We interrupt this series of long posts to point out that my "about" page (Whimsley: Not a Blogger) is the only place on the entire Internet where you can read the word "agblosticism", meaning "scepticism about blogging".
While blogging is not exactly like real life, it is a bit closer to
it than the book thing: if you aim to gain an audience you have to pick
up on what other bloggers are writing about and respond within hours.
So really, blogging just isn’t my thing. The arguments go nowhere, no
one changes their mind, and the signal/noise ratio is very low. The
blogging world is a world built for quick-typing extroverts who don’t
go in too much for second thoughts.And there is more to my agblosticism …
If you’re a blogger, how about using it on your own site? It’s not trademarked or anything.
Tom says:
“I’ve learned that I am not a natural blogger”
I’d beg to disagree. Tho you’re not in the mold of the obsessive bloggers… it may well turn out that the occasional, the more reflective bloggers like yourself are the most wonderful and valuable of the group…
of course McDonald’s sells more burgers and …
Tom says:
“The arguments go nowhere, no one changes their mind, and the signal/noise ratio is very low.”
Well, I for one find your writing ALWAYS goes somewhere… even when it is about toilets… or about why you often dislike my very favorite social phenomena, the SamWaltonEffect. If you google my name you might find a hundred posts that are semi-political but only one or two where I offer the use of our cabin.
Among those hundred are a great many where someone changed my mind, or I theirs… but you do have work at the hearing part so the shouting part doesn’t predominate. I don’t always succeed at this, do I?
all the best,
Dave
Thanks for the encouragement Dave.
Is it really true that to gain an audience you have to respond quickly to what other bloggers are writing? The blog I read most is Language Log (which I think has a wide readership). I also like Joel Spolsky’s Joel on Software – I think he has a big readership. There are some others that I like that also don’t seem to be re-echoing the echo chamber. So if something is being discussed on other blogs I don’t bother to mention it because I assume people have come across it elsewhere; I try to talk about something people can’t come across anywhere else. (Your blog is the best counter-example I’ve seen to the very silly argument that’s being going on about whether newspaper reviews offer better value than blogs.)
correction.
for ‘being going on’ read ‘been going on’