be interesting.
No editorial bias, we never tell each other what to write about or what they should say. If we disagree internally, we will publish a response to the original.
Former Kings will always be free for people to read and access content.
We do not get paid by anyone for anything we write or say. We never will (well I guess theoretically we might (anything is possible), but certainly we would tell you what and if we ever did – please send us a gift of a Ferrari and we will be happy to review it and say its nice). We value our independence and integrity very highly.
We are not a news site – we enjoy current affairs, politics as much as the next person but we also enjoy and see the value in discussing a myriad of things. The world will always need fun as much as seriousness.
We all have other jobs and do this for the pleasure of it. We may not change the world, nor do we really wish to, but if we encourage anyone to question, learn, try new things, explore, then we will be happy. Supporting us just will allow us to do more of what we are doing and hopefully try new things.