Blogging

Blogger Cancels Comments

Stephen Pollard, a UK based political journalist and quite regular blogger, has sadly been forced to remove the comments facility on his blog:

I’m afraid I have had to disable all comments from now on. I do not have the time to monitor the site for the abusive, defamatory, racist and anti-Semitic remarks which some people seem to think are fine to write in the comments section. Even though the overwhelming majority are sensible, as always it is the minority who cause sufficient trouble to end up penalising everyone.

I’m sorry to have had to scrap comments. I might reconsider, but don’t hold your breath. Life is too short to spend hours scrutinising the rantings of morons.

I’m not certain what facilities he has on his blog system for moderating comments, but it seems a shame that this has had to happen. Perhaps if someone were to volunteer to do the moderation on Mr Pollard’s behalf he might reconsider?

Have attempted to trackback to his posting, but it isn’t clear whether that part of his site is disabled too…

What’s in a Name?

Robert Scoble posts over on The Red Couch blog about the name of the blog just started by the publisher of his and Shel Israel’s book.

…our publisher, Joe Wikert has started a blog. Shel linked to it the other night. And he made a common first mistake: he didn’t think through his title very well.

Quick. Tell us what “The Average Joe” means to you?

It doesn’t mean anything to us. It’s like wheat flour. No shape. No meaning. If this were just a personal blog it’d be OK (although I argue that even a personal blog is better if you get more specific).

Now, think about someone searching Google. Why will someone want to read Joe’s blog? Just cause Scoble said to? I don’t think so.

Here’s a better approach: own a niche.

Bad: my blog about something made with flour
Good: Scoble’s blog about artisian bread made in Santa Cruz.

This has immediately made me think further on the titling of this blog. Now, The Closed Circle is about as nebulous a title as you can get. What does it mean? In truth, nothing. I needed a title quick and that’s what I chose. I guess it could be said that it has the advantage of sounding a little mysterious maybe, but as Scoble points out, it hardly encourages people to read my posts – they have no idea of the content.

It becomes even more silly the more I think about it, for if there is one thing that a blog isn’t, it’s a closed circle. There’s nothing closed here, the aim is to be as open as possible. So it’s a really crap title. But hell, that’s the one I have got, and I am sticking to it. I just need to think of a really good reason why this is a good idea…

But the subtitle is something else. Dave Briggs’ Online Diary. That really is crap. I really need to get some ideas of what this blog is about. OK, so it’s pretty varied stuff a lot of the time, but there are two main threads here: blogging and books. So, a subtitle is needed that incorporate’s these things. I need to give it some though – will update later, and of course any suggestions are welcome.

Don’t Blog!

Great link from Ken Leebow’s Blogging About Incredible Blogs, er, blog.

It’s called Don’t Blog, and is very amusing.

Like this:

Bloggers abandon their families as they compulsively blog. One result: “blog widows.” Common activities:

  • Apologizing to friends for all the “blog talk.”
  • Arguing for quality time for the relationship, for the kids.
  • Learning the blogging lingo just to be able to talk to their other.
  • Accompanying their blogger to real world blog meetups, just for the support of other blog widows.
  • Worst: trying out blogging.
  • Who is going to start Bloganon for the families of hard core blog addicts?

Blogging as a Career?

Jason Kottke has given up his job and is going to live off the proceeds of his blog.

I’ve been self-publishing on the web for almost 10 years now, first with a little site on my school’s web server, then on various ISP accounts, then 0sil8, and finally kottke.org for the last 7 years (almost). Looking back on it all, this little hobby of mine has been the most rewarding, pleasurable, maddening, challenging thing in my life. I’ve met so many nice, good people, formed valued relationships with some of them, traveled to distant lands (and New Jersey), procured jobs & other business opportunities, discovered new interests, music, movies & books, and lots of other stuff, all for putting a little bit of me out there for people to see.

And yet, I almost quit last spring. The site was getting out of hand and wasn’t fun anymore. It was taking me away from my professional responsibilities, my social life, and my relationship with my girlfriend. There was no room in my life for it anymore. As you can imagine, thinking of quitting what had been the best thing in my life bummed me right the hell out.

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I had a bit of an epiphany. The real problem was the tension between my web design career and my self-publishing efforts; that friction was unbalancing everything else. One of them had to go, and so I decided to switch careers and pursue the editing/writing of this site as a full-time job.

I am seriously jealous that he can even consider this. I seem to spend a greater and greater amount of time on my blog, and I have been running for months, let alone years. I dread to think how many blogs I will have to read after ayear of this, and even if I just comment on a few and link blog the rest, it’ll still take up a large chunk of my time, which as an ‘amateur’ – by which I mean not only that I don’t blog for a living but that I am not in a job where blogging is exactly part of my job description… – I don’t have a great deal of.

Here’s some other views on this:

More to come as I see them.

Melanie Phillips on IDS the Bloggers’ Friend

Melanie Phillips has picked up on Iain Duncan Smith’s article in The Guardian.

Phillips, I shoud point out, is someone I read for the same reason people pick scabs. It irritating, slightly painful, but nevertheless weirdly addictive.

Anyway, her point is that:

blogging democratises the national conversation by providing an alternative discourse to the world view of the left, which the mainstream media (MSM) regards as the neutral middle ground. This warped perception means not only that it presents news through a distorting prism, but that by definition it cannot acknowledge that it is distorted, thus creating a closed thought process. This phenomenon is what leaves the BBC, in particular, unable to fulfil its public service obligation to objectivity and fairness.

Zzzzz. Typical wittering about media bias. The British media has always been biaised towards the party in government. There weren’t many complainst from the Tories during the 80s about not getting enough screen time.

Throughout Phillips seems to take delight in using words like ‘blogosphere’ but clearly doesn’t understand what she is talking about. She doesn’t even allow trackbacks on her posts, let alone comments. Where’s the relationship building here? To me, this is hectoring to a dumb audience who can’t respond.

For political blogs to work, they have to encourage participation. This means making facilities like trackbacks and comments available and taking the time to monitor and respond to them, and to sort out problems when they occur. Otherwise, how does the ‘blog’ differ from any other website?

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