Sunday, June 05, 2005
Blog Speech
Ancient history and recent posts on a couple of my favourite blogs (Sir Humphreys and Chaos Theory) have prompted this spiel. And it is on my blog, so I don't have to mind my manners or make any sort of sense, and I can completely ignore all points in the relevant posts that I don't feel like addressing. Having the freedom to write complete tangential crap is wonderful ;)
My Commenting Philosophy
Most of the time I am wary of commenting on other peoples blogs. The exceptions are when I know the bloggers in real life. If I know someone in real life then the chances of me getting the completely wrong end of the stick, or saying something offensive are a lot smaller. Besides, we can always clear the air whenever we meet next.
Why am I so careful? Written forms of communication are so easy to misinterpret. Even if you know someone well, it can be all too easy to misinterpret their words. And apparently I have a tendency to be blunt and tactless. Where is body language when you need it? :) ...ahh there it is.
Coffee House
The analogy of a blog being your house is pretty good. Commenters are sort of like visitors. Except how many people leave their doors open for anyone to wander in?
I like the coffee shop analogy even better. Still. There is no coffee at Sir Humphreys and no visual of the group of Shumphs regulars and whether they are grouped around a table with their backs to everyone else being exclusive, or whether there are spare chairs and a welcoming demeanour. Without body language it is very hard to tell what sort of discussion you are interrupting.
Debateable
Sir Humphreys seems to periodically attract commenters who accuse Shumphs of not being open to debate. Shumphs then say they are open to debate, but only with certain types of people. Or that it is their blog and they don't have to debate anything.
My impression is that Shumphs is not completely open to debate and that's OK (they shouldn't have to be open to debate at all). I think Shumphs are willing to debate with certain types of people, ie people like themselves. People who are intelligent, who have read similar types of material and who debate in a similar manner. Not people like me. Which is fair enough. I know better than to poke my nose in where it is not welcome.
But, the reason why I have bothered saying all this. I think Shumphs write in a way that provokes people like me. I don't know if it is deliberate or not. So what does writing provocatively + advertising the existence of your blog in places where there are provokable opinionated people + having open comments equal? Hmmm. Well lets just say I am surprised that they always seem surprised and put out by some of the comments and commenters they get. I am not easily provoked, and I am quite frequently provoked by Shumphs.
Anyway, I think the commenters would do better to lurk a while and I think the hosts would find it less frustrating if they were able to make it clear (I have no idea how) exactly what types of comments and commenters they prefer. It is a somewhat exclusive club after all.
The End.
ps I think Zen is writing something about rights and expectations, which should be interesting...
pps Any suggestions for a better and shorter acronym for Sir Humphreys?
ppps Why does provocative have a "c" and provoked a "k"? It makes it very hard to make up words.
My Commenting Philosophy
Most of the time I am wary of commenting on other peoples blogs. The exceptions are when I know the bloggers in real life. If I know someone in real life then the chances of me getting the completely wrong end of the stick, or saying something offensive are a lot smaller. Besides, we can always clear the air whenever we meet next.
Why am I so careful? Written forms of communication are so easy to misinterpret. Even if you know someone well, it can be all too easy to misinterpret their words. And apparently I have a tendency to be blunt and tactless. Where is body language when you need it? :) ...ahh there it is.
Coffee House
The analogy of a blog being your house is pretty good. Commenters are sort of like visitors. Except how many people leave their doors open for anyone to wander in?
I like the coffee shop analogy even better. Still. There is no coffee at Sir Humphreys and no visual of the group of Shumphs regulars and whether they are grouped around a table with their backs to everyone else being exclusive, or whether there are spare chairs and a welcoming demeanour. Without body language it is very hard to tell what sort of discussion you are interrupting.
Debateable
Sir Humphreys seems to periodically attract commenters who accuse Shumphs of not being open to debate. Shumphs then say they are open to debate, but only with certain types of people. Or that it is their blog and they don't have to debate anything.
My impression is that Shumphs is not completely open to debate and that's OK (they shouldn't have to be open to debate at all). I think Shumphs are willing to debate with certain types of people, ie people like themselves. People who are intelligent, who have read similar types of material and who debate in a similar manner. Not people like me. Which is fair enough. I know better than to poke my nose in where it is not welcome.
But, the reason why I have bothered saying all this. I think Shumphs write in a way that provokes people like me. I don't know if it is deliberate or not. So what does writing provocatively + advertising the existence of your blog in places where there are provokable opinionated people + having open comments equal? Hmmm. Well lets just say I am surprised that they always seem surprised and put out by some of the comments and commenters they get. I am not easily provoked, and I am quite frequently provoked by Shumphs.
Anyway, I think the commenters would do better to lurk a while and I think the hosts would find it less frustrating if they were able to make it clear (I have no idea how) exactly what types of comments and commenters they prefer. It is a somewhat exclusive club after all.
The End.
ps I think Zen is writing something about rights and expectations, which should be interesting...
pps Any suggestions for a better and shorter acronym for Sir Humphreys?
ppps Why does provocative have a "c" and provoked a "k"? It makes it very hard to make up words.
// posted by suze @ 8:28 PM 
Comments:
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Hi Suze. Good post. Nice tying in Chaos Theory to SH.
I think a big factor in the varied responses we give out in SH is because there are 5 of us posting, and the 5 of us react in different ways to different posters. In the comments section of that post we had Adolf point out he is not interested in debating, whereas I might be.
I think my post made the various points I wanted to make about our reasons for reacting (or over reacting) the way that we do. A couple of people will need to read it twice before they get it.
AL and Ruth are obviously less tolerant of trollsome comments; Ruth to the point she has disabled comments on one of her blogs that tends to make very assertive (argumentative?) statements. That is her right, and I think there is nothing wrong with that approach.
There is a place for all kinds of blogs in the blogosphere.
My main reason for being deliberately provocative is to get people to think. I'm more interested in knowing people might think a little harder about something they may not have given a single thought to. That approach does generate comments that may seemingly be called for, but were not.
I like what AL said : "we are an opinion blog of a small-Government less corruption more freedom more capitalism persuasion"
If people have an expectation that we are aiming to be a debating forum, they soon realise we are not. There is a difference bettwen discussion board software and blogs. That's one of them.
Anyway, thanks for thinking about us. Keep it coming!
I think a big factor in the varied responses we give out in SH is because there are 5 of us posting, and the 5 of us react in different ways to different posters. In the comments section of that post we had Adolf point out he is not interested in debating, whereas I might be.
I think my post made the various points I wanted to make about our reasons for reacting (or over reacting) the way that we do. A couple of people will need to read it twice before they get it.
AL and Ruth are obviously less tolerant of trollsome comments; Ruth to the point she has disabled comments on one of her blogs that tends to make very assertive (argumentative?) statements. That is her right, and I think there is nothing wrong with that approach.
There is a place for all kinds of blogs in the blogosphere.
My main reason for being deliberately provocative is to get people to think. I'm more interested in knowing people might think a little harder about something they may not have given a single thought to. That approach does generate comments that may seemingly be called for, but were not.
I like what AL said : "we are an opinion blog of a small-Government less corruption more freedom more capitalism persuasion"
If people have an expectation that we are aiming to be a debating forum, they soon realise we are not. There is a difference bettwen discussion board software and blogs. That's one of them.
Anyway, thanks for thinking about us. Keep it coming!
AL: I was just making an observation. I am probably mistaken about many things, especially with regard to SH. Provoked into joy by an opinion blog of a small-Government less corruption more freedom more capitalism persuasion? Um. No :-) Mainly frustration and irritation.
I would reply to everything else, but it is all just theoretical, irrelevant and uninformed on my part. (BTW, relevance is subjective and I assume that many of your posts are entirely theoretical in that you have had no personal experience with whatever it is you are talking about?)
I would reply to everything else, but it is all just theoretical, irrelevant and uninformed on my part. (BTW, relevance is subjective and I assume that many of your posts are entirely theoretical in that you have had no personal experience with whatever it is you are talking about?)
Zen: Yes, the 5 different posters lends a varied tone to SH, which is nice. The debateable post was good, but it will get lost off the bottom of the page soon! It is almost a full-time job keeping up with the conversation, which is one of the reasons why I said it was a bit of an exclusive club. If I wanted to debate anything properly I'd have to read most of the posts and comments and links on SH, and quite a few other blogs. And I'd have to keep up with the news. And I'd need to have some sort of background knowledge.
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