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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4071 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Commenting threads: good, bad, or not at all.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding here of what blogs are.

Back in the good old days, you published. You sent your writing out into the world and you didn't interact with the people who read it unless they came to readings, book signings, or public speaking events. There was no control over the discourse. If someone wanted to say something about your writing, they either had to write a letter to the editor or they had to bring it up at a party. In which case the people they were bringing it up to were people they knew face-to-face.

With social media boards, the statement starts as a conversation. You are inviting people to participate in what you have to say - what you're saying is part of that party conversation, not part of the publishing. People regard it entirely differently than if they read it in the paper.

With blogs, you have a choice - are you going to engage your audience as if you're bringing it up at a cocktail party or are you going to divorce yourself from it as if you're the publisher? Because the audience will roll with it either way. You're either in the room or you're not. You're either part of the conversation or you're not. It's either the start of a live document or it's the end of a Sermon from the Mount.

If you fail to choose one you're FUCKED.

This is something I think most people don't understand: you can either make it clear that anything said to you or about you is going to be answered by you or you can make it clear that anything said to you or about you is not going to be addressed. Whenever you choose the middle ground you force your audience to re-evaluate the social arrangement between you.

This is why news aggregators, Facebook, G+ and all the rest have risen to prominence - they offer a useful and convenient "middle ground" where a social construct that gives both parties what they want can exist. Spectators can drag your writing back to where it can be discussed without having to address you... and you can "mill about the crowd" and engage or not as you see fit. Most clever people with survivability choose "not" because, after all, they have the podium. If they wish to highlight certain comments or answer criticisms, they have the stable platform - it's their audience that floats on a sea of commentary.

It's also why I don't blog - there's nothing I have to say that shouldn't be said in a crowd, for the most part. I have no sermons from the mount. I do not wish to issue proclamations for others to discuss elsewhere - if I have something to say, I want to hear your response (unless I've determined you aren't listening to ahead of time - yay "mute"). And, for every reason outlined in the article, blogs are exactly the wrong place to do that.