{"id":365,"date":"2007-01-20T18:16:12","date_gmt":"2007-01-20T09:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-01-20\/365"},"modified":"2007-01-20T18:16:12","modified_gmt":"2007-01-20T09:16:12","slug":"on-the-special-nature-of-blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-01-20\/365","title":{"rendered":"On the Special Nature of &#8220;Blogging&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<p>\n\nI just came across the article <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.joelonsoftware.com\/items\/2006\/12\/28.html\">Bribing\nBloggers<\/a> on Joel Spolsky's blog. Joel heads his own software company\nand has been blogging since 2000, and although I'd never heard of him, he's\napparently an extremely popular blogger (having 4,500 <i>times<\/i> more\nsubscribers on <a href=\"http:\/\/bloglines.com\" class='quiet'>Bloglines<\/a>\nthan I!).\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nIn the article, he writes about how Microsoft is offering bloggers free\nlaptops and other gifts in the hopes of garnering positive exposure.\n(Unfortunately, Microsoft must have lost my email address, because <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a\nblog<\/span> but was not offered <span class='nobr'>a free<\/span> laptop.) Joel discusses whether it's\nethical to accept such gifts, even if disclosed, and in the end decides\nthat it's probably not. <span class='nobr'>He goes on<\/span> to say...\n\n<\/p>\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\n.qo { font-size:200%; line-height:0; position:relative; bottom:-0.25em; font-family:times }\n.qc { font-size:200%; line-height:0; position:relative; bottom:-0.25em; font-family:times }\n<\/style>\n\n<table style='width:80%; margin: 10px auto 0px auto'><tr valign='baseline'><td><span\nclass='qo'>&#8220;<\/span><\/td><td style='font-size:110%'>\n\n   These gifts reduce the public trust in blogs... This is the most\n   frustrating thing about the practice of giving bloggers free stuff: it\n   pisses in the well, reducing the credibility of all blogs. <span class='nobr'>I'm upset<\/span> that\n   people trust me less because of the behavior of other bloggers.<span\nclass='qc'>&#8221;<\/span><\/td><\/tr><\/table>\n\n<p>\n\nHis logic about &#8220;bloggers&#8221; and &#8220;public trust in\nblogs&#8221; seems outlandishly silly to me. A <b>blog<\/b> doesn't have\ncredibility, a <b>person<\/b> does. <span class='nobr'>A blog is<\/span> merely <span class='nobr'>a medium,<\/span> and has\nnothing to do with one's credibility.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI don't understand this whole notion that &#8220;blogging&#8221; somehow\ntranscends other forms of publication, such that the form is more important\nthan the content. <span class='nobr'>You see the<\/span> same type of thing <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/search.yahoo.com\/search?ei=UTF-8&amp;fr=slv5-ab&amp;p=fired+for+blogging\">every\ntime<\/a> someone &#8220;gets fired for blogging,&#8221; such as the\nengineer fired for speculating about his companies financials on his blog,\nor the flight attendant fired for posting suggestive pictures of herself in\nher uniform.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe thing is, no one has ever been fired for &#8220;blogging&#8221; &mdash;\nthey're fired for doing something their employer considered wrong (such as\nfor revealing confidential information, or not meeting your company's\nstandards of appropriate behavior). That this &#8220;something wrong&#8221;\nwas done on <span class='nobr'>a blog<\/span> is simply not relevant, and they would certainly have\nmet the same fate had they presented what they did in <span class='nobr'>a different<\/span> but\nequally visible way.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI've <a href=\"\/\">written books<\/a>, but you don't hear me\ncomplaining that the farfetched plot lines in trashy romance novels\n&#8220;reduce the credibility of all books.&#8221; That would be <span class='nobr'>a silly<\/span>\nthing to claim. Considering newspapers, <a class='quiet'\nhref=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/public\/us\">The Wall Street Journal<\/a> enjoys <span class='nobr'>a\nhigh<\/span> level of credibility despite the existence of trash like The National\nEnquirer.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nPerhaps Joel laments the low barrier to entry in choosing blogging as <span class='nobr'>a\nform<\/span> of communication. <span class='nobr'>A low barrier<\/span> to entry means that most anyone can\nhave <span class='nobr'>a blog,<\/span> and as such, many will simply be rubbish, so how can <span class='nobr'>a skilled<\/span>\nand interesting writer with integrity possibly be recognized amid the\noverwhelming chaff of writers lacking one or more of those qualities?\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nWell, I'll answer that: <b>by being <span class='nobr'>a skilled<\/span> and interesting writer with\nintegrity<\/b>.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\n(As for myself, hey, I've got &#8220;writer&#8221; covered, so\none out of four isn't too bad, is it? \ud83d\ude42 )\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nJoel has a level of credibility in his readers' eyes that is independent of\nthe medium, and also independent of other blogs, books, TV shows, plays,\nradio programs, CDs, Movies, and other forms of communication. <span class='nobr'>He is what<\/span>\nhe is.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI've only just become acquainted with Joel's writing, and so am in the\nprocess of forming my own opinion. <span class='nobr'>He gets points<\/span> for declining gifts\nclearly meant to curry positive exposure, but in my own eyes, he'd get the\nsame points merely for disclosing it.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nOn the other hand, he loses points for the way he hawks his own books, with\n<span class='nobr'>a page<\/span> entitled &#8220;<a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.joelonsoftware.com\/BuytheBooks.html\">Buy the\nbooks!<\/a>&#8221; <span class='nobr'>I think<\/span> that kind of in-your-face approach is just not\nclassy, and so he loses points in my eyes.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> I just came across the article Bribing Bloggers on Joel Spolsky's blog. Joel heads his own software company and has been blogging since 2000, and although I'd never heard of him, he's apparently an extremely popular blogger (having 4,500 times more subscribers on Bloglines than I!). <\/p><p> In the article, he writes about how Microsoft is offering bloggers free laptops and other gifts in the hopes of garnering positive exposure. (Unfortunately, Microsoft must have lost my email address, because I have a blog but was not offered a free laptop.) Joel discusses whether it's ethical to accept such gifts, [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}