Enough about me, let's talk about you

(This was the most interesting GIS result I found for 'interactivity'. It's not the type of interactivity I meant, but it'll do.)

Why do I blog?

I've touched on this before, of course. I like to write, and I have an interest in writing about current events - thus, a blog would seem to be the best outlet for combining both activities. And it is.

But more to the point, I'm interested in hearing from people who either agree or disagree with me. That's why I have comments open (and unmoderated if on a post from within the past two weeks, moderated past that only so I can track new comments on old posts). That's why I link to this blog from pretty much any profile I have anywhere on the Internet (for the first year or so, it was even my MSN status message).

Not everybody follows this line of thinking though. Some people in my class have turned comments off completely, and others leave them on but try to avoid seeking them. Their reasoning is that they're not sure they would respond well to negative feedback - either they're not emotionally able to handle it or they're not going to be able to rebut.

I understand their feelings to a degree. Especially because they were forced to blog - they wouldn't have done it on their own, and they're not going to keep it up once the semester ends. However...it's a journalism class. They're all journalism students. Presumably this means they want to be journalists. And maybe I'm wrong in my thinking, but it's my understanding that working journalists will get feedback from people they've never met. Usually negative feedback - strangers are more likely to tell you you're doing something wrong than you're doing something right.

So if they can't handle negative feedback from complete strangers now, what makes them want to pursue a career where they're virtually guaranteed it in the future?

There's also the matter of people - and I'm not sure our class had any of these - who disable comments because they want you to know what they think, but they don't particularly care what you think. People who would rather have their opinions be thought of as fact than have any sort of debate. This is possibly the biggest turn-off I ever see in a blog - and I wonder if there's something to the fact that most of the time I see it, it comes from people with a political ideology somewhere to the right of mine.

I've generally been pretty lucky with the feedback I've received on this blog. Most of it comes from friends, fellow bloggers, and assorted other people I already know. These people read almost everything, comment on only what interests them, and are always respectful and (aside from one devout supporter of Ughur freedom) leave political biases aside.

Aside from that, there's a smaller group of commenters who are dedicated to a particular issue (the concept of micro-news comes into play here, I guess), and only visit my blog as often as I talk about that issue. For example, the person who commended me for pointing out that Maple Leaf and Maple Lodge are not the same company, even though they sound similar and even grocery store workers (like I was at the time) can get them confused.

Finally, we come to what everybody is afraid of: the malicious comments tearing apart everything you say. I can only recall one instance of this happening to me, and it's a recent one - the maliciousness blunted quite severely by the fact the attack came from the Esperanto lobby of all people.

It's very hard to take organized attacks on your blog seriously, because to me it means that provoking that attack means you're doing something right. If what you say causes an entire group to respond, especially if the responses all seem to be along the same lines, they're probably doing it because something you said is not in the best interests of their group.

*insert segue here*

I've always felt like the intelligence (and quality) of feedback was inversely proportional to the reputation and popularity of who was receiving it. I'm far from the first person to independently come to the conclusion that Youtube comments are the lowest form of Internet-based discourse, but there's definitely a ring of truth to it. Youtube is immensely popular - at this moment, Alexa ranks it as the fourth-most-visited site on the Internet - and so the people who comment on Youtube videos are those who don't have anywhere better to offer their opinions. I suspect that most of the 'stupid Youtube commenters' are nine-year-olds who really are doing exactly what you'd expect of a nine-year-old. Most of these people may have migrated from AOL.

Then you come to the obvious legitimate news sites - the Globe and Mail, TSN, CBC, et cetera. These are a step up from Youtube in the sense that people commenting on stories at these sites are at least a little bit engaged with the news, able to string together coherent sentences, and understanding that these are reputable websites. However, whatever they type into the comment box is exactly the same as what they would say to the newspaper or the television set had they seen the story on those media - still not exactly well-thought-out, and certainly not about to engage in anybody in serious debate.

Finally, blogs. Nobody just happens to stumble upon a blog. Nobody kills time by going to an unknown blog the way they do going to CBC.ca. If you're reading a blog, it's because you're already interested in what is being said, and who is saying it. If you're commenting on a blog - and I'm talking about a real standalone blog here, not a 'blog' written by a Toronto Star reporter for the Toronto Star's website - it's because you're interested in the topic, want to make your own thoughts known, and are interested in having a debate.

In that sense, blogs are the best form of journalism when it comes to fostering public debate, ergo blogs are the most democratic form of journalism.

--Ryan