RSSMetablognitive Questions
Aug 5th, 2007 | By Eric Hoefler | Category: AsidesI was reading my way back into the “edublogosphere” when I came across Doug Belshaw’s post “8 things that irritate me with edublogs.” It got a few people talking that I’ve traded comments with in the past, and it got me thinking about some questions I’ve asked myself before and found myself asking again as I prepared to jump back into blogging.1
Should blogs have disclaimers?
Absolutely, and I think they should be clearly stated and easy to find. That would clear up some confusion and minimize some complaints. If a blogger tells you he likes to write about rock climbing (which you love) and kittens (which you hate), then you can make an informed decision about whether or not to subscribe, depending on your kitten tolerance and the quality of the rock-climbing posts. And if you do subscribe, then you have no business complaining about the kittens.
How many blogs should a person have?
This is a tough one for me. I write for an “imagined” audience of both friends and strangers, many of whom I assume to be teachers or at least interested in the field of education. However, I don’t break my non-education topics into separate blogs because, at least for me, they’re all connected. And I do post some personal items, like photo sets or major life decisions and travel announcements. Also, while I understand why some people have multiple blogs, sometimes that makes it difficult for me to keep track of their thinking without adding five new feeds to my over-stuffed reader.
On the other hand, when I decided I would want to write regularly about my travels, I knew I would have to get a second blog. The people who would want daily/weekly updates on my travel itinerary are probably not the same as my imagined audience for this blog.
How much should you include in your feed?
I think options are important. My “main” feed contains all the posts from this site … but nothing more (no links, photos, comments, etc.) I also offer an education-only feed for the true minimalist. However, should you want to become my cyber-stalker, I’ve made it easy by providing the feeds for all my other services, both in the sidebars and on my “subscribe” page. Still, the choice is yours.
How often should you try to post?
An “active” blog should get updated at least twice a week. I do wonder about blogs written by one person that get four or five updates every day: where does the time come from? how much thought has gone into the post? Thoughtful reflection, revision, and research should go into most posts, unless they’re just brief announcements.
How long should your posts be?
If you’re going to write thoughtfully, and accomplish more than just calling attention to something, your posts will tend to be longer. Two caveats: the length of the post should fit the significance of the topic, and the length should be justified by the carefulness of the writing. If your posts are long because you don’t revise, that’s just bad writing. However, I don’t feel the need to cut up my thinking to please lazy readers.
How much should you include in your sidebar?
I still haven’t settled on an answer to this one. I believe in the aesthetics of simplicity: I prefer a well-designed but uncluttered page. On the other hand, if I’m interested in a blogger, I want to be able to find his or her other public online activities easily. I use my blog as a way to collect my online life, and to allow friends to keep track of what I’m doing, so I want everything I do online that’s public and important to me to be found easily by my readers. I’ve jumped back and forth between a Pageflakes pagecast with a minimal blog design and a full, double-sidebar design. Any advice here?
So these are my important blog questions and responses. What are yours?
- On a side note: while reading around to write this post, I came across “Blog Advice from Winnie the Pooh” … worth a read! [back]
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Thanks for this considered response, Eric - this alternative question-and-answer approach is a good one. I shall be pointing people towards this in future…
Eric, I thought quite a bit about most of the things you’ve mentioned here when I was in the process of setting up my blog and then, later, making adjustments in an effort to make it reader-friendly. I found Stephen Downes’ article How to be Heard very helpful.
At this point, I’m reluctant to mess with the format because I’m afraid of alienating people or screwing something up that readers might like, even if I don’t. It might be similar to the thinking that goes into a major change in personal appearance (wardrobe, hairstyle, etc), wondering how people will react. In the end I like the advice I got from Graham Wegner when I started looking for a new blog template. In so many words, he said that first you have to please yourself. There are a couple of things that I’d like to change on my own blog, but I don’t know whether they’re important enough to deal with.
I’ll try to tackle some of the questions you’ve asked, applying my current thinking (as opposed to what I’m currently doing.)
The sidebar: I used to have a Recent Comments section, and a Top 10 hits list. I liked those things, and when I put the new template in, I disabled those plugins and never reactivated them. I want to turn those things back on, and need to hunt through the files for my old template to see where the code that does those things is located. The blogroll is something that I’m thinking of taking off the blog, and just including a link to. It’s already just a list on del.icio.us that displays on the blog. I wonder if it slows the page loads too much. There are other more political sites that I’ve started reading, and I’d like to share those links, too. But the blogroll is all (or mostly) education-related teacher sites. There are so many more teachers blogging now than there were when I began, and my reading habits have changed, how do we acknowledge that dynamic condition in a blogroll? It could require constant maintenance.
Post length: I work hard to keep my posts around 750 words, or less. I find that very hard to do. One of the problems is that when I want to contextualize a point I’m trying to make, I tend to quote from another source I’ve linked to. This feels excessive sometimes, and I wonder just where to draw the line on when, and how much to quote. The other thing I try to do is to stick to one main point, rather than throwing all my ideas about something into a post. Again, I’m not always as successful as I wish I was with this.
Frequency of posting: I’ve fallen down with this, lately, and I know why. For one thing, reading stuff on the internet - especially the political sites I’ve begun to read - has started me thinking about things that I don’t know a whole lot about. So I’ve been doing a lot more reading than writing. I’ve also learned to be a little bit more careful about what I say. This isn’t necessarily a good thing because I probably self-edit too much as I compose, and I fear I may lose some spontaneity in the process. Still, I don’t want to look back over stuff I’ve written and feel like I was an irresponsible idiot for saying something. So I post less frequently, and try to avoid feeling like I’m on a schedule. Two posts a week sounds about right. I’d like to post more often, but that’s hard to manage with a job and a family.
The feed: I publish everything in one feed. Having a separate blog for different subjects seems like a good idea. In any case, I don’t think that we should avoid including personal information because it might not be “interesting.” Point of view is necessary for making sense of the information we get from blogs. As I said in my comment on Doug Belshaw’s post, Personal stuff is OK, if the person is interesting. No matter what a blog is about, I think that bloggers need to develop a sense of boundary for what they write. Not only is it a matter of privacy, but also one of coherence for readers, and this is involves judgments that every blogger has to make on their own.
Disclaimers: I don’t think that personal blogs need disclaimers so much as they should have statements of purpose. It’s a assumed, I think, that blogs are personal statements. We don’t issue disclaimers all the time when we talk, after all. However, I do think that corporate blogs, or blogs that are commercially sponsored, or represent an organization of some kind, should say so up front. After reading Stephen Downes’ article, I put together an About page as a way of clarifying my purpose in blogging. It was as much for me as it was for visitors to the site, and it was a good exercise. A lot of people have come to the blog because of that page. I even re-read it recently, and it helped me to clarify my thinking about something. One thing that I do think a blogger should absolutely have on the front page of their blog is their name. Whether it’s their real name, or a nickname. It’s good for other people who want to leave comments or mention your blog to know what to call you.
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I also wonder about people who always post many entries per day. I just figure it’s either part of the job or their boss is sympathetic to the topics their writing about. Or they’re looking for work.
But then there have been times when I’ve written four or five posts in a day. Sometimes I just get a lot of ideas queued up and then find the time to do something with them all. I don’t guarantee the quality (or the grammar), however.
As to the sidebar, it’s like I teach the people in my web publishing classes. Too much stuff and people just ignore most of it, or get confused and go somewhere else.
@ Doug B: Thanks, Doug! Glad you found it useful, and thanks for inspiring my own reflection.
@ Doug N: Thanks for the thoughtful reply and helpful resource. And you’re right about “disclaimers” … what I meant is better named “statement of purpose.”
@ Tim: I’ve experienced what you’re talking about with the idea queue, and sometimes that’s fine. I’m currently unemployed and just waiting for my house to sell, so I might get “multi-postal” over the next few weeks. I’ve been chipping away at my own sidebars over the last few days and *think* I’ve about got ‘em right. Finding the balance between providing useful resources easily and presenting a pleasing sight can be difficult sometimes.
[...] towards the 8 things that I like about edublogs. Also check out Eric Hoefler’s helpful post Metablognitive Questions and Stephen Downes’ How To Be Heard. Popularity: 1% [?]Bookmark:These icons link to social [...]