THE BLOGGING PROCESS
A pretentious and presumptuous attempt to document what bloggers have learned, without any formal instruction, to do every day.

And then a description of what's needed to make blogs a medium for real conversation.

For some bloggers, just writing is enough. For most of us, though, we're looking to the blogosphere to provide us with useful and interesting information, education, entertainment and/or inspiration for our writing, and feedback, a critical audience, and help with the creative and publishing process. That process looks (to me at least) something like this:

i disagree with this extreme view, but do take note of some of the author's points...i do question the value of all this blogging at times...for me, i am actually developing a stronger sense of self through this project (and working hard to secure a good grade :-) I am freely stating my opinions and putting my original thoughts and feelings out there for all to see. I am not afraid of judgement...and even though i know my readership is very small, i still feel free to say and do as i please, because that is my right, and that is a powerful and empowering feeling...HOWEVER, i do acknowledge that i am just adding to the overwhelming amount of data already circulating on the web...the very data that i sometimes criticize myself...i admit that, at times, i am simply regurgitating the words and thoughts of others...

BUT, i guess what i find true value in is the fact that the articles, links and news items i choose to add to my personal blog do in fact shape who i am...my thoughts, interests, opinions...and that is free speech at its best...(it would be nice if more people were actually reading it though! :-) this blog challenges me to react, question and shape who i am and want to become...and that is valuable to me...

I should probably explain what the blogosphere is. Even some Web-savvy people still don’t know. When I asked my programmer in August to install a blog on my RichardPoe.com Web site, he responded,"What’s a blog?"
According to Samizdata.net’s official glossary of blogospherical jargon, a blog is defined as:
Noun. A contraction of weblog, a form of on-line writing characterised in format by a single column of chronological text, usually with a sidebar, and frequently updated.
Blogs or weblogs are online diaries. Day by day, the blogger adds his thoughts and observations. Often the entries are mundane, ranging from recipes and auto repair tips to lamentations over the blogger’s love life. But the best blogs comment on the news of the day, often intelligently, each entry accompanied by links to the news articles in question.
"So what?" some readers may ask. "Why should I waste time plowing through the amateur punditry of a gaggle of lovelorn techno-geeks?"
Ah, but that’s the beauty of blogging. The system is self-selecting. The worst blogs sink to the bottom. No one sees them. The best blogs rise to the top, borne aloft by the sheer number of bloggers who link to them.

Comments
Jonathan, before anything, treat people decently, and you can sleep at night. You and Shelley have both led a parade of people who trashed my integrity. Many have followed.
I take my work seriously. It's good that you changed your mind. Next time you lead a parade that villifies one person, think again that you might change your mind, and take the personal stuff out of it. You aren't a god, so don't be judgemental like one. That might be the first rule, not of integrity, but of ethics.
Now that I work with people from another profession, I get to see the shock and outrage when they glimpse into the way people relate in this space. It reminds me that I have gotten used to something that no one should get used to.
One more thing, Since you have decided to make a mega-issue of my integrity, don't you think it makes sense to at least refer my disclaimer about integrity? It was there all the time you were trash-talking me. I kept waiting for someone in your gang to bother to see what I had said about it.
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/whatIsScriptingNews#integrity
You want to accomplish something real? Push back when ever you see a mob forming to trash one person. Then people will have more courage to speak up and do things.
Posted by Dave Winer on 7 August 2003

Although I found out about the accountability (Winer Watch) controversy long after it had concluded, I was triply interested since:

I’ve been the subject of one of Dave Winer’s (deleted) inflammatory posts;
I invented the term Doing a Dave (“substantially editing or removing content after having posted it to the web”); and
I once believed that changes to weblog entries should be clearly identified (using the and syntax suggested by Burningbird).
My brush with Dave Winer came just three days after I'd started blogging when, late one night, I noticed that I was zooming towards the top of weblogs.com. "Wow," I thought to myself, "my blog's become really popular in just a few days." Actually, I'd copped a serve from Dave over a post about disappearing content, titled Did I hear someone mention integrity? I wrote a conciliatory follow-up and went to sleep. When I woke up, the flame had been replaced by a complimentary post about my (newly-designed) Radio weblog.

Although I had to leave early to catch the ferry back to the island, in truth meeting up with all of these folks was one of my main reasons for heading to the conference yesterday. Partly to put faces to urls, and partly to help foster the burgeoning sense of community in the way that only face to face communication can.

I do think that audience expectations are a major part of writing. Matt's comment about the social quality of all writing seems relevant here. My writing has certainly changed as my audience has grown and changed from a few close friends to some close colleagues and beyond. I want to produce something interesting and thoughtful for them to read, and I hope I'm doing that. I also recognize my position as both author and audience member and hope that I can learn something from what I write (my blog has served me quite well as an "external memory" tool and as a means for becoming a more confident writer, for example).

About Me

Name: Rob
Nickname: Acidman
Astrological sign: Aquarius
Age: 50
Height: 5' 8"
Level of Education: B.A. English Literature
Occupation: Production Coordinator, Pigments Finishing
Birthplace: Kenvir, Kentucky
Marital status: Divorced
How many children: Two
Do you drink (alcohol): Yes, often to excess. It stirs the Muse.
Do you smoke: Only tobacco
Favorite outdoor activities: Golf, gardening and camping
Favorite indoor activities: Blogging, cooking, making music
Favorite colors: RED AND BLACK! Go, GEORGIA BULLDOGS!
Favorite type of music: Folk and Country
Favorite musical groups/performers: John Prine, Allison Krause, Gordon Lightfoot, Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac
Favorite soundtracks: Brother, Where Art Thou?

But what bloggers do is completely new - and cannot be replicated on any other medium. It's somewhere in between writing a column and talk radio. It's genuinely new. And it harnesses the web's real genius - its ability to empower anyone to do what only a few in the past could genuinely pull off. In that sense, blogging is the first journalistic model that actually harnesses rather than merely exploits the true democratic nature of the web. It's a new medium finally finding a unique voice.

Zack, with his 28 readers a day, isn't part of Weblogging's "A list," an intricate mutual back-scratch society that includes clever curmudgeons, high-tech avatars and angry ankle-biters who ferociously snipe at traditional media. He is, however, a truer representative of the blogging boom that's making people into instant publishers, newshounds and public diarists-and helping the Internet make good on some of its heady promises of personal empowerment.