I once heard of a debate between a Christian group and a Pagan group – it could have been a pretty un-constructive rant like event where one group tells the other group what’s wrong with it and visa versa – everyone would have gone home with the same opinions that they came with – however this debate was different.
Each side was told to prepare arguments against their own religion/faith perspective. The Christians had to say what they didn’t like about Christianity, what they felt uncomfortable with and had to deconstruct and poke holes in their own framework for thinking. The Pagans had to do the same for paganism.
The result was fascinating – rather that the two groups coming away with reinforced hatred of and anger towards the other the event was incredibly constructive. Both groups found that they learned not only a lot about the other group – but about their own perspective.
Ok – so why am I telling you this on a blog about blogging? Have I mistakenly posted this here instead of on my Spirituality blog?
No – I”m actually wondering if it might be a helpful exercise as bloggers to do something similar.
Let’s talk about what we don’t like about blogging. What are its weaknesses? What are its limitations? How would you construct an argument against blogging?
Lets learn something about Blogging by deconstructing it for a bit. Put the boots in readers – lets kick it about for a bit – time for a bit of a bitch session!
The rules are simple – you’re not allowed to say ANYTHING positive about blogging in comments below (or feel free to respond on your own blog and leave a link below so we can find it). There are no wrongs and rights – everyone’s critiques of the medium are valid.
Go on – I know you want to – lets lay into Blogging!
Blogging slaps me in the face with the reality that there are too many idiots in this world. I would rather go around thinking that most people are intelligent, but apparently that’s not true.
The democracy of the whole blogging thing means that any halfwit with a computer can tell you about their snot balls or similar. Also, any religious maniac can leave comments on your posts. In addition, blog commenters often seem to leave good manners completely aside as they resort to asinine ad hominem arguments instead of critically debating the issues raised in the post.
The fact that I sat here for 30 minutes on Friday night intrigued by this blog.
What is wrong with blogging, for now, for me, not getting any feedback!
I need help with a debate and got nothin’! I guess I need to go where the traffic is. Where is that?
http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=12339322
The biggest problem is the hype. I live in London where almost no one knows what a blog is, but the US hype about blogs changing the world, destroying businesses etc is nonsense.
What pisses me off about blogs is the way everyone acts like they’re something new!
Eew! Look, Text on a web page!
What an exciting NEW idea!
Some dumbasses are even making programs specifically for writing blogs!
Be careful, don’t let Microsoft sue you for infringement on there new blog writing program, (codenamed: NOTEPAD)!
I think that one of the downsides of blogs is the advent of celebrity bloggers. Within various parts of the blogosphere, a few bloggers who are mediocre writers with nothing much to say have somehow attracted huge followings, attracting hundreds of hits a day and adoring commenters. This hasn’t happened to me (yet), so it may be that I am just jealous. :)
Between reading other peoples’ blogs, commenting, and updating your own blogs, trying to attract traffic to them… one can easily become addicted or spend time doing blog related activities while he was supposed to do other things like [ … ] -feel free to fill in the blank-. If you are already addicted to other internet activities then….
When I first read this post, I thought it was a joke making fun of itself. Visa versa? What the hell is “visa versa?” Is that like some kind of new credit card?
I think there is a difference between blogs with any credibility and journals. A journal is entertaining. It’s a way to just talk about whatever interests you and readers don’t mind poor spelling or grammar – it’s conversational. However, any blog (like this one) that purport to contain information that is intended for credibility, authority, or at it’s extreme, profitability, must hold high standards for publishing.
In one mangled mis-use of a latin phrase, I have lost any interest in this “blog” because I am certain that the author takes no time to proofread the content that he publishes and this is a warning that it’s possible he doesn’t take the time to research sources or evaulate ideas in depth. It’s also telling that this foul error is only mentioned on the 59th comment.
The worst thing about blogs is the opportunity it gives every single asshole with internet access to masturbate publicly. I am not convinced that technology ought to be so readily available, but then, I’ve been accused of having elitist opinions before.
The real question is… can a website compete in Google rankings without a blog? I think not. A blog of either frivelous or great content is still a blog. I’m addicted and actually have 2 of them. It is the cheapest form of therapy and a great business strategy (but don’t tell anyone else).
HMMMM , My problem with blogging is finding the time to write LOL !
I can’t wait till we start selling our ” easy buttons ” at staples ! I plan on buying a few cases God knows I need them LOL ! Click my site to read my stock tips for today and my other postings . http://www.rcswift.com . Sorry guys I still haven’t figured out my music problems yet . Thanks for letting me post here , I’ll be adding a link back to you if thats ok .
The worst thing about blogging is the stupid vocabulary that arises from it. Take the word ‘blog’ for example. I hate that word, hate ‘blogospere’ too.
And ‘SEO’ and the usage of the word ‘post’.
this blogosphereic web arena is a big bag of farts this ones the worsest!
guess that means you must like hanging out in a smelly environment then jj
thanks for your opinion
[…] One of the most memorable discussions I’ve ever participated in here at ProBlogger was the day I asked ‘What’s Wrong with Blogging?‘ […]
[…] Though I visit his blog daily, I only recently stumbled upon a post in which Darren Rowse of problogger.net attempts to find out “what’s wrong with blogging”. […]
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Medical Blogging: Confronting the Dark Side
Last two weeks medblogosphere was abuzz about the closing of GeekNurse. Apparently some over-zealous hospital managers could not stand an employee’s public persona and growing following.
This brings up a few questions:
What is wrong with medical bl…
Blogs = playthings for the middle classes. Changing the world? No. Most blog authors simply ‘lift’ their content from established news outlets before attaching their own (usually uninformed) opinion.
People have had personal websites for years. The difference now is that, thanks to an ever-increasing number of blogging tools, one no longer needs to have any real knowledge of the internet to get their opinion online. Whilst template driven software may have saved us from the barrage of unsightly ‘personal web-pages’ that swamped the internet during late 90’s, they have also created a new evil, that is, millions of people mistaking armchair politics for genuine democratic progression.
Blogs are just too unwieldy. Too many links, too much text, poorly designed pages, massive amounts of text to scroll down…Reading masses of text on a monitor just gets painful after a prolonged period.
Too much linking within the body of posts!!! It’s distracting and tempts the reader away, and into a free-associating downwaird spiral of lost time. I do this in my own blog, some, but the more annoyed I get with my own time-wasting due to this issue when reading other blogs, the more I think I might set a policy for myself against doing it at all. Back in the day of books, authors still used references but they were out of the way at the end of the chapter or end of the book. Why not put links at the end of the post? It’s a small thing but it gives the reader a little more time to think about whether they really want to spend the time following up on any given link.
Yes, one can be disciplined and not click on those links, wherever they are (and I usually make a point of this) but just their being there, in one’s face, it’s like the author offering you a cigarette every five minutes and you’re trying to quit. What a jerk.
Oh and even worse are those embedded ADS where certain words, if you scroll over them, bring up a little pop-up ad right there on top of the text you’re trying to read. How could anyone think that would be a cool thing to do? IDIOTS!
What’s Wrong With Blogging?…
I can’t believe I missed THIS when it was written over a year ago, but then again it’s not like I’d be learning something I didn’t already know.
I especially agree with this comment:
Well, shoot. It’s all been said.
* Blogs …
Woof! Woof! …. Grrrrrrr…Arf!..Grrrr..RUFF! ruff!, Cawww…Caaw, Caw! Woof!……
Dog at the base of a tree and a crow in it’s branches. Thankfully, the information contained in this incredibly intense emotional exchange that was of extreme importance to the participants at the time dissipates into the surrounding atmosphere, never to be heard again. Most of the time, people utter worthless words that are best left unrecorded. The problem with blogs is that this noise is petrified for a very long time and keeps on building up. Google ensures that it is heard around the world.
Looking at my previous post I can see that it can come across as strange and myopic. Just trying to say that most communication is pretty mundane stuff and is only meant to be heard at the moment by the participants. Blogs serve to archive heaps of this verbiage which will stick around in cyber space for a very long time. It’s a kind of cyber space pollution much like billboards are a type of landscape pollution.
I hate the fact that there is not really comfortable platform for blogging. Although WordPress is supposed to be the best I have to add tens of plugins to get all the functions I need. Searching for best plugins takes hours of work. Then I finally install one. And after some time I find out that this plugin is pretty bad and there are better ones.
And I’m not talking about the installation. It’s a headache especially for a person who has practically no idea of html or php.
So that was the worst part of blogging. Setting up the blog.
Blogging has its place in the wired world, just as does many other technics and platforms. As with everything, some use the tech in a proactive way that accomplished great improvment in thier overall capacity to handle thier suited task, just as there are those that will try and implement and use such in a way that actually hampers thier goals for not being well suited with thier task at hand.
It is astounding how many individuals here agree that the problem with blogging is the commercialization of blogs by SE professionals. I must say, I myself have used blogs for that purpose, and I would be surprised if many here haven’t done the exact same thing.
To add to that complaint, I would note that blogs generally have very closed moderation standards. Of course, this avoids issues such as spam, flame wars et al, but it detracts from the ability of users to determine the value of a blog site.
I would suggest that blogs should have a sort of “global moderation”, where anyone from around the world would be able to moderate the comments for spam or abuse. This would let legitimate comments come through, even if they did not agree with the site owners opinions.