I've avoided the incestuous nature of blogging about blogging until now, but the topic does come up occasionally. Not everyone is a believer in the utility of blogs; I was a skeptic only two years ago, and Michael Brundage went out of his way late last year to point out that his web site is not a blog. What makes a blog worth reading? I think Rory nailed it with his simple list of qualifications:
I agree with everything except āyou must have comments, periodā. Iāve had a blog for several years which doesnāt have comments. I do consider it a blog as [I think] do my subscribers and visitors and linkers. People respond to me via email or by posting on their blogs, and we link back and forth. Iām not opposed to comments but Iāve never felt I had the bandwidth to moderate comments; seems like you have to spend time weeding out spam and flames and stuff like that, and I havenāt have it.
Youāre right ā the social aspect of blogging (eg, the comments, trackbacks, etc) is a huge part of what makes blogs, well, blogs. I always wondered why so-called āblogsā with comments disabled bothered me so much ā why bother at that point?
Iām a very firm believer in the value of immediate feedback; thatās a key distinguishing feature between the web and traditional media.
While there are definitely limits of scale ā imagine the comments for a NY Times opinion piece-- I think weāre a long way from that level.* If Raymond Chen or Scoble can have comments, so can I.
Iām not opposed to comments but Iāve never felt I had the bandwidth to moderate comments
The best solution is the CAPTCHA or human verification systems; that elimates 99% of automated spam. Youāll still have to do a bit of moderation but itās a really small time commitment beyond simply reading the comments your readers leave. I learn a lot from the comments people leave, and Iām certain that Iād never see the majority of the comments if there was any barrier to entry higher than a basic HTML form.
Anyway, this is an area where technology really helps. Iād pursue a blog solution that has a CAPTCHA human verification, and/or a regular expression blacklist. The CAPTCHA is best; Iām stuck with regexps and itās workable but I do spend a few minutes every day removing and blacklisting machine entered URLs.
Hear hear! I think you nailed it. Blogs are not about simply writing a diary online. The distinguishing factor in my opinion is the building of online relationships, via comments, links, etcā¦
Though I do understand the post and itās value, I find it a bit selfish for anyone to state āonly blog ifā¦ā
My wife blogs, she just started, she loves it. If i were to now say āand make sure you do this when you blogā I think she would end up stopping.
A blog can be whatever you want it to be. Some use them as a way to keep their families and friends up to date on their life. Some use them as a way to share info, like techie blogs. Some use them as a way to say āhey, look at meā.
Again, I certainly understand the point of the post. Though putting guidleines and definitions would be a mistake in my opinion.
Jeff Atwood writes:
āIām a very firm believer in the value of immediate feedbackā
The key word here is āvalueā. You write a blog about technical subjects and evolving technologies. Obviously new ideas and alternative thoughts about best practice or technological direction adds richness to the discussion and probably does increase its āvalueā in every sense of the word.
But I write a personal blog about things that happen to me or that I observe. If I write about the radiance of my wifeās face in the early morning sunlight, the inherent honesty and worthiness of cow manure (and why that makes it a poor metaphor for dishonesty, despite the use of the term ābulls***ā), or the time I saw a whole parking lot of cars bleeding red into the snow, why is it necessary to have a conversation about it?
āyouāre merely publishing-- and publishing is something newspapers have been doing for hundreds of years.ā
I think you need to work on this idea some more. Why is publishing āmereā?
Publishing on the web is not the same as publishing in print - it has lots of additional advantages such as the ability to be searched, indexed, linked-to, and cut-and-pasted, not to mention easily accessed by vastly more people worldwide than can easily acess the output of a newspaper. And all without sacrificing any trees.
Iāve seen it asserted many times that a āblog isnāt a blog without commentsā but Iāve never seen anyone take it beyond an assertion. Great novels, great poetry, and great works of nonfiction have been published for centuries without a comments page attached at the end.
Iām still new at blogging and have been researching on successful blogging when I stumbled on these simple, inspiring tips. Thanks for sharing these. Iām encouraged to simply write, write, and write some more.
Thatās a good rant, but whatās the real point? Am I surprised that a pro-geek thinks that novice level advice about operating on the web is boring and pedantic? Not at all. This is another case where the question why might be the most helpful thing to think about.
A whole new strata of users can set up a blog and start talking about something, even if they donāt yet know about stuff like encouraging social interaction or SEO optimization.
These people sometimes chafe against the seasoned veterans - people like myself who remember hiding from the potent summer sun in our parentās basement, browsing a slow and text-only internet via Egghead Mosaic on Compuserve, unable to imagine the day when this will be considered a career. Back then, it really was voodoo, something for the 5% nation of geek radicals. Now? Things have changed. Anybody can pay five bucks a month and spend three minutes setting wordpress. So whatās the difference between myself and a newbie? I got in early, thatās all.
In the recent past I can remember a deluge of scorn from traditional film SLR users as digital SLR cameras became available to the untrained masses. Going further back, graphic artists who were familiar with using lightboxes and exacto knives directed the hate at photoshop viewers.
While interesting enough to provoke debate, your post ultimately strikes me as history repeating itself.
One of the things that makes a blog IMO is the feedback you can get from the readers when they write comments. Without the sense of community and two-way communication, a blog is essentially a journal.
My favorite blogs are one in which the reader gets a sense that they are reading an on-going conversation and feel compelled to put in their two cents by adding to the discussion.
Anyway, thanks again for the insightful post.
Frank
The Martin Luther King Jr link is (effectively) broken: āThis is somewhat embarrassing, isnāt it? It seems we canāt find what youāre looking for.ā
