How does one start a blog?

[Arch]

The irony is, since I signed up, I've had writer's block and still haven't put anything on there!

 

[Noodley]

It really isn't up to you to pronounce on what is or isn't an appropriate thing for people to be doing....

I think you've got that one pretty much covered FM

 

[Fab Foodie]

BTW, I'm interested in why you think I need to chill - did you not see the humour in my previous post?

Sorry FM, the one I responded too seemed a bit rant-like TBH. No worries... have a Brahma anyway!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Sorry FM, the one I responded too seemed a bit rant-like TBH. No worries... have a Brahma anyway!

There was a satirical half and a serious half. BTW I have changed my beer-drinking habits here since I discovered Xingu black beer - it's a bit like Asahi Black which was always my favourite thing in Japan... yum.

 

[Brock]

I think anyone who sniffily suggests that people shouldn't blog because their material isn't good enough is completely missing what is wonderful about the internet.

 

[Aperitif]

Life is an open Brock...

 

[allen-uk]

It really isn't up to you to pronounce on what is or isn't an appropriate thing for people to be doing if it isn't harming anyone else. For hundreds of years, people have tried to stop the growth of communications. It is an effort that has been demonstrably pointless and regressive.

The problem with this argument is that it leads to 'Anything goes, man'. If NOTHING is to be the subject of criticism or evaluation, and everything goes, then all attempt at judgments are wrong, and the shite, as ever, rises to the top of the barrel and obscures the rest.

There is good, and there is bad. The trick is recognising the difference.


A.

 

[Brock]

The problem with this argument is that it leads to 'Anything goes, man'. If NOTHING is to be the subject of criticism or evaluation, and everything goes, then all attempt at judgments are wrong, and the shite, as ever, rises to the top of the barrel and obscures the rest.

There is good, and there is bad. The trick is recognising the difference.


A.

And having recognised the difference should the bad be censored?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

The problem with this argument is that it leads to 'Anything goes, man'. If NOTHING is to be the subject of criticism or evaluation, and everything goes, then all attempt at judgments are wrong, and the shite, as ever, rises to the top of the barrel and obscures the rest.

There is good, and there is bad. The trick is recognising the difference.

Brock is right. And you miss my point almost entirely.

You seem to think that evaluation is about deciding what to praise or condemn in new forms of communication based on pre-existing standards derived from previous forms of artistic production.

But when a friend sends you a letter, do you go through it applying a forensic literary standards? Do you give a 15 minute lecture on style and presentation when someone calls you on the phone? I don't think so. You enjoy the fact that your friend has sent you a letter or called you. And if you do the former, you probably don't get many letters or telephone calls from friends anymore!

The trick, as you put it, is not just to divide everything in the world, into black and white / good and bad. There is in fact far more than one trick.

The first trick is to understand what people are doing when they blog. Only some people are doing things to which you can apply artistic / literary critical standards. Most people are using this form of communication for things that are everyday, mundane, ordinary. There is no point in trying to think you can smugly (and rather illiterately) condemn these as 'shite.' In other words you have to understand communication before you can even attempt 'criticism'.

The next trick, for those blogs that do aim at something that pretends to more than communication with friends and collegues, is to develop standards appropriate to the medium you are evaluating. Not every medium is the same or has the same standards.

And so on...

And I suggest that your barrel metaphor is inappropriate. The Internet is not like a barrel (or a pipe or a highway come to that). The only thing that obscures what you want to see is a lack of effort in finding it. Nobody forces you to look at blogs you don't want to see. And there is, incidentally, more 'good' stuff accessible to more people now because of the Internet, whatever you evaluate as 'good'.

And in the meantime, whilst you blunder around in this new and unknown part of town, muttering and cursing at the terrible proles all around you, the proles are getting on communicating, learning, having fun in ways that were not open to them in previous decades or centuries, whether you think that what they are doing is artistically worthy or not.

That, my friend, is progress.

 

[Dave5N]

I think you've got that one pretty much covered FM

You are a deeply witty person.

 

[allen-uk]

And in the meantime, whilst you blunder around in this new and unknown part of town, muttering and cursing at the terrible proles all around you, the proles are getting on communicating, learning, having fun in ways that were not open to them in previous decades or centuries, whether you think that what they are doing is artistically worthy or not.

Well, I read your post, looking for common ground, and occasionally found it.

But then your final paragraph reveals what seem your true intentions, which is to have a fight.

I don't want a fight.

You like a 'good argument'? I don't, not just for the sake of expending even more hundreds of useless words. I think the irreconciliable difference between us is this: you know you are right; I think I may be wrong.


A

 

[Aperitif]

I think it is nice that I have been able to read all your points of view Allen, and I look forward to viewing more interesting stuff - good on you Arch...how's the blog coming along? I wouldn't mind seeing a write-up of the Iron Age brain you discussed last week - did they have a magnetic personality in 'them days'?

 

[Crackle]

I think it is nice that I have been able to read all your points of view Allen, and I look forward to viewing more interesting stuff - good on you Arch...how's the blog coming along? I wouldn't mind seeing a write-up of the Iron Age brain you discussed last week - did they have a magnetic personality in 'them days'?

Ore not?



I can't really compete with 'teef on clever puns but just occasionally I can tack things on

 

[Aperitif]

Nice!

Now Crackle...if you would just like to sign up for this blog I have in mind....<drone>

 

[GilesM]

Ore not?



I can't really compete with 'teef on clever puns but just occasionally I can tack things on

Ferris little point in trying to comment, I'll get my coat