I missed this hoopla, but I've been slugging through it all (thanks bill) here and over on empyre. As I said to my friend, "this is a long thread where people who use different modes of online communication are arguing passionately about which is better." Sounds dumb, but it's not, for one reason: the what's-better-a-list-or-a-blog-debate is a stand-in for the more fundamental difference between writing for a broad audience, and writing for an expert elite. Blogs are more like magazines, and lists are more like, well, like lists. Lists are older and full of that cunning punning cryptic technical language that both programmers and academics thrive on. Blogs (at least the blogs I like), perhaps partly because of the individualistic ego of the blogger, tend to be written plainly, with explanations and context given when jargon is required. Is this attention to an invisible potential mass readership a bastardization of the once-refined online community? Probably. Can it be reversed? No way.
Chris Ashley and Tom Moody, with their plain talk and accessible, transparent propositions were speaking a fundamentally different language from the empyre list members. I suspect the lack of meta-level hyper referentiality was genuinely disorienting to the list. What do you do when someone asks you a direct question?
Why does the thread work here and not there? I think its mainly because Tom is actively moderating. Eventhough he is a fully engaged participant, who gets his shirt in as big of a knot as anyone else, at the same time he is stepping back, making jokes, taking up queries with honest answers, showing the odd bit of humility, always with the unseen, unknown reader in mind. I feel like I can chime in here, when I'd never in a billion years post this to empyre. But is that my fault or theirs?--who cares!
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Chris Ashley and Tom Moody, with their plain talk and accessible, transparent propositions were speaking a fundamentally different language from the empyre list members. I suspect the lack of meta-level hyper referentiality was genuinely disorienting to the list. What do you do when someone asks you a direct question?
Why does the thread work here and not there? I think its mainly because Tom is actively moderating. Eventhough he is a fully engaged participant, who gets his shirt in as big of a knot as anyone else, at the same time he is stepping back, making jokes, taking up queries with honest answers, showing the odd bit of humility, always with the unseen, unknown reader in mind. I feel like I can chime in here, when I'd never in a billion years post this to empyre. But is that my fault or theirs?--who cares!
- sally mckay 6-15-2005 1:28 am