Britblog woes and Bloghound sleepiness
Britblog
One of the characteristics of political bloggers of a certain bent is the way they try to stifle and snuff out any dissenting voices, i.e. they only wish for their own voices to be heard.
The difference between them and good blogs is that good blogs welcome any comment from any side but give warning that if it is not something the author agrees with, then there’s going to be a fierce debate. That blogger would then expect the same in return.
This political bent I’m referring to, quite apart from trying to snuff out any comment, also comes at you, not with arguments but with ad hominem. So if the good blogger was to say, for example, “The sky has clouds in it,” that ilk would come back and label such thinkers “Cloudists”, inviting other readers to ridicule Cloudists, insisting that they’ve won the “debate”.
We are coming up to a General Election over here.
Therefore, many people are writing political posts. Therefore, given the nature of the Britblog, where the rules state that any post submittedmust be published, providing it came from a British blogger and was on UK issues, given that, then any submitted post must be included.
Guess what? Not a bit of it. The usual suspects, of the ilk I’ve just been referring to, having already worked themselves into positions of “power”, now say they refuse to include political comment of a UKIP nature.
Tim Worstall, the originator of the Britblog, has offered a solution whereby he’ll host it each week until the election is over and that NO political content be included.
I’d like to know how Tim intends to weed out “political comment” and how he’d police that. Every time a Feminist or Labour blogger or Tory or UKIP posts on anything, however innocuous, that bias comes through – in the selection of material, in the things he/she thinks are important to blog about, in so many ways.
So what is a “non-political” post? What, something about little doggies or kitties or recipes or whatever? I had a feeling they’d try to stop Albion Alliance and other EU Referendum submissions and frankly, expected the furore.
Bloghounds
It is in the process of being revamped to take account of blogging reality, i.e. that people are not blogging as much, they’re not participating in groups as much and I’m thinking of three groups, as I write, where this is currently so.
Therefore, it seems to me and I’m putting my case over at BH, that Bloghounds becomes what it was originally intended to be – a badge of some meaning for “good” blogs, not a club with rules, regulations, infighting and lots of pointless administrative duties. There are enough of those in real life.
The example I give is Pajamas Media. In the U.S., it is a badge of distinction which bloggers carry in their sidebars.
Wiki:
Founded in 2004 by a network primarily, but not exclusively, made up of conservatives and libertarians led by mystery writer, screenwriter, and blogger Roger L. Simon, and until 2007, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, it was originally intended as a forum to present blogs and blog advertising “with the intention of… aggregating blogs to increase corporate advertising and creating our own professional news service.
Now, strangely for an out-and-out conservative and Albion Alliance supporter, I don’t think Bloghounds should be political [seemingly belied by the piece above on the Britblog] and so far, it is not political, in the sense that those of all political persuasions and non-persuasions are members.
The other problem is that political issue itself. Everyone knows that Iain Dale’s Awards are the benchmark in the UK. All right, they were taken over by Total Politics but they’re still an Iain baby. The trouble is that they are purely UK political – that is, unless you are commenting on the UK political scene, you’re nowhere.
Well, sorry to say this but there are many blogs out there which are excellent and which it would be lovely to see carrying the BH logo but they are simply not necessarily UK and definitely not political.
Why should they not be recognized?
Against this, what would be the reaction of an august blogger of many years standing, if he/she were offered the Bloghounds badge to put in the sidebar? At the moment, I’d imagine great amusement but don’t forget that Pajamas also began in a very humble way too, with just a few bloggers.
At Bloghounds, there are currently Cherie and myself, then others of the original steering committee and other members. Beginning there, if the criteria were fully thrashed out, then it would be a case, not only of inviting blogs but also of showcasing them when they carried our logo, in a “best of” way, perhaps peer voted.
I see it as running the way a professional association runs, our profession happening to be blogging. Many such bloggers would not be interested in joining a group but they might well carry a logo somewhere in the sidebar.
Criteria?
We all know what a good blog looks like but it doesn’t completely run on visitors, as many fine blogs are largely unknown and I’m thinking of two as I write. Some of those gardening/recipe blogs are not just pretty pictures but they are intelligent blogs with a theme and people like coming back to them over and over again.
It’s so difficult to put into words but such blogs carry a certain “authority”, for example, Welshcakes on Italian cuisine or Jams on Iran. The blogger posts virtually every day and the readers expect something new to be posted when they check in and not just posted but challenging or thought-provoking, even in a photo.
They’re not totally into themselves or consumed by tearing someone down year after year, ad nauseam. Their navigation is clear, they have a good “About” section and people can move about their sites freely. They’d really need to have been going for a long time and be known, even if not visited.
They’d have a purpose, other than “me, me, me” and trying to get back at one or two particular people. They might be political, they might not. For example, there is an American blog on home furnishing and it was constantly on about decorating houses, until the blog went dormant. That would have been a prime contender.
So, though top political blogs would obviously get an invite which they could laugh at or not, many other blogs, of all types, would also get a look in.
Anyway, that’s the idea.
Filed under: Life issues & people, Politics & economics
Honest and quality debate is the loser for it. The behaviour is also evident on certain police blogs, notably Gadget, where there is zero tolerance of adverse citizen comment. Such should carry the warning:
‘MEINUNGSVERSCHIEDENHEIT IST VERBOTEN’.
The other question is what makes a quality blog- perhaps I’m becoming more and more intolerant in my old age but there are very few blogs on which quality thought takes place and many of them don’t update regularly. Mercurius Politicus is a very very good blogger but sometimes has posts up only once or twice a month- everything he writes is worth reading- much more than say some of the gossip bloggers. I think I am becoming more of a purist in terms of blogging- I keep meaning to shake up my blogroll for that reason because I do think that there aren’t very many good blogs in the UK. What would be the leftwing blogs incidentally on another tack you would invite to Bloghounds?
Take someone like Unity or Flying Rodent or even the way Shuggy used to blog. Now one can disagree with their conclusions but one can’t knock their turn of phrase or thoroughness.
There are some excellent blogs where the blogger takes great care. You’d be a prime candidate.
MTG – indeed.
For what it’s worth,
Unkind though it be to say so,
Cutting out political comment would be a
Keenly enjoyable activity.
Less about politics
And more about
Ball games and Nature
Or, come to think of it,
Uisquebaugh.
Respect!
Britblogs has gone down hill lately and I don’t read it any more.
For Tim to host it without political comment will be easy. There will only be three articles a week and they will be on cooking and knitting.
James, Just a few quick thoughts at the moment.
You say, “We all know what a good blog looks like“.
This doesn’t tell the whole story. Closer to the truth is that “We all know what we judge to be a good blog.” This is very subjective. This isn’t a problem but it flags up that what is good to me won’t necessarily be good to you or Gracchi or whomever.
Gracchi makes the same point, I think, when he asks “ What makes a quality blog …?” To Gracchi quality thought is a key criterion but this will not be so for all.
What is “good”?
What is “quality”?
Sorry, I’m back at the start again.
The criteria of membership don’t come first but other questions come there. e.g. what would be the purpose of any grouping – to the group to individuals?
Why bother having a group with this purpose?
Why not be a solo blogger with this purpose?
What are the benefits to a blogger?
What are disadvantages?
Hope this helps.
Will ruminate.
Honest, quality debate is always lost to bigotry. You can also find zero tolerance of adverse citizen comment on the Inspector Gadget police blog.
‘MEINUNGSVERSCHIEDENHEIT IST VERBOTEN’
Silly me. Early Alzheimer’s coming on.
Callum’s right- for me a quality blog is one that has high quality thought on it- it doesn’t matter how often the blog publishes articles just that they are interesting when they are published. So I never read someone like Iain Dale or Guido- simply because their product doesn’t interest me. For others wanting gossip, my blog would be impenetrable and look silly. Equally I think with Britblog there is a tendency for it to become totally political especially towards an election- that bores me because the yah boo sucks nature of the commenting doesn’t stimulate me but it might stimulate others.
I think blog associations are more useful if they are associations of a type of blogger- say analytical historical or political gossip or whatever- rather than just saying we are the good bloggers- the question that provokes is good for what?
MTG – no matter. Calum – it was precisely that I was suggesting – not a group at all but a solo blogger with a badge in his sidebar.
James
I don’t think you can have individual bloggers carrying a badge. The badge is meaningless if any can carry it but if not all can carry then someone must decide if, for example, Joe ’s Blog should get a badge. This way a group is formed and hence you have a group rather than individuals.
I am confused and continue to ruminate.
Sorry!
An interesting discussion. However, I for one (even were I to be ‘invited’), am extremely selective in the ‘badges’ I choose to display in my little blog and have declined to include many more than I have wished to show; there are always compromises in such groupings and I have grown weary of making them. Just a few weeks ago I specifically excluded myself from a blog ranking exercise being conducted here in Scotland by the ‘Scottish Roundup’ blog – I have never understood the purpose of these rankings and the posting of entries in blogs asking for others to vote for them; Iain Dale’s exercises are a similar form of blog ‘onanism’. Good luck to those who feel a high ranking in this kind of listing is of importance, but I do not. Now, for some bizarre reason, at 11pm at night there are fireworks being set off at the edge of the cricket pitch outside my window,- so I will watch these whilst the show continues.
Best regards
Bill
At the moment groups/clubs are not the in thing either in blogland or RL, I think it is one of those signs of the times.
One idea I didn’t get to explore with you properly is that everyone who displays the badge should contribute a blog post to the site maybe on a rotational basis? Maybe a unique post that hasn’t been published on their own blog. I think this could make the Bloghounds interesting to others.
Just one of my thoughts to ponder on…
Who wants to be a member of a club that doesn’t have strippers, free booze or a XMas party?
Why bother? I write risible tosh, usually under the influence of a great deal of alcohol, and I write for myself. No one reads my rubbish but so what? It amuses me to write it at the time.
Too many people labour under the delusion that they have something new to say. I accept that, like very nearly everyone else, I have bugger all to say but am unable to keep quiet. What would a badge of any kind prove except that someone whose opinion I don’t value thinks my opinions are worth reading?