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Writing blogs
I agree with SKIPPY, but I really don’t care about Google ranking. I care about writing and writers, and I’m reconciled to the fact that the A-Listers are in this for ranking, rather than writing, and read the MSM more closely than they read blogs.
With that comment, Eric B. Williams neatly anticipated the next thing I was going to write in this series. Then he left and did some of that very writing, a concise history of the aspects of the Shatt al Arab relevant to the current contretemps between the axes of weasels. A hundred, a thousand blogs follow the precise machinations of the media on the captured Brits like old-style Kremlinologists, adjusting their analyses to fit their neighbors, and Eric’s post is the only one I’ve seen with the literal ground truth.
Atrios posted something on Eschaton that was linked extensively just after Blogroll Amnesty Day. He entitled the post “Why your blog sucks.” This was the first of five reasons he listed:
You don’t post often enough. People click on a website regularly when they expect it to have new content. If you’re a thoughtful writer who tends to write longer essays then you’re at a disadvantage. On the other hand, Glenn Greenwald provides a pretty good model of how to make this work: generally one post per day, followed by a couple of updates, and some participation in his comments section. Oh, and truly excellent, original, and important content.
“If you’re a thoughtful writer who tends to write longer essays then you’re at a disadvantage.”
That’s pretty much the issue right there, isn’t it? For a number of reasons — impatience, illiteracy, the eyestrain involved in reading a monitor as compared to curling up with a book or a magazine, the infrequency with which one finds people with high-speed internet hookups in their bathrooms — people tend to drop out after the first screen of text.
Back when this domain was occupied by Faultline, my attempt at covering the California environment with no funding or infrastructure, we ran stories of about 2,000 words with some frequency. I broke each story up into two or three serial pages. I’m not sure why I did this: probably because Salon did. But it turned out that decision to paginate provided me with a disheartening piece of information: the first page would get something like fifty times the traffic of the second page, which got about fifty times the traffic of the third. And this was some good writing!
You’ve probably noticed something like this in your internet travels: a person writes a post whose structure is such that a topic is brought up in the first paragraph as a metaphor or some other literary device, and the writer goes on in the next several (or several dozen) paragraphs to write about the real topic, never mentioning the introductory metaphor again. And then the comments come in. Depending on the blog, they can be as thoughtful and engaging as the post itself, often more so. But there’s often someone who responds at length to the metaphor, sometimes vehemently, not addressing the actual topic of the post at all. (A subsidiary phenomenon: a blogger (“Blogger A”) will refer to a post by another blogger (“Blogger B”), encourage her readers to go check out Blogger B’s fulminations, and offer an observation or two of her own. And then someone will leave a comment vehemently disagreeing, complaining that no one ever takes into account Topic C when discussing the issue, thus proving that he hasn’t read the post by Blogger B, which is almost entirely devoted to Topic C.)
The problem, as has been pointed out by Noam Chomsky, whose name usually guarantees an immediate 35 percent reader attrition all by itself, is that short statements only work for the reader when they do not challenge preconceptions. Chomsky was speaking of political news when he said it, but it’s just as true of many other topics. “American society is founded on freedom” works as a short statement: people will read it, nod, grunt assent and move on. “American society is founded on wars of conquest and slavery” doesn’t work quite that well, unless your readership is composed entirely of Trotskyists. Otherwise, you’ll have to give a short course in history with footnotes and primary sources for each sentence. (This is why you rarely see Howard Zinn on Hardball.)
Short statements on complex topics, in other words, can only work when they contribute to, and are in essence supported by, the status quo. Question that status quo, quibble with received wisdom, try to kick the chocks out from underneath the wheels of society, and you got some splainin’ to do. This is true even among thoughtful progressives, as witness the turmoil when I wrote at Pandagon on a topic in which culpability was widespread, there were clear villains and clear victims but no clear innocent bystanders, and the solutions were remote and unlikely to be effected from behind a keyboard. “Either you’re saying it’s hopeless or you’re saying I should feel guilty!” Complexity is as ill-regarded by progressives, sometimes, as it is by fundamentalist conservatives. Which is not to say there weren’t people in that thread who didn’t get it: most of them did. But the fervor of the objections surprised me.
It shouldn’t have: I’ve been weathering the storms of miff generated by my using the short phrase “Chief Seattle didn’t actually say that” for nigh on twenty years at this point. It’s much easier to repeat platitudes about rotting buffalo strung from telegraph wires or whatever the faux speech says than it is to get into a discussion of appropriation of culture heroes and ideology, revisionist history, the noble savage myth and the White Man’s Indian. Fake speech, simplistic politics, villains and heroes distinguishable by hat color, all of it props up a world view. All of it must be defended lest the world view crumble.
I guess I’m a prevert. I once told a writing partner that the only interesting thing in the entire world was doubt. It’s a bit of an overstatement. I really ought to qualify it somewhat. Who wants a life in which you lean so heavily on your world view that you fall on your face if some of it crumbles? And sometimes, just sometimes, looking at that world view, probing it and teasing out the apparent inconsistencies, even if you don’t create fissures in that world view you discover consequences of it that hadn’t occurred to you. Sometimes those consequences are enlightening, and your time has been well-spent. Sometimes they’re troubling, and provoke further examination. Either way, you’re not going to get there with telegraphic, reflexive blog posts, are you? For all the trumpeting bloggers do about their revolutionariness, the medium is intrinsically biased toward the short-take, and the short-take favors those in power. That is not a facet of the medium to which one must accede to be successful at blogging. It is a limitation of the medium that one must fight to be, to the degree possible, a human being writing on a blog.
Open thread.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Note: A database glitch in 2008 ate a bunch of archived comments. Don't be offended if yours isn't here, or confused if the conversation seems disjointed. Thanks!
Wow, a nice long serious meta-post on April Fool’s Day - I wasn’t prepared for that!
Naturally, I only skimmed the first paragraph or so.
(KIDDING!)
It’s true, people’s worldviews are fragile things, subject to crumbling. But sometimes they’re all we’ve got, so we need to hang onto them fiercely. And I don’t blame folks for taking the easy way out in terms of self-examination; the hard way is often painful and draining, and for many of us it’s enough just to survive.
I’ve been doing reflexive blog posts all week because I’m sitting shiva mourning the untimely death of my father. But I’ve tried to make them short, because to go on at length says more about my need for attention than about Dad and his life.
By: By Elayne Riggs on 2007 04 01
I haven’t been following the whole Blog Amnesty Day massacre, because it seems so pointless. But “the A-Listers are in this for ranking, rather than writing” seems like sour grapes. If I take the top two A-listers for liberal blogs to be Kos and Atrios, they’re in it for influence and community building / mobilization. Which are good things, and far better than “writing” as an abstract entity in my opinion.
I read blogs, but if I was interested in maximizing my time spent reading either aesthetically interesting or informative writing, I wouldn’t. Let’s take your nature pieces—they’re good, but I still haven’t read the classics of nature writing, so presumably if my concern was “writing” I should put down the keyboard and pick up Aldo Leopold or something. I don’t subscribe to the specialized magazines that probably would do a better job than even the best blogger at keeping me informed about a wide range of environmental issues. The same goes for all blogs: for instance, there is no poetry blog that really could compare with the unread contents of my bookshelf.
That said, clearly it’s better for a blog to be well-written than not. But it seems like a category error, or something, to be saying that quality of writing is / should be what blogs are most about. Blogs (in my opinion) are about a community of people discussing things, and the blogger is a discussion leader more than a writer.
By: By Rich Puchalsky on 2007 04 01
M33 T00!
By: By JP Stormcrow on 2007 04 01
Heh, my most-visited two posts evah, with just over 150 visits each day they were posted, were announcing the advent of the WAAGNFNP. My most-linked ever, however, tried to highlight idiosyncratic, involved, and cross-pollinating blogocalyptic writings. So of course for April Fool’s Day I did this, which at least was fun to write and at most will do my small part to highlight what I find to be good end times blogging….
Plus I only blogroll people I like to and regularly read. And I only care about visits, views, and links when I have nothing better to do, which is still more often than I should.
By: By The Constructivist on 2007 04 01
Elayne, I hadn’t heard your bad news. I am so sorry.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2007 04 01
=v= What’s this about Skippy? Choosy mothers choose Jif. I’ve got 150 more lines about that here somewhere ...
Complexity is as ill-regarded by progressives, sometimes, as it is by fundamentalist conservatives.
Hell, any attempt to hold two thoughts in the same head at the same time is lambasted as “political correctness,” because obviously that second thought has some sort of agenda.
Now try to combine the complexity of ecological interactions with the complexity of sociopolitical interactions. Oh, wait, you have some experience in that, don’t you? But anyway, that’s why you get people thinking the solution to global warming is nucular power plants running electric SUVs.
By: By Jym Dyer on 2007 04 01
Well said. This is why I write novels, actually. It gives you room to handle complexity and subtleties, and still hold onto your audience (if you are any good).
By: By LauraJMixon on 2007 04 01
There is Craig Murray’s set of notes. I don’t think he wrote about the choice of mechanism, and may not be aware that from an Iranian (or Persian), or even an Iraqi (or Mesopotamian, or an Ottoman) point of view, subordination of thalweg (mid point of deepest flow), that is, shared navagability, may be both a more rational (or useful) means to partition a shared maritime resource than median baseline from tidal or other fixed point markers, _and_ the better choice of law, being not imposed by the 19th century colonial actors and subsequently re-imposed as “international law”.
I suspect that is why Iran will proceed to some law venue, to make the point that the choice of mechanism is not moot because it pleased Saddam Hussein in 1980 and it pleases Tony Blair in 2007.
By: By ebw on 2007 04 02
I think the “sound bite” effect was even more in evidence back in the early ‘90s on Usenet, where the limited functionality in reader software and lack of text format markers really made it a chore to read multiple screens.
I agree with your point on short snippets not being sufficient to challenge anything (hey, and as snort snippets go the only interesting thing in the entire world is doubt is pretty interesting.) However, I think most blogs are a combination of “switches” within a certain worldview (usually reinforced by a brief commentary, headline etc.) and endpoints with actual meaningful content. Most are a mix, but often favor one over another - Atrios is more of just a switching yard/aggregator, or dynamic RSS feed with a “liberal” filter (or Drudge or Buzzflash if you take it to its logical limit.) Everyone has a little of both, but folks like yourself, Amanda Marcotte, Bérubé and theValve etc. are more on the endpoint/content side. I see folks like Digby or Glenn Greenwald as somehat in the middle, very good analysis, but usually link or quoted text heavy. There is probably an easy way to quantify this - a combo of quoted/original textratio and links per word.
Both have their place if done right, but I agree that the switches themselves (with their short summaries) will not truly convince/change anybody or thing. However, I think the degree to which the links or pointers are to challenging or even mutually incompatible material more “Think about this” than ‘This is great” or “Look at this asshole” can vary greatly. But it is the content at the edpoints that really get you thinking.
By: By JP Stormcrow on 2007 04 02
I keep hoping someone will come along and set up an aggregator for what I think of as primary source blogs - sites where people are doing their own creating (not just original nonfiction, fiction and poetry but art, audio- and video-blogging, etc.) and reporting their own, first-hand observations. Kind of like 9 Rules Network, but focused on blogs where writing/creating/thinking takes center stage. Creek Running North is only one of dozens of blogs I’ve found where the writing is consistently as good or better as the stuff that appears in the best literary and nature magazines. I think it would be really helpful if there were a central aggregator site to help draw attention to some of these blogs: I’ll bet there are plenty of people out there who, like Trinifar, are annoyed by sound-bites. And probably a lot of them are not currently reading blogs because they haven’t been lucky enough to find sites like this one.
By: By Dave on 2007 04 02
Ah, the old “Laws Are for Other People” trick, as Maxwell Smart might put it. Works every time, for a time….
By: By The Constructivist on 2007 04 02
I keep hoping someone will come along and set up an aggregator for what I think of as primary source blogs - sites where people are doing their own creating (not just original nonfiction, fiction and poetry but art, audio- and video-blogging, etc.) and reporting their own, first-hand observations.
That is a deeply cool idea.
Coming from a moment where I now have weekly hit counts in the single digits, where before it was in the hundreds, I appreciate having the chance to think about this issue. It seems that complaining and writing political screeds is a lot more interesting to people at large than the occasional writing about the nonhuman world and little bits of life. Of course, the dailiness of blogging is a factor, too - I’m more or less constrained to weekly posts now, and that cuts down on the count, too. If nothing else, the experience drives home how much, for me, the reward and pleasure of blogging comes from my interaction with my commenters. I love the writing, too - but without them, it’s not much different than writing in my journal at home, but with the constraints being in a public forum brings.
By: By Rana on 2007 04 02
I keep hoping someone will come along and set up an aggregator for what I think of as primary source blogs - sites where people are doing their own creating (not just original nonfiction, fiction and poetry but art, audio- and video-blogging, etc.) and reporting their own, first-hand observations.
That is a deeply cool idea.
I agree. Let’s start one. How should we build it?
By: By Chris Clarke on 2007 04 02
Well, I think the technical end is pretty straight-forward. If you simply wanted an aggregator, http://gregarius.net/ would get the job done. See, for example, http://beerinator.com/beerfeeds2/ . Or obviously just use a regular blog format plus http://www.feeddigest.com/ or some other software.
On the other hand, if the idea is to select each individual post, that is a lot more work. I know, because I’ve been doing that on a small scale for a year now with my sideblog project, Smorgasblog. It’s a lot of reading! More than that, you would immediately encounter questions of democratic vs. autocratic decision-making. I don’t think you’d want a structure where members vote on content, because I hear the politics of such groups get really nasty.
But one good option might be to let members pick their own best posts according to a strict quota: one/week, say, or even just one/month, depending on the number of members. In order for the thing to be usable, you wouldn’t want to have too many posts each day - I think that’s one of the big problems with unfiltered aggregators or planet blogs. And obviously in this scheme the key would be careful selection of member blogs. The politics of that process would want to be very well thought-out.
By: By Dave on 2007 04 02
“blog format”—I meant blog platform.
By: By Dave on 2007 04 02
and may not be aware that from an Iranian (or Persian)
Iran is (sort of) persia, but iranians aren’t neccesarily persian, in so far as persian (to continue to use the greek version of the term) is an ethnicity within Iran, with it’s own culture and language, so that that statement reads a little like “from an american (or navajo) point of view” which I’m guessing wasn’t your exact intent.
What is the persians’ name for persia, does anyone know?
But “the A-Listers are in this for ranking, rather than writing� seems like sour grapes.
Well it’s only sour grapes if turning our blogs into 6 figure cash cows and money funnels for the democratic candidate who bids highest for our services is the express reason why we’re blogging.
Atrios is giving advice for other blogs to be like atrios - that everyone doesn’t immediately see through the essentialist fallacy of that sort of wounded reasoning is probably the greatest fault of the non-hegemonic blogs EVR, and one I’ll take sole responsibility for at this junture.
Sorry about that.
By: By R. Mildred on 2007 04 03
What is the persians’ name for persia, does anyone know?
Turns out that’s a point disputed among Persians.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2007 04 03
R. Mildred, I don’t understand your comment. “the A-Listers are in this for ranking, rather than writingâ€? is a statement about the motivation of A-listers. If I was going to guess about a generalized motivation, I’d say they’re in it for neither writing nor ranking (which I view as a proxy for “being read”)—they’re in it for power. Which is a good thing. People who are in politics but not after power are either useless or scary.
Atrios did indeed give advice that would make a blogger more like Atrios. It’s hard to see what other advice he could have given if he was writing from experience. People who don’t want to be like Atrios—well, I don’t see why they’d be complaining about being not linked from Atrios’ blogroll.
By: By Rich Puchalsky on 2007 04 03
Hmm, if meta-blogging is blogging about blogging, is metaphysics just blogging about physics???
No, metaphysics would be physics about physics.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2007 04 03
R.Mildred,
I’ve written a little bit about Iran in the past, but that’s a small matter.
The point I was making was to extend the present Shatt al-Arab definitional issue from its present governmental association to its prior governmental associations, going backwards in time from the apparently post-colonial present, through the Anglo-Russo colonial period, to the pre-colonial period.
The additional point I was attempting to make is that the choice of law may matter.
I’m sorry I was unable to convey these ideas, but I really write for myself.
There is no shortage of Farsi speakers writing fluently and semi-fluently in English to ask your question, should you choose to.
By: By ebw on 2007 04 03
I’m going to suggest that the better non-definition is those who celebrate Norouz (and its varients), which here in SoCal, means expat royalists who go to the beach to picnic around a campfire. In Chris’ neck of the woods, it’s expat communists (broadly) who have barbies in the back yard.
YMMV.
By: By ebw on 2007 04 04
It’s hard to see what other advice he could have given if he was writing from experience.
Well it’s not hard to read other people who blog in other ways and at the very least point out what you like and maybe parse that through what appears to work (or with a more deductively approach, point out what really doesn’t work).
Hell, one could even open the floor to other kinds of bloggers to describe their formulas for success/effectiveness, make a carnival of it and have a community building cornucopia of introblogging that would gladden the soul as well as the blog.
Atrios seemed to hit a certain fart sniffing tone though, where he himself defines blogging in it’s totality, and his style of blogging is the only blogging worth blogging about blogging, rather than merely how he happens to blog.
People who don’t want to be like Atrios—well, I don’t see why they’d be complaining about being not linked from Atrios’ blogroll.
Well… I guess no one really likes staring down the barrel of the pomposity gun, and having someone swing it around at you so you can see down it in the first place is generally considered rude and offensive.
If I was going to guess about a generalized motivation, I’d say they’re in it for neither writing nor ranking (which I view as a proxy for “being read”)—they’re in it for power.
Makes sense, though I’d call it what they perceive as power, and then point out that the only thing scarier than people who are in politics but don’t strive for power are people who strive for power and don’t seem to have plans for what they’ll do with it once they gain that power.
*sigh* I suppose it’d just be nice to see a manifesto or action plan that laid out what ends are gonna be justifying some of their less savory means.
There is no shortage of Farsi speakers writing fluently and semi-fluently in English to ask your question, should you choose to.
You are correct, and I shall start walking in that direction, but inso far as I had some how picked up the misconception that the greeks named the persians “persians” I apologise for spewing the ignorance all over hte place, that it’s farsi via latin and farsi is persian and that I didn’t even know that much shows I don’t yet have the words to ask pertinent questions, sorry about that, I shall stfu now.
By: By R. Mildred on 2007 04 04
“the only thing scarier than people who are in politics but don’t strive for power are people who strive for power and don’t seem to have plans for what they’ll do with it once they gain that power.”
Perhaps so, but that’s certainly not true in this case. Both Kos and Atrios have explained what they’re trying to do often enough.
As for whatever could be their “less than savory means”, dude, please. Like I wrote at the start, sour grapes.
By: By Rich Puchalsky on 2007 04 04
