What follows is an academic argument being offered to you in the same manner I would offer it to my local discussion group. It is offered as food for thought for bloggers with strong stomachs who also have their thinking caps on.
I happen to live in a very small and highly politicized island, in a very small and highly politicized area of BC, which is located in one of the most highly politically charged provinces in Canada.
Most, albiet not all, of my blog readers live within the same region and are known to me. They are already well versed in what my political and envrionmental opinions are, as we frequently share our opinions in animated face-to-face personal conversations within organizations specifically founded with such purposes in mind.
Quite aside from that I am and have been over the course of the last 28 years, a fully participatory member of the public who takes an active role in all local and regional zoning, subdivision, community planning, environmental and parks and recreational political processes.
In addition I am a moderator of a community-wide online forum, an active participant in a regional on-line forum, and I can have whatever political positions I choose to take published in one of my local newspapers with ease. Consequently, sharing my political opinions on environmental and political matters is not the purpose that my blog exists to serve.
Both my political friends and my political foes value the service I provide through my blog. In fact, it’s the very same service that they have relied on me to provide via hard copy material exchange for 25 years, prior to me even owning a computer. I am a former para-legal researcher, librarian and small town journalist. I have strong research and reference skills and a talent for locating information, distributing it and creating opportunities so those who read it can come together and debate the pros and cons of those issues.
I derive my blog material from many news services, newsletters and publications available both online and in hard copy only. I am a member many environmental organizations and environmentally based listservs. I do not mix my commentary with the materials I post on my blog as my readers would not appreciate it if I did. Moreover it would not meet my own purpose to do so.
My readers are fully aware that whatever I’m posting has already been written with a particular slant, bias or if you prefer, “spin”. Therefore, I use my blog as a bulletin board. I copy and paste a teaser with a “read more” tag linked to the originating source and I leave it to readers to follow the link to read the rest of the material in question. Thereafter these readers bring their opinions to our face-to-face discussion group sessions, and/or they enter dialogue about the topics I post in our local and regional on-line forums and listservs.
There is no advertising contracted for by myself on my blog. Nothing I post on my blog is posted with the purpose of lining anyone’s pockets with gold. I make no income whatsoever from my blog. Nothing I post directs readers to any site advertising any type of goods and services. My blog is therefore not a “splog”.
I moderate all comments ensuring any heated discussions that take place are taking place in an up close and personal face-to-face scenario, or on a members only forums or list-servs. Why? Because we are small town neighbours, islanders who cannot hide behind a veil of anonymity: we do have to love each other tomorrow.
Tomorrow we must stand shoulder to shoulder together and be prepared to fight house fires and forest fires, to provide ambulance service, home care, hospice services, nursery school, emergency food and shelter, emergency power generation, water taxi service, and a wide variety of other community services that people in urban centers take for granted; take for granted because they are delivered by strangers. This is not our island reality.
So here’s a rhetorical question I’m putting to other wordpress bloggers:
Who among you would have the temerity to presume that you have the right to rate my blog or to judge what I use my blog for as being “worthy” based upon statistics derived from internet “fame” (i.e. popularity measured by “clicks” created by anonymous, amorphous communicators)?
I can truly say that top blogs on WordPress occupy the same place in my life that reality tv shows do: they aren’t on my screen. Are they on yours?
“Top blogs” is on my radar because I know that I can’t engage with people if they don’t know that I exist; this is why I welcome flamers as well as rosebearers. I’m in a different situation from you, in that I am deliberately reaching out to people all over the world with my blog, and blog ranking tools tell me how effective I’m being at that task.
The comments, however, tell me how effective I’m being at making changes and starting dialogues. Quantity and quality are two very different things, and it would be foolish to get a big head about sheer numbers. I mean, right now Jedi Squirrels is kicking my ass hitwise, but the comments on some of my threads indicate that I’ve advanced the public understanding of the Dawson Murder case at least a small amount. That’s far more meaningful.
But in truth, it couldn’t have happened if I had not already been getting a lot of hits. The more people that read you, the more chance you have of sparking something.
Thanks for your insights I really appreciate you sharing them with me particularly, as our situations are so completely different. And also knowing you’re a west coaster too gives me the confidence to “island speak” to you so here goes, rain.
My point is there are as many different purposes to blog as our imaginations can conjure up. And I don’t accept the quality versus quantity agrument. I used to make this agrument myself until I woke up and considered who would be be the judges and jury at the top of the pyramid.
In these past 6 months I have witnessed some bizarre top blogs and top posts at WordPress. Here are just a few examples.
(1) A 2 line blog entry with a porno tube link hit the top and stayed there for ages. My protest on the forum and the blog entry I wrote in rebuttal of this is still bringing my blog hits today – from sex addicts and spammers.
(2) Not to be left out in the cold a second blog hit the top by riding the first blog’s coat tails. The technique was to simply link to the blog with the link to porno tube in it. Likewise my protest on the forum and in a comment on the second blog is still bringing my blog hits today – from sex addicts and spammers.
(3) Then of course there was and still is the imogen sex tapes posts bobbing up and down at the “top” of the chamber pot.
(4) Currently, we have the jedi squirrels running second or third to (5) a squirrelly space cadet who bought her way into the stratosphere and beyond.
No wonder we witness so-called “reality tv” at the top of the charts. And as for reality in the blogosphere well, it’s no different is it? It’s the blogging community that put the examples of WordPress posts and blogs that I referred to at the top, right along side the blogs that do have some substance and unique content. Yep, it does appear that the hive mind judges and juries pass the verdict as to what “quality” post content is and which blogs are ‘worthy” of the “top” hat.
Perhaps the top hat is a dunce cap. Think of Digg and Wikipedia for a moment or two.
Is it the reflection of the lowest common denominator, an inevitable evolution that we see … at the top, there?
Is it the monetization of mediocrity, an inevitable parasitism that we see attached to the quest to get to and profit from being at the top of the blogosphere?
Could it be that the much-celebrated “hive mind” and “the wisdom of crowds” providing the philosophical underpinning for the idea that the world benefits when people participate in unpredictable, emergent enterprises … is nothing more than spin-doctoring?
Is pointy-headedness is being lauded and applauded as the way to become “the tops” in a pond of bottom feeders?
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