It gives me great pleasure to announce a mini-series of posts all about accessibility, hyperlinks, and images written by yours truly, and to be found posted over at Successful-Blog.

Please go and read it, and join in the great discussions you will find there. Liz and the rest of the community always make you feel welcome, which might go someway toward explaining why I made one comment and ended up writing three articles!

How to Code Accessible Links–Part One: The Basics, by Cas of Brightmeadow, at Successful-Blog

Come on! You know you want to be a successful blogger!

(In case you were wondering, that link was as accessible as I could make it. To find out how, well, go read the article 😉 )

(I was going to ‘Roast the following, but it’s a long time till next Sunday, and the link is possibly a bit too serious and grown-up for that anyway).

Finding someone whose voice makes sense to you, is a rare thing in this brave new world where everyone and their pet monkey thinks they can craft a sentence, despite glaring evidence to the contrary.

So, when one of the Few ^*1* asks for your help, well, the least you can do is give the guy a link: – Stowe Boyd’s new blog, /Message .

Go here if you want intelligent rants (yes, that is possible), about all things social/computing/collaboration/society, and let’s not forget, my favourite “Web 2.0” ^*2* I’m not saying my link’s going to get him much more traffic, nor do I think my assistance is really required, but I’m working on the principle of every little helps here. The chap gave me valid things to think about in the Demon Thesis, so not to link seems churlish.

Endnotes:
^*1*If you can get that literary reference, there’s a cookie in it for you. ^Back
*2*That’s a Research Rant that will be coming in a few days or so. ^Back

Stowe Boyd

(Took me five minutes to log in to post this. I think my server and WordPress are ganging up on me to make sure I finish writing the my chapter by the end of the day. Evil.)

I have been watching the whole WIkipedia/Seigenthaler debacle like an avid hawk for many reasons, not just because it couldn’t come at a worse time as the godhead is at a conference this weekend bigging up the wiki, and we could do without anti-wiki press. I haven’t tried to form my thoughts into a coherent argument for many reasons, including that I’m worried it would end up being better written than the chapter I am currently struggling with, and that would just be heart-breaking.

Danah, as usual, though has written a wonderful article all about it, and I would like to bring to your attention her closing thoughts:

I am worried about how academics are treating Wikipedia and i think that it comes from a point of naivety. Wikipedia should never be the sole source for information. It will never have the depth of original sources. It will also always contain bias because society is inherently biased, although its efforts towards neutrality are commendable. These are just realizations we must acknowledge and support. But what it does have is a huge repository of information that is the most accessible for most people. Most of the information is more accurate than found in a typical encyclopedia and yet, we value encyclopedias as a initial point of information gathering. It is also more updated, more inclusive and more in-depth. Plus, it’s searchable and in the hands of everyone with digital access (a much larger population than those with encyclopedias in their homes). It also exists in hundreds of languages and is available to populations who can’t even imagine what a library looks like. Yes, it is open. This means that people can contribute what they do know and that others who know something about that area will try to improve it. Over time, articles with a lot of attention begin to be inclusive and approximating neutral. The more people who contribute, the stronger and more valuable the resource. Boycotting Wikipedia doesn’t make it go away, but it doesn’t make it any better either.

That’s all I have to say. Night all 🙂

Cas is currently

The following is a really rather long post. It has been sitting in my folder of shame for several months now and, whilst I have been working on it on and off all that time, I never really gave it the time it deserved. Today I polished it up and decided to present it to you. Why is it I can write near 3000 words for my blog in an hour, yet can’t do the same for my thesis? Anyway, enjoy, or not. I’m just talking to the dog here.

I once again find myself musing on the vagaries of the information age whilst riding on a relic of in the Victorian era (train) using a technology thousands of years old (pen and paper). For a while I have been thinking on and off about linking, both the mechanics and ethics of. I have talked a bit about this before, or at least pointed you in the direction of people who have been making sense on the topic lately, but I’ve never directly talked about my own views on whether/when you should link in the first place.

Regular Bright Meadow readers will be familiar with my Sunday Roasts – roundups of stories from that week. The majority of these posts comprise links to news-stories and cartoons, though a goodly proportion are to other blogs. Mainly these are to posts containing funnies, but with some regularity I link to posts containing peoples thoughts and opinions.

The fuss being, I hear you ask? Surely one of the beauties of the web is that all information is only a hypertexted click away? And it is. But a vast quantity of things stem from the difference between what a hyperlink actually is and what it is perceived as being.

A hyperlink, at it’s simplest, is a connection forged between one point in your hypertext document and another point somewhere on a vast connected network of computers and servers known colloquially as ‘the Internet’, or the ‘Web’. Despite the imposed functionality of the ‘back’ button and ‘history’ functions of browsers, hyperlinks are one way. Nor do hyperlinks have meaning built into them. They simply are. Any semantic meaning is imposed on the link afterward by the manual addition of some form of clarification (most often text).

Again, all happy and shiny.

It is a given that you should always credit where you get your ideas from. In the academic world you reference pretty much everything, and there are strict conventions on how you reference, be it from books, the internet, newspapers, archives, even personal conversations. It is imperative that, if you have used or mentioned another person’s ideas, you give your reader the means to track down that idea or result, to see it in its original context, so they can make up their own minds about whether you are drawing valid conclusions. This is a part of scholarship, I am more than OK with this, and frequently find myself champing at the bit when some journalist/blogger/author has quoted someone as saying something (or made a statement as fact), and hasn’t provided me with the means to check up on them. Hyperlinks provide a handy and fairly elegant way of doing this, either with internal links to a bibliography and reference list, or external links direct to the given source.

Yep. Got that.
Simple, even, you might say. Linking is good, that’s that, and this is going to be a short post.

Alas, no. Whilst the ethics and mechanics of academic linking are pretty much solidified into convention (which is often more binding than law), how to link on the Internet, and within the blogosphere (*chokes on the word*), is still being worked out. It is wonderful, and exhilarating to be writing the rules as we go, but it can lead to a whole host of unexpected complications.

The ‘problems’ start when pages, sites, and blogs (for example) are ranked in search engines and ‘Top Ten’ lists by computer algorithms that look at all the in-links into a document. The theory being the more in-links a document has, the more authoritative or popular the source must be, so the higher it appears in the search results listing (or on the Top Ten). The higher something is, the more often it gets linked to, the higher it appears in the rankings and so on till we all get dizzy. Computer algorithms, no matter how cleverly written, still just see a link, not any attached qualification as to whether it is positive, negative, or just plain indifferent. When you link to something you confer, without really thinking about it, a measure of approval. Even if you qualify your link with “I really, really don’t agree with what this person says”, you are still providing them with an in-link so making them seem (in many ranking mechanisms) more authoritative than perhaps they deserve to be.

(Now see if you understand the prevalance of ‘link-spamming’ in the comments fields of blogs. Caught on yet? … Good. Clever boy.)

9 times out of the 10, this is not a problem at all. We link to things that we think deserve to be shared, or agree with, or think explain a point better than we ever could. It stands to reason that such sites deserve to climb higher in the rankings of, for example, Google or Technorati. But then, how do you deal with sites you disagree with so strongly that you want to share your displeasure with your fellow readers? A “Warning, Here Be Dragons” kind of link. “Read At Your Peril”, if you will? You want to share the link to save those you care for stumbling across it by accident – in much the same way I tell pretty much everyone I meet that The Da Vinci Code is a shockingly badly written book that I wouldn’t recommend as toilet paper, to save them the pain of reading it. But, if your blog is popular, and people link to it, then slowly but surely this evil link you think is a pimple on the face of the Internet will rise in the rankings, till lo! It is high on the hit parade.

So that is an extreme example, but it could happen. Rather than napalming this site off the surface of the Web (denying it readers) you have conversely exploded its traffic beyond its creators wildest dreams.

Bummer.

There’s not much you can do about this, apart from not linking to sites you don’t like. A few clever people have been attempting to come up with alternative ranking systems, and ways of conveying inherent meaning with a link, and in a year or so I wouldn’t be surprised if everything was different, but for now, we’ll all just have to deal. From a personal blogging standpoint, the knowledge of this has skewed my linking style somewhat. I no longer (or very rarely) link to a post I disagree with. If I find myself linking to such a site, I try and link at least once to a site with a diametrically opposed viewpoint to balance everything out.

Now we’ve got our heads more or less around the idea that linking can have outcomes we never anticipated (or wanted), I would like to introduce the thought that perhaps there are times we shouldn’t link. Yes, you heard me. There are times when it might not be appropriate to link. For this one I am going to be focusing more on the special case of blogs, but the general idea holds true for pretty much everything on the web.

Take a moment and think on what blogs are. Blogs are a special case in internet publishing in that they can be incredibly personal, often containing intensely held personal beliefs and opinions. Therefore, when you link to them, you are holding up a flashing neon sign saying “Look at this! Look at this!”, and some people might not want their personal diaries gawped at by all you voyeurs out there. You could argue that, by publishing these opinions on the internet, the author is begging for it, but that argument gets you perilously close to JB’s ongoing observations that, in Japan, apparently girls who wear short skirts are just asking to be raped.

Yes, I agree that by putting my opinions out there on the great wide Internet I am saying “this is what I believe, this is what I hold to be true, these are my views” and giving my implicit permission to anyone and everyone who cares to, to do what they want with those views (so long as they credit me). And who can deny the pleasure and mini-(sometimes midi- or even maxi-) ego boost you get when someone links back to our carefully crafted words and says “I like this, this makes sense, you are a clever and wonderful person”. Sadly, the flip side of this is that for every nice thing said out there, there seems to be another ten nasty things being said.

Of the many instances I am aware of where in-links have not been as welcome by the linkee as the linker might have hoped, one springs to mind. One of the many blogs I have stumbled across over the past year is the blog of the divine Profgrrrrl, an academic blogger whose take on life I always enjoy (though I have yet to comment and tell her so. Yes, once again, do as I say not do as I do). Somehow or other she discovered that she had been linked to in a Wikipedia article that discussed the mini-phenomena of academic blogs. That is, blogs written by people in academia, but who only tangentially talk about their research, focusing more instead on their daily trials and tribulations. She wasn’t overly enthused that she had been linked to (without her permission) from such a visible source as Wikipedia. This I can sort of understand. Whilst we all want readers, I guess being linked to from Wikipedia is a bit like jumping up and down on the roof of your local department store in your underpants screaming “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!!!!!” Sure, your readership will go through the roof, but a fair number of them might be the unsavoury nutjobs who would spoil the ‘friend-circle’ atmosphere of most personal blogs. Thanks to the beauty of wikis (ah, the blessed wiki) she (or someone else, I can’t tell, damn culture of anonymity and never signing edits!) quickly edited the article so that another academic blogger was linked to as an exemplar. (What this other person had to say on the matter of being linked to I can’t say.)

My point being, you may think that giving a link is a lovely gift (unless your aim is to be mean, and then shame on you), but the recipient of your link might not feel the same way. We do have a habit of getting disproportionately attached to our little domains on the web, and I can think of people who I wouldn’t want to link to me. It is rather silly thinking that I can vet who has access to my blog, but I still find myself relying on this illusory sense of control to ausage my occasional jitters at how much of my daily life I find myself talking about on the web.

So, when should we link? Should we even be linking at all? That second is a silly question – of course we should link. I think you would be hard pushed to find more than a handful of oddballs who support the position that every web-document should be an island. Linking together is part of what makes us a community and, just in case you’ve been asleep whilst reading my posts this past year, I think community is great.

Personally I’ve started to practice what I like to think of as ‘Karmic Blogging’. Blog unto others as you would be blogged to yourself. If I can’t think of something nice to say, then I try to say nothing at all. If I can’t find a happy link, then I don’t link. ^*1*

When I do link, I make sure (to the best of my ability) that I link to the primary source, rather than a secondary summation of that source. If I was wearing my academic hat here, I would try to link to the original article/report/document, rather than some fellow academics spin on that article/report/document. If, for whatever reason, I do link to a secondary source (normally because they’ve added commentary I think is pertinent), then I try to make sure that the primary is still accessible, either through their post or through mine. Over time you come to find secondary sources who you trust and link to them more often. There’s no sure fire way to find out who these people are – you just have to discover them for yourself. If a blog is part of a network (9rules is one that springs to mind ^*2*), you can be a bit more assured that the content you find there is trustworthy, but that is still not a hard and fast rule. Use the brains you were graced with, with a healthy dose of skepticism to help it all down.

Addressing the issue of whether people want to be linked to, just use common sense. Whilst you can’t assume totally that, because they are on the internet they want to be linked to, the balance is probably leaning toward the “I want readers!” camp. If you think it’s appropriate, provide a link, but be prepared to take down the link if you are asked. Asking before you link is just not practical, nor necessary for the average post. If you are linking to something incredibly personal, maybe take a moment to think, and if in doubt either ask, or refrain.

While the above holds true for personal blogs, if you are linking to someone with the mind that you are publishing for a wider audience, say in a newspaper article, it is common courtesy to inform people that they are being quoted. A little while back, the really rather lovely Danah talked about blogs and the mainstream media. Not only is the post partly responsible for setting me off thinking about linking again (and so could be considered part-parent to this mutant of a post), but as she says, it raises another question. How long are we to be held to task for our views? I am on the fence on this one. There are times that it is useful to see how one persons ideas have evolved. At the same time, I can think of instances when it is better just to let the past lie beaten in the dust. I would be mortified, and I know many fellow academics would also, if, for example, someone turned round and started quoting my undergraduate dissertation at me as an example of what I believe now. Yes, it reflects the opinions I held at the time I wrote it, but they are not the same opinions I hold today, and who knows what I will think in the future? Again, there is no hard and fast rule on how you should quote somebody’s work, but if it is over a year old, please consider that they may have changed their mind by now and quote accordingly. “Cas thought…” rather than “Cas thinks…” Easy.

Oh, and don’t misquote me. I will find out, hunt you down, and beat you with sticks of celery. Not fatal, I know, just unpleasant for you and therapeutic for me.

Do, please, always try and include a short intro/description/pointer with the link. Something might not offend you, but there are some rather sensitive bunnies out there, and it’s only fair that you give people the chance NOT to click on something that might be offensive to them. Also flag up items that might require you to subscribe to a site to view them (certain newspapers, journals etc). If you can find an alternate (totally free and open) source, that would be even better.

And bear in mind the slightly dubious legal ground bloggers stand on with regard hyperlinking to illegal content. But that’s not a worry for us, is it, because we are all good little boys and girls. Aren’t we?

There endeth todays lesson on the ethics and practicalities of linking.

Now, because all of the above is just my opinion, feel free to disagree with me. That’s why I have a comments field after all.

Cas is currently

(I was going to serve this up as part of the Sunday Roast, but as I got typing I realised I had more that I wanted to say than could be fitted in a snappy two line summary. This is a topic I felt was deserving of its own post.)

Google Print gets going.

There has been a lot of kurfuffle lately about Googles plan to digitize every piece of information on the face of the planet and make it searchable, with a lot of good arguments presented on both sides of the debate. There has also been a load of complete dross spouted by proponents of both camps.

I figured it was about time I made my position clear.

I love reading. Nothing will ever persuade me that curling up in bed with a cup of tea and a good (print version) book isn’t one of the most pleasurable experiences known to mankind. Curling up with the laptop and an e-book just isn’t the same – eyestrain aside, there is the constant worry that I’ll spill the cup of tea, as I have been known to do on occasion. Books and bedsheets dry out. £2000 laptops tend not to. I find it hard to ever think of a time when I won’t want to be surrounded by books, if for no other reason than access to my entire library should not depend on remembering to charge my laptop battery. Nor, computer-saints preserve us, will it all be wiped out when (not if, when) my hard drive explodes. Barring fires and certain other natural disasters, my physical library should survive, and you can be pretty sure that a computer wouldn’t survive such events either. It is very telling that you can still read books written before the invention of the printing press, but frequently run into problems with media only a few years old if it is in the wrong format.

All of which might lead you to think that I am averse to the idea of digitising books.

You would be wrong. I think knowledge should be shared and, especially with more obscure texts, the average person simply doesn’t have access to a physical copy. My current research would have been impossible if I had had to rely on inter-library-loaning every single obscure journal article, instead of logging onto JStor or Google Scholar. The number of times I have read a print-article and gone ‘oh, if only I could search within the text for this one word…’ As a matter of fact my entire current thesis is based on the idea of open access to information. And Google Print isn’t really about reading novels online. It is far better suited to the person in search of information. Where is this quote from? Who wrote that? What were the findings of the 1936 Glastonbury Historical Society? ^*1*

I can see why there are some rumblings of discontent in the publishing industry – this is just one more in a long line of nails in the coffin of the conventional publication model ^*2*. As it stands, publishing houses pay authors a sum for the rights to their work, they publish it, charge people to buy copies, and (hopefully) get a profit. The mechanisms currently out there for publishers to get their money back when things are published/accessible online are clunky, often obtrusive, and wholly over-reliant on software/hardware dependent solutions that almost certainly won’t work in a year or so.

It is understandable why the thought of free access to the content of their books sends these people into a tailspin, but at the same time, just think on the benefits. Number one being FREE advertising for the work. Equate it to people dipping into the book in the bookstore to decide if they like it before they purchase it, because that is what most people are going to use it for. Finding information, trying it on for size, before committing to a fairly non-trivial purchase. It is one of the more galling features of modern life when you buy a text book online and get it delivered only to find that the one thing you needed it for is 1) not mentioned in the book or 2) only mentioned once or 3) completely and utterly wrong (all of which has happened to me more than once).

Publishers don’t charge people to get books out of the local library which, you have to agree, is one of the major attractions of the local lending library in this day and age. Is what Google Print trying to do really so very different?

I am grossly over simplifying, and gleefully ignoring copyright, and many other issues, which will keep legions of lawyers for both sides very happy for a very long time. At its simplest, the publishing houses are fighting tooth and nail for their very existence.

Rather than fighting, they might be better served accepting this new way of doing things, and evolving into something new that makes the most of the brave new world. The Internet, online access, and the drive for transparent access to information aren’t going to go away any time soon. I am not sold on the idea that Google are the best people to be in charge of this. They have shown a few tendencies which indicate they are not as appreciative of the whole ‘transparent data’ idea as they claim to be. But it is being done, right here and right now, and hiding heads like so many ostriches really isn’t the solution, nor is trying to freeze progress in its tracks.

A phrase I really hate does spring to mind right now – you can’t make an omlette without cracking some eggs. They said that VHS would kill the movie industry. Hollywood seems to have done alright. Give Google Print a chance. Or, better yet, start your own programs. Just because Google have decided to do it this way, doesn’t mean it’s the right way.

The following is a post that, whilst I hope you enjoy reading, is kind of a conversation with myself whilst I try to work some ideas out for my thesis. I hope you enjoy/find insightful. If you don’t, well, normal service should resume shortly.

There is a weird synchronisity happening in the cyber domain at the moment. A bizarre kind of mind-meld between disparate individuals from each of the main continents who, though they have never met, consider themselves to be partaking in a new form of relationship. With differing incidents of regularity, people from all walks of life come online and share their public and private hopes, trials, tribulations, dreams, nightmares, the minutiae of their existence, all in the hope that complete strangers will stumble across their musings and find them interesting and new.

I talk, of course, of blogging. There cannot be many more annoyingly and lazily named phenomenon’s than those we have been inflicted with lately. It is a sad day from the English language when the options open to the naming of new technologies are limited to the concatenation of mundane words (LiveJournal, WebLog), or prefixing with a lowercase vowel (iPod, eBook). What happened to the days when new things were given names that made your mind soar with the possibilities? Then again, this is not the post where I am going to talk in depth about the hideous terminology gifted to recent cyber-phenomena. Rather I want to take a moment and think on the trend itself.

I am not the first person to ask, nor, I am certain about this, will I be the last: why do we blog in the first place? ^*1*

I think it serves us to remember what a blog essentially is – a diary. The urge to keep a diary, or a log, of events happening to the author is one which has a long and respectable history. Among the more notable that spring to mind include The Diary of Anne Frank, the collected works of Samuel Pepys, and back to the Venerable Bede in the Middle Ages, Pliny (both elder and younger), Julius Caesar, and Herrodotus. As long as we have had the written word, people of all backgrounds have recorded the world as they saw it, and preserved their thoughts in a form that would be accessible to other readers. Part of this urge to keep a journal is no doubt partly for ego – the desire for someone else to come along in the future and agree with what we said, even the possibility they might think we were mighty intelligent for thinking such things – but I think also partly it serves as a release valve for our sanity. In any civilization there are external pressures on people to preserve the status quo. In many contexts it is just not appropriate to turn round to your boss and tell them that you think they are a complete arse. In a diary, at least one ostensibly private, you are safe to say what you want, so reducing the desire to take an Uzi to work with you one Monday morning. ^*2*

Western civilization is currently in the grips of a Cult of Celebrity. Witness the insane amount of interest in the love lives of actors and other people who contribute very little outside of the realm of entertainment. We are also addicted to celebrating the Mundane. The more ordinary something is, the better. Note the current rash of autobiographies and biographies written by and about people with as much claim to fame as the mug sitting on my desk half full of tea. Or the spate of reality television.^*3* With the advent of modern hypermedia, the opinions of Mr Woodhouse of 10 Wisteria Drive are suddenly as important and noteworthy as those of Professor Nottingham, Nobel laureate.^*4* Perhaps even more so. The common man on the street has to have his two cents worth, regardless of whether he can string two coherent words together. Everyone knows the episode of The Simpsons where Homer designs the car of his dreams that everyone is middle America is supposed to want, totally ignoring the advice of the trained professionals. He bankrupts the company, ruins his brother in the process, but still comes out the hero because he is Joe Public. They can do no wrong.

Marry these different phenomena together, add to the mix the prevalence of faster-than-ever internet connections with an increasingly web-enabled world, and you come to what, for me, is the main reason behind the average blog: they are the space where an average person can find momentary celebrity and be hailed by his/her peers for the one thing they are good at – being normal. To have a web-presence at all indicates a certain personality that, (maybe not consciously) is seeking affirmation, and that has a certain exhibitionist streak. Certainly, from a personal point of view, when I first joined a web-community way back in the mists of time, I found myself saying things that I would have been too shy to say without the mediation of a computer. Even now the (frequently illusory) anonymity of the web means I can say things I would hesitate to do in the real world. But it is not just enough to have a diary any more. We are no longer willing to wait for the day when (note I say when, not if, back to *3* again) we are famous, and someone wants to publish our memoirs. Push-button publishing and free hosting means that our most random thoughts can be posted on the web without the intervention of time to think, editorial process, or even checks for typos. I am guilty of it myself sometimes – think of something to say, quickly type it up, and hit ‘publish’, without a thought to what it might actually say about us. Instant gratification and pseudo-awe at our ‘spontaneity’ and bravery at saying whatever comes off the top of our head becomes more valued than reasoned arguments with time taken to check the facts (and grammar or sentence structure).

Gone also, in this bid for self-promotion is the desire to share and contribute to an idea or to engage in a discourse. Commenting and communication has remained fixed in the one-to-many model. Two way communication is normally limited to a comments field, where visitors are expected, even encouraged, to say a few lines and then link back to their own site, instead of saying anything useful. Part of the problem, or maybe just a symptom, is the prevalence on the web of systems that rate different blogs due to the number of other blogs that link to them (this is how Technorati works). If you want to get a higher ranking (seem more popular) then you have to get people to link to your site. One way of at least getting them there in the first place is to comment on their site and quite prominently display a link back to your own site. Once you’ve got them to your site, well, keeping them there is another matter all together. Bad design (of which examples are legion and I won’t dignify with links, but include auto-play music, pop-up greetings, overly flash/image laden sites, und so weiter) is one sure fire way of turning people off and can be remedied. Bad writing on the other hand is always going to be bad, unless you take the time to exert some editorial control over your words. And, if you’re following the traditional quick-publishing model, there is no hope. This desire to be read, appreciated, and worshipped is exemplified in Fishball’s blog, which is rapidly reaching cult status in certain ghettos on the web. This short lived blog documents Fishball’s downward spiral as he tried ever more bizarre ways of increasing his readership. Now all that is left is a comments page filled with readers asking Fishball to come back. Like a great artist, it seems he just wasn’t appreciated in his own time.

So why do I blog? I have always found the written word easier than the spoken, and have been writing journals and stories in an attempt to understand my life for as long as I care to remember. I find that by putting something down on the page, I gain objective distance, and frequently understand my motives and where to go next better than I would if I had just thought it through in my head.
That’s one part of it: blog = diary = place to work through ideas and what has been bugging me lately. The steam valve.
Also, I am bad at communicating with people. I just assume that if someone wants to know what is going on in my life, they will ask, but frequently people don’t ask.
Hence blog = mass email to people who care about me.
I always have, and I expect always will, found it hard to make friends with me people or to converse face to face. When I discovered the internet and message-board communities, it helped me to overcome some of my fears of talking to new people. I rapidly learnt that most people were just as scared of me as I was of them. I was at college with someone for two years, and it was only when we had both left and started to talk via email and MSN that we realised how similar we really were. Four years later she is still my best friend.
Blog = interface with people = a way people can get to know the ‘real’ me by bypassing the cripplingly-shy me most people meet when they see me face to face.
I also suffer from that oh-so-common malady of wanting to believe that my opinions matter and that I have some special talent that the world just hasn’t recognized yet. When a complete stranger stumbled across my blog, liked what he saw, and decided to stick around and write himself into my digital-life, it was a great feeling. Affirmation and confirmation of all I was doing.
Blog = self promotion = ego boost.

Pulling apart and analyzing the individual facets does not do justice to what a blog means to me. Most importantly, in my mind, a blog should serve to foster a sense of community between people. It should be a platform from which discussions can take place, ideas be generated, and friends made. Sadly, few blogs conform to this ideal. The majority are self serving and a waste of space. But consider the silver lining to the cloud of blogs – you will stumble across a blog you like (and I assure you there are some out there well worth the time and effort it took to find them), and, after a period of lurking, you might make a comment (please make it something worthwhile!). The other person might strike up a conversation, and then who knows? I have a soft spot for random internet acquaintances. It can go oh so horribly wrong, but once in a while it goes oh so wonderfully right.

So, how do I end this (even for me) long post? Simply by asking that you do a few simple things:
1) Think about what you blog. Take the time (if possible) to re-read your ideas. If you think you might be embarrassed by what you said when you read it back in the morning/next week/month/year, then it is a good indication that you shouldn’t be saying it in the first place. An exception to this is of course the posts you make whilst you are drunk. These are funny to us readers of your blog, and you are doing us a service by occasionally letting us have one.
2) Think about the design of your blog. If I have to turn something off or on, download something, highlight text, adjust my browser in anyway, or find you’ve altered my cursor, then the chances are I am not going to stay long on your blog. It’s a fast paced world out there. You have about 30 seconds maximum to make me want to stay. I am fickle. Pretty pictures make me happy, but overpowering backgrounds and logos just annoy me.
3) Let me know who you are. I take it I am on your blog to learn something about you. In that case, a few pointers like sex, rough age, what interests you, are always helpful. I’m going to be very annoyed if I take the time to read your blog only to find out three posts in that you are a neo-Nazi who finds burning kittens amusing. For example.
4) Give me some way to tell you that I like what you are doing and to engage you in conversation. Email is good. So are comments fields. MSN not so much, but if you insist.
5) Let me know who you’ve found out there that you like reading/communicating with. Chances are, if you like them, I’ll like them, and we’ll all have a happy time. It’s lonely sitting at my computer staring at the screen and there are only so many hours in the day in which I can find new people to play with.

Think that’s it. Any one got anything they’d like to say back to me?