I am still trying to sort this one out in my mind. I have even discussed it with Squire Locke, who often has a remarkable way of focusing what I am trying to sort out. In the early 90’s I ran a dial-up BBS - and sadly the Internet killed the BBS star. BB S’s were dial-in communities and a huge component on the BB S’s was a message area. Fido Net was the the key group of messages, having over 40,000 topic areas of discussion. Each BBS (and at one point there were 140,000+ around the world) would ‘carry’ the topic areas of interest in his or her BBS. Each BBS on PEI (there were less than 10) would pack up their message and call my BBS and deposit them at my system, and I would pack all of mine, plus theirs and send along to my hub in Moncton, who would do the same and pass along to his hub. At the same time, I would download his message bases and pass along to my nodes on PEI. ....and so on, and messages (conversations) would be passed around the world. I could be having a conversation in a topic area with someone who was on the opposite side of the earth, and the day or two delay created some interest and anticipation.
Blogs have created an instant exchange, with notifiers letting us know within mere seconds that the conversation continues. Yet we still have a small community in each blog. So what makes a community? What is the commonality that might make a blog community? It might be an aggregator of commonality (see 84 fitzroy) which certainly aggregates blogs that have have some common interest. My view of aggregators, is that they tend to remove the reader for the personality of the blog. I use aggregators , but only use them as notifiers which then triggers a visit to the actual site.
Squire Locke has suggested that perhaps there is nothing more to it than reading each other’s blogs. I am still struggling.
28 Nov 2004 at 12:41 pm | #
It’s quite amazing that we can develop little communities all around the world without physical contact. Instantly, like you say HB, knowing when someone in your fold has just had a thought and wants to share it. Very cool indeed.
It’s also exciting to think of how that may be affecting the way we communicate with one another in terms of resolutions and commonalities as opposed to finding differences and arguing about them all the time.
What makes the circle complete for me, is when I meet someone in my community face to face, in the flesh. Just look around in blogland at all the ‘blogger meet-ups’. There are whole websites dedicated to getting bloggers together, physically.
It would have taken me much longer to seek out and reach out to those I have met because of blogging, and probably, in some cases, I would have never met some of them. And where would I be now without the good blogging folks on PEI…
28 Nov 2004 at 01:58 pm | #
I am with you in thinking the aggregator creates a level of distance and therefore lessens community. Conversely, a collective writing effort like the Ecotone wiki [see: http://www.magpienest.org/scgi-bin/wiki.pl?HomePage ] creates a unified voice through joint writing.
A blog is something different through the imperial power of the administrator. Only one voice makes the statement and then there is responsive remarks - kind of like the recitiation of the psalms. I don’t know if this creates “community” as opposed to just discussion. I think there needs to be something between aggregator and blog, a dynamic structure that allows blogs to be read and responded to topically. Alerts when one of, say, the 30 participating blogs posts on a topic. Perhaps a central response system, threaded by topic.
I think there also needs a committment to collective advancement of a topic before I am comfortable with “community”. One of the oddest things about blogging is it all results in nothing. Yappetry of a high order. Yet if it were able to create project discussion, it could actual advance an idea as opposed to the simple framing of the constituent opinions.
28 Nov 2004 at 02:08 pm | #
Only one voice makes the statement and then there is responsive remarks -
Very good point. As you recall, I used to encourage guest contributions here, but found the tone and flavour was sometimes not to my taste. Perhaps I should reconsider.
One of the oddest things about blogging is it all results in nothing. Yappetry of a high order.
Oh, I disagree quite strongly on that. Of course is depends on what you define as something or nothing. If I learn from other opinions or thoughts, if others learn from other opinions or thoughts, then I consider that something.
If Jodi comes here and sees pictures of Dax that make her smile, that is something. If we enjoy a debate, and sometimes learn from the debate, then I consider that something.
Don’t for a minute think that policy makers and opinion formers do not read these blogs. They most certainly do and I find it intriguing that issues that are widely discussed on blogs will auto magically turn up in a more public forum.
As to the community, I still am pondering. Cyn makes some good points, but I have no particular desire to meet some of the owners of the blogs I read. Quite the contrary, many I would avoid the opportunity to meet. Others, like Cyn, I seek out the opportunity to meet. It has much to do (for me) with the blog personality that is demonstrated publically.
28 Nov 2004 at 02:34 pm | #
I suppose by nothing I really mean the next level of discourse. We all do go away with a though we had not considered before but, my real point, we do nothing with that structurally to advance the conversation. We may be doing it in a glacial sense by being more thoughtful people in a general way over time, but there is no expectation of a collective determination, a change of concept that is noted and built upon as a structure of thinking within the four corners of the blog.
28 Nov 2004 at 02:52 pm | #
People need to realize that “collective advancement of a topic” is subjective. Organizing things, and wrapping them up in perfect packages with little bows won’t work in blogging. That is what makes it appealing...at least to me. It is one of the few places where we don’t need to be perfect, probably due to a somewhat limited, but present, anonymity. We are all different, see different when looking at an abstract painting, or react differently to external stimuli. When things don’t advance the way we like, it does not mean it is not advancement. If Blogging or the Internet becomes a Kingdom, it will lose its appeal, and soon disappear. Rules and structure have not improved the quality of driving on our highways...will it improve blogging?
28 Nov 2004 at 02:55 pm | #
Ah, I may understand. Perhaps your background and training, Al, anticipates or requires a conclusion or consensus. My thinking is just the opposite, in that I embrace other opinions and thoughts. I have no need or desire to convince others of my way of thinking - and sometimes, I drive people nuts with my refusal to debate beyond a certain point.
Most topics that I have strong opinions on, get modified and tempered by other opinions. The far ranging and, at times, unfocused discussion on transfats is a very good example. While I applaud Easter’s position of choice (and still do), I had no idea of the dangers and evils of transfats. I came away from the discussion better informed, much more likely to avoid food containing transfats, but still in the middle of pro and con debate about government in our lives.
I see discussion on blogs as part of a process. I suspect the apparent easing of Slick Chester’s position on the Chances Best Start program as being a good example. There was a lot of discussion on the local blogs - all negative to the governments position. There was a lot of opposition from other directions. The outcome appears (at this time) to be up in the air, but if there is a change of position, blogs will have played a small part.
28 Nov 2004 at 03:18 pm | #
I don’t think you have it yet. I am not talking about consensus building or argument winning but collective thinking - use of debate only as a means to the larger development of a complex idea. It is a goal and requires dicipline but also requires advancement and structure. It may just be a tracking of the elements of an argument and consensus that each item is or is not a valid one. By doing this a private policy piece can be jointly created on a specific topic, such as the utility at this time as an export commodity for PEI. I have a small project on the elements of an argument for a center-left platform which I am going to pick away at slowly. It would be like doing that jointly.
This is not to replace less formal discussion but after a certain point only less formal discussion become unsatisfactory, without concrete achievement. I think a group of thinkers using blogs to construct a poistion on something is a parallel but unexpoited opportunity which can be achieved through a blog.
We can still have yappetry.
28 Nov 2004 at 03:21 pm | #
No doubt, this is all about control. Nobody wants to feel like “a schoolboy sneaking out the back of a church with squeeky shoes” when interacting with others on a blog. It does not go on for long. Eventually, blogs end up with the type of contributors and comments the author wants. If you live in a community where everyone shares bathroom facilities, but one neighbour does not, word travels fast. And people stop walking into that neighbours “loo” tout suite. It is a big neighbourhood. And the open “loos” usually have great kitchen parties! That is my kinda neighbourhood, but it is not for everyone.
28 Nov 2004 at 03:32 pm | #
I think all the points made are quite valid. To follow back to Al’s most recent comment I think that is a more topic specific approach. (and it would be a very useful tool). This blog, along with those that I enjoy the most, are those that tend to talk about what interests the owner, what is on their mind today, etc. Today I dropped into Cyn’s, Rob’s, Al’s, Cool Girl’s and Nils. Less frequently I will visit Ruk, Chris Curtis, Dean Allen and Mike Frasse. I suppose that might be my community. My community also includes other sites that are of a specific interest to me and are more technical in nature.
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that any blog community is a community of people who are interested in what others have to say on their sites. I am leaning towards saying Squire Locke is right.
28 Nov 2004 at 03:35 pm | #
...noticed I am now off the “cut line” on the frequent contributor list. Blame it on the Red wine. (I never felt the need on this blog for 2 on-topics to qualify me for this one off-topic sidebar.)
28 Nov 2004 at 03:50 pm | #
Quite right about the other tool - something between a wiki and a blog.
28 Nov 2004 at 03:58 pm | #
I’m somewhere in the middle on the meeting part, and your last sentence is a tip-off to that: “ ...the blog personality that is demonstrated publicly.”
I never much got into BBs when I first came online, but I did have a thirst to meet and exchange ideas with others who, like me, used the computer and modem as a replacement for actually going and sitting on the corner of a colleague’s desk and wasting their time in person. I started with IRC, and found myself plunged into a world with its own odd language and a full complement of dopes, HNGs (horny net geeks), losers, and - now and again - some truly nice people.
Problem was, finding those people was a function of sorting through their “on-line personas” to uncover who was honest and genuine and who was creating a fantasy person to show to the online world. In online chatting - as in blogging - what you see is often not anything like what you get. In the wake of 9/11, the internet was crawling (literally) with New York Firefighters and New York Policemen - for a short time replacing “doctor” “astronaut” and “TV producer” as the Bullsh*t Occupation of the Day.
I’ve met some people from the online community who made my skin crawl - but by and large, most of the people I’ve met have been everything I expected when I arranged to meet them. And I’ve met at least three or four people who I would have never otherwise have met and who have become not just pals but part of that tiny circle of very close friends who I know I will have for life.
I still approach live meetings with acquaintances who have inhabited only this monitor in front of me with a certain trepidation - worried that partway through the evening I’ll be going “Oh, God, why did I do this - they sounded so interesting before, and now I won’t be able to see them online without cringing!” That’s rare .. but my oh my when it happens, it makes for a loooong evening.
28 Nov 2004 at 04:41 pm | #
With the notable exception of Cyn (and others that I have knew pre-blog) , I have never met many of the people who drop by this little corner of the ether. I have met a few of the other blog owners - but not through any of the organized bloggie things. There are a few visitors I would look forward to meeting in person - occasional visitor Jodi for instance - but alas that is unlikely.
I have noticed that when I do get to meet blog owners, they often are accurately reflected in their writing. Cyn, Al, Dan James, Steve Gerrity, Kevin J. O’Brien are people I have met, and I have not been surprised by the personality I met.
Generally I find everyone interesting, each having a unique perspective on life and each having traits that I try to learn from. The exception to that is loud mouth overbearing louts - who generally make my teeth hurt.
28 Nov 2004 at 04:55 pm | #
“Generally I find everyone interesting, each having a unique perspective on life and each having traits that I try to learn from. The exception to that is loud mouth overbearing louts - who generally make my teeth hurt.”
Ah, come on HB...quit picking on Al.
28 Nov 2004 at 05:19 pm | #
It is an interesting area and I suspect blogs are enabling several emergent phenomena. In PEI, with our media who are so timorous, blogs have doubtless fulfilled a valuable function in providing public discussion of topics which would never be aired so frankly in the traditional media. Hot blog topics where visible consensus emerges do seem to be being picked up both in the mainstream media and in the trimming of sails by the parties. It is interesting to reflect, for example, that the transfat thread here alone had something approaching 30% of all the comments that have been made on the Smart Charlottetown site since inception. Which segues - perhaps not so neatly - to the fact that public awareness of the scale of the $9m fiasco that is the C’town Smart Community was driven almost totally by the blogs.
I think of the role of pamphlets from the 15th to 18th century: they had an amazing impact on the political and social processes despite their limited circulations. As popularity coalesces around certain blogs, I can imagine their impact being similar. Think of it as self-syndication with interaction and some of the better blogsters being the equivalent of Walter Winchell 50 years ago, with the crucial difference that others can play almost as equals (depending on what godlike powers the administrator permits to be shared. The next step, as traffic builds on influential sites - as at SlashDot - will to be to have systems whereby readers can rate postings and select filters to bock viewing of the ranters and single issue fanatics.
28 Nov 2004 at 05:28 pm | #
Well, here’s my opinion for what it’s worth:
I have spent FAAAAARRR too much time thinking abut trans-fats this week. Far too much time. I have actually, (EGAD) researched trans-fats! When I should have been cleaning my house. And if I wasn’t so bloody stubborn, I would admit that I have changed my mind on trans fats! But thank god I’m stubborn.
None of this would have happened without blogging.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about other things too: creativity, mine and other people’s. How great it is that people still try to be creative, in whatever way suits them.
I have felt jealous. Jealous because there are really good writers out there. Writers who might be, dare I say it, as good as ME!
How I’m GLAD I can make new friends without having to actually meet them. A blog to me is a meeting of minds. There’s no rule that says just because you enjoy someone else’s thoughts (or disdain someone else’s thoughts, as in the case of trans-fats), you actually have to spend time in person with them.
It is what it is. And its great.
28 Nov 2004 at 05:51 pm | #
Oh dear, two of us who have looked into transfats - cripes, there goes Al tipping over backward in his chair.
28 Nov 2004 at 06:08 pm | #
Do I sense a “cast system” of bloggers soon to raise it’s ugly head? Will it soon be only for the lawyers and PHD’s among us? Actually some of the biggest asses I have known have either been lawyers or people with degrees. Letters after their names does not make their opinions any more valuable than someone with a grade school education.Maybe they can word it more eloquently that a less educated person, but it does not mean they are always right. If you start restricting access to bloggers comments and allowing topics that are only “high brow” enough for degreed people to comment on, then that would be a pity. Take a look at the recent blog topics on this site and you will readily see that the topics that generate the most discussion are the ones that affect the day to day life of people.
28 Nov 2004 at 06:26 pm | #
No, Jean, not at all. The nice thing is that visitors decide whether they want to read a blog - it doesn’t matter, AFAICS, whether the author has a PhD or is a lawyer - a good blog is a good blog, and a bad one a bad one - users decide. The kind of tool I am describing allows visitors to rate contributions. Say they are ranked 1 to 5, from really good to meaningless drivel, for the sake of argument. As a visitor you can select a filter from 1 to 5 to see just the mails that your peers have judged as being at or above whatever level you have selected (say you went for 3 - stuff judged as 4 or 5 would not be visible). Of course you can also select to see everything and that rapidly helps you find the level of posts you would like to read. What it does is help you on a busy site by filtering out what your peers collectively have found worthwhile - but it is totally voluntary. On high volume sites it is a real blessing. Just imagine of every topic at HB had a thousand responses and 30 were from Leo Broderick - a tool to filter for the 20, 50, 100 or whatever best (as judged by your fellow visitors) would be a blessing.
28 Nov 2004 at 07:22 pm | #
Late into this one as usual - Just to let you know that I think now since Ken Dryden’s visit that Best Start will get “saved”. I think that blogging on PEI has had a huge impact in that bloggers have helped move the media, the Guardian and CBC firmly onto a position. Thank you all for that. You have also helped Ann and I as a source of courage. Seeing your support has helped us get through some very depressing times.
I also find the yakking to be such fun as well. Prof Rob now speaks - Robin Dunbar’s theory is that humans replaced physical grooming with gossip. Its role? Gossip binds groups together. I certainly enjoy bantering with all you guys and particularly enjoy the Wayne/Al/HB/Jean fights
28 Nov 2004 at 08:04 pm | #
So Locke...this type of filtering lets someone else do your thinking for you. What is wrong with deciding for yourself what you want to read? I usually scan through the comments and if there is some that I don’t usually like their style of writing or sometimes in Al’s case...he gets to deep in legalese, then I just move on to the next one.
Letting others rate the comments, reminds me of my friend who won’t go to a movie unless he reads in the paper how it has been critiqued. My experience has been if the critics pan it, then we are bound to love it.
28 Nov 2004 at 08:55 pm | #
I think the point that Locke is trying to make is that the reader can decide on who or what to filter. I could add that ability here, if I was inclined. (I am not.)This is affectionately known as a twit filter when deciding to filter an author out of what you can see.
The whole concept of scoring by peers is an interesting angle, and I guess it might make sense in a very very busy thread. Like Jean, I would prefer to wade through the comments and make my own decision.
There is one blog, that I have totally twit filtered so I guess I have my own filtering process.
28 Nov 2004 at 09:02 pm | #
I think the whole idea is we all decide for ourselves who we like, and who wo don’t like, and who we want to read, and who we don’t want to read.
It ain’t rocket science!
But we’re bloggers. And we’re Islander’s. And we’re cool.
That’s the point.
28 Nov 2004 at 09:46 pm | #
The issue is noise, Jean. It’s all quite manageable here at the moment, but just a handful of us churned out over a hundred posts on one thread in the past couple of days. Imagine if there were 50 or even a hundred regular posters - still tiny numbers in terms of just PEI alone. The noise level would become very high very quickly. I could still choose whether to filter or not, or at what level to filter, but if I chose to, my blog neighbours would have helped me cut the noise.
Exactly the same thing happens all the time offline, but we tend to manage it with non-verbal signals. The group ignores the bore until he goes away, or it breaks up to reform without him a few feet away, or everyone stares into space when he speaks. These are standard group dynamics and part of the bottom-up self-organising principles being built into sites with high traffic and lots of interactivity - such as Amazon, SlashDot and eBay.
28 Nov 2004 at 09:47 pm | #
Ungraciously snipping a bit of Nils’s comment from GenX:
<div class="box">What *I* want is a community that is loose and diverse, but which has at least a tenuous connecting thread - enough to say we’re friends, but hey, we don’t always agree. In fact, agreement is the deathknell of spirited debate. Give me people who see things differently, argue (with civility) and can then slap down a beer or two together ... now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about.</div>
Perfect. Meet ya at the bootlegger Nils!
28 Nov 2004 at 10:47 pm | #
That is why I like golf better, because the game I play, and the players I play with, know nothing about rolling eyes, staring into space or ignoring people. Most people like that don’t play golf because it is too tough a game for them. As a result, you usually only meet nice people on a golf course.
28 Nov 2004 at 10:56 pm | #
Locke, dahling...when we get 50 or 100 regular bloggers on this site, then I might be inclined to agree with your reasoning. But while there is just 6-8 of us at the moment, I’m with Nils. Well, at least until he puts my name on the bathroom wall again!
28 Nov 2004 at 10:58 pm | #
Oh, Wayne...that is so not nice. Locke really is a great guy. He can’t help it if he is British.
29 Nov 2004 at 04:18 pm | #
It is nice finding oneself (or, for Jean, one’s person, in law) an example by merely going on a meatspace trip for 24 hours. Wayne has still to get the point of the Burns line “would some power the giftie gie us...” when it comes to golf. It is a bad habit to say one meets the nicest people when one is doing what one likes. That only means you are meeting people like you which I find a source of boredom.
What blogging, this of conversation without committment, provides is the opposite - the ability to take a stand on something and have it tested without doing real damage to yourself. It allows the ability to have a thought grow. I am not particularly strong on the trans-fat idea as we have merely determined some time ago to do what we can as a family to avoid it. Being preachy about it, as I was last week, was new to me. I do not actually believe in too many of the things I write about. I find that kind of conviction less than satisfying.
29 Nov 2004 at 05:17 pm | #
I knew Alan was really an existentialist. Let’s hope he doesn’t take the example of L’Étranger entirely to heart.
29 Nov 2004 at 05:19 pm | #
Jean, help me here - I was getting confused by Alan’s comment and then Locke started using big words.
29 Nov 2004 at 06:26 pm | #
I have bad habits, but spending time away from the condescending behavior which was alluded to way above, is not one of them. Of course, one could always argue that one gets most enjoyment out of that which one enjoys doing, expressly due to the fact that the people one meets while engaging in said activity are of the character one most enjoys spending time with.
While I could be accused of going off-topic, to me, the little golf story is far more revealing then it may first appear in its comparison to controlled blogging, because golf is a game about “no control” In fact, many subscribe to the theory you must give up control to gain it. Controlling bloggers would dissolve into a weeping heap of blubber on the golf course without the ability to always be in control, and thus, my little diddle about the little chance of meeting controlling bloggers on the first tee. Golf does not create character, it reveals it. Flaws, inconsistencies, ideology, and resolve, among others. A controlling blogger without control is an unhappy blogger. And, sometimes we all step out of character for a litle fun...why not? This is supposed to be fun, recreation, like a short stop at the watercooler for a little parlay. Save anything else for the golf course.
29 Nov 2004 at 07:38 pm | #
And here I thought there was no backhand in golf
29 Nov 2004 at 07:44 pm | #
I believe that in PEI golf backhanders are permitted. They normally result in a hole in one, whatever the rules elsewhere may say. The lucky fellow is, however, expected to buy a drink for his buddies.
29 Nov 2004 at 10:33 pm | #
Thanks for speaking in “layman’s language” for me Alan.
As for big Al...he was responding to my reference to his “legalese” in a prior comment. And by the way...Al does not fit the mould of existentialist. At least not by the definition in my dictionary.
Sheesh, HB...you will just have to get your Funk and Wagnalls out like I did. Did Locke swallow his thesaurus again?
29 Nov 2004 at 11:01 pm | #
Ah, but his last posting was particularly Camus-like
29 Nov 2004 at 11:31 pm | #
You are testing me, Locke, I just know it.
<div class="box">Albert Camus was one of the most highly-regarded French writers while he was alive, and today his books continue to be bestsellers in France and staples of university courses in Western literature and philosophy. </div>
29 Nov 2004 at 11:49 pm | #
I am being objectified.
29 Nov 2004 at 11:51 pm | #
No, we are not sure if you are sure you exist so we are trying reify you.
30 Nov 2004 at 12:08 am | #
Locke...is there anything you don’t know?
30 Nov 2004 at 01:07 am | #
...and here I have been working so hard to lose weight. If you do reify me there can you have me call home.
30 Nov 2004 at 01:27 am | #
Why is Locke calling people camels? And who’s got the reefer?
30 Nov 2004 at 11:00 am | #
Nils...my guess would be Locke.
Probably left over from his hippy days.
17 Mar 2006 at 05:01 pm | #
Cool_girl, try to be kinder.