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Thursday, June 12, 2008

blog wars

There's a comment over at Troppo on old blogwars*, siding with the
people who neither know nor care about the history of this matter

One thing that's been interesting to observe in the recent great big blogwar shakeout of the cyberbullies of old* is how quickly people forget. Even with with google. Or maybe your google-fu is only as good as your inclination to remember.
It used to seem that the blog in question was one of the major blogging players, here to stay. I witnessed the rise and rise of it, and was always baffled and dismayed that its essential nastiness, that for me negated any cleverness, drew such a big crowd. I always suspected that Snark would run its course - in the end it's a reductive slide to a place where everything is meh. But I didn't predict this ending. Also, I could not have predicted the extent to which people forget, blogs disappear, communities move on.
So we're all ephemeral, and blogs feed off the present despite the permalink that presumes a record of the past.
And I suspect that a history of oz-blogging (if it ever gets written) will be a fairly standard chronicle of clusters and stats that will forget the gossip and the various spats and brain-snaps of maverick voices.
Does anyone care? Yep - I think it's all fascinating, and as always history is enlightening.
And maybe it is more fascinating because of the sense of historical proof that permalinks provide, it strengthens the inklings of memory into a gotcha.
 

9 comments:

peacay said...

Dear goD thanks be that this turgid blog ripple never made it over my bow. The longer I am here the more comforted I am by my own ignorance.

boynton said...

Yep.
I think blognorance is something to cultivate.

peacay said...

blognorance

That's the most beautiful word I've seen today. tyvm.

Anonymous said...

top marks for the asterisk link.

austere? timid? just plain small?

gorgeous

boynton said...

Timid? Was it aste-risk minimisation?

The * link is a stylistic preference, when I don't want the blue to overwhelm the post.
* was for the benefit of my 3 OS readers who may have been perplexed by the in-house shorthand.

Ann ODyne said...

Brilliant post dear B, and while Tienanmin above is irritating, at least his comment brought the post to my attention, having been elsewhere in June.
I followed the asterisk.
It all just confirmed my existing opinion/suspicions.
Little story about 'little blogging':
Two of the big wheels at The Nasty Blog, used to have blogs of their own where I commented a lot.
I was the only commentor at both their blogs.
Neither of these people EVER returned my calls.
Just sayin'.
Maybe it is me who is the complete waste of space.

100 Comments per post, does not a good blog make.

peace and love

boynton said...

I've always had a preference for the smaller blogs myself, and smaller comment threads.
100 comments is too noisy.
Signal to noise ratio is usually pretty low.

Anonymous said...

Funny how you say a history of oz-blogging would excise the gossip and spats. I hope not. It seems to me that the spats, blogwars, and personalities are what characterises those particular corners of oz-blogging. That thread at CT just goes to show that nothing changes. A history without the spats would be a story without explanation. Skeletal, no flesh.

I could go so much further but I won't. Save it for an essay on historiography one day.

(BTW, hi again. It's been a while.)

boynton said...

hey, welome back, Kent!

I hope not, too.

I was just being cynical about the sort of dry history that might be served up by the Communications post-graduates of 2010.

If by then blogging has become sufficiently mainstreamed and professionalised, then it might get a mainstream history.

I love the stoushes and spats, myself (though it's easier to witness as a spectator ;) Those key ingredients of any good drama - urgency and passion, unfolding in real time...