Thoughts on Blogger Responsibility

July 14, 2003 | 4 Comments

Paul has some interesting thoughts on blogging and the like. Not sure if I agree with all of them, but hey, it’s something to think about. That whole Winer Watcher thing was just plain silly in my mind.

I’m not sure, on a personal blog site, that the person posting his thoughts has a responsibility to anyone but themselves. I mean, come on, who the hell cares about this?

Frankly I’m also not sure what I think about the so-called “A List” blogger thing anyway. I mean, I read quite a bit more “B List” folks and really when did this become a popularity contest, or in the case mentioned above, a pissing contest? At the end of the day, my girlfriend, most of my friends and family and my cat (you know, the important people) don’t read this stuff and while I love my readers and I’ve made some great connections, in the larger scheme of my life I’m not too concerned where I fit into some perceived “blogger clique”.

I tend to think most folks who “blog” or have personal sites do it for a number of good reasons, that don’t involve one-upmanship, achieving perceived popularity or personal attacks on the (ahem) “competition”, and if I’m going to be labeled as a “blogger” I’d just as soon not be lumped in with everyone else.

I’ve got a personal site where I share my thoughts and let people comment on them. Hopefully people who read my thoughts get something out of them. That’s pretty much it and while I do feel a small bit of responsibility and loyalty to my 5 or so regular readers, I don’t think it goes much farther than that and most decisions I make about my personal site are based on what I want to do and those whims alone.

Filed under: Web General

Comments

1. Paul Scrivens said:

I figured the whole title of the post would stir up some emotions. The main point I was trying to get across was that if you wish to maintain a readership then you should stick to some ideals. I call these responsibilities and no doubt no one owes anything to anyone. Maybe these are more “guidelines” that would help your readers.

You state that hopefully people get something out of the entries you post and I am in the same boat. Therefore, we are setting our own guidelines to post useful information (something you do very well by the way). The one time we do post something that doesn’t benefit our readers it would not hurt to post why you are posting this. Of course you don’t need to, but it’s nice. That was my point.

I made sure not to say “you had” to do these things or that as bloggers we are obligated to do so. I just thought it would be nice if some people maybe take these ideas under consideration. I am by no means the “authority” on blogging since I have only been doing this for about 5 weeks now, but I just posted some stuff that irritates me sometimes and the ways I would correct them.

On the whole “A-List” thing. I put some people in the A-list more for the amount of readers that visit them, then the content they post. It seems many of them are starting to fall off on the content side of things and are just posting to post. I agree that I read more non-A-list types than I do A-List, but I have come to expect great content out of these guys because that is what they used to produce. Some people take it as a popularity contest and some don’t. You can usually weed out who is doing it for what and clear them out of your blogroll or favorites.

I appreciate your honesty in saying you don’t agree with everything that I say, which is good because then I can learn more stuff from you. This kind of interaction helps me and hopefully you, so in the end we both benefit. Again thank you for even taking the time to post your thoughts online. Keep up the good work.

Posted on July 14, 2003 12:00 PM | #

2. Keith said:

Hey, right back at you man.

An hey, you make some really good points. Many of which I agree with, that’s why your posts drove me to make a post of my own, instead of just comment on your site.

I really like what you said about wanting to help people learn, and posting with that in mind, I take a similar tact with my posts – but that might not be for everyone you know?

The one thing I do wonder about is the whole “changing the meaning of posts” thing. I’d personally never do that (well aside from errors or spelling or somthing, and if I did a major change for some reason I’d note it) and I would imagine most folks wouldn’t either. I think it’s a bit shady but at the same time, who am I to tell someone not to change their mind and their own personal posts??

It’s a sticky one, I’ll admit.

Posted on July 14, 2003 12:22 PM | #

3. Paul Scrivens said:

Well glad we see eye to eye because that means I did a somewhat decent job of getting my message across. On the subject of editing posts, this is another thing that could be helped if you post a message at the top, side, bottom or wherever of your blog saying that these posts change regularly and you might want to come back after 10pm for the final version. As always our posts are our posts, but it would be nice to know why certain posts are deleted or their message changed completely.

Oh and I forgot to say congrats on the 1 year thing. 365 days and still pumping out excellent content. Awesome.

Posted on July 14, 2003 02:42 PM | #

4. Keith said:

I had another thought on changing your posts after initially posted. It’s more of a practical thought than an ethical one. If you have many readers, like I do, that get your site via XML feed, lots of news readers will show that feed as being un-read when the change has been made, which can be quite annoying, for a few reasons, to your readers. Especially if the post is fairly old.

I guess that is another reason to be wary of that practice and make sure you have a really good reason to update an old post.

A good example of when I’ve done it was when I found a Harry Potter Order of the Pheonix spoiler in a post I made about the casting of Sirius Black in the next Potter movie.

The spoiler was pretty big, ruined the ending for me, and I thought I’d save others from that fate, so I updated the post with a spoiler warning.

That’s a case, I’m sure, when my readers would deem it’s ok to change an old post.

Posted on July 15, 2003 04:41 PM | #