No to echo chambers, No to blind ideology and partisanship via Werner Patels - A Dose of Common Sense
Blogging BS via Werner Patels - A Dose of Common Sense
Jonathan Kay says that blogs can be effective via Dr Roy's Thoughts
The Missing Link via Vancouver Blog Miss 604
Copyright © 2008 Miss604 - Rebecca Bollwitt. Visit the original article at http://www.miss604.com/2008/06/the-missing-link.html.I’ve noticed an overall trend in the blogosphere which involves a conspicuous decrease in link love. Blogrolls are disappearing and going the way of the hat tip.
Photo © Waxy on Flickr - All Rights Reserved - WaxyPhotography.com
Blogrolls are link lists often found on sidebars of blogs or websites that list other blogs. People can display recommended reads, useful website tips, show off their friends, and give some overall link love when using a blogroll. Lately I’ve noticed a trend of moving this off of the main page and having a “links” page instead. Here are some pros and cons of a “links page” that I’ve discussed... Kinsella v Cherniak via Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues
Password-protected blog? via Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues
A lesson in how to lose voters via Werner Patels
Wednesday Link Fest: With a Bang via Miss604's Vancouver Blog
Copyright © 2008 Miss604 - Rebecca Bollwitt. Visit the original article at http://www.miss604.com/2008/02/wednesday-link-fest-with-a-bang.html.Now that my site is moved over to a new host, which makes me ecstatic by the way, I’m ready to ramp up with posting again. If you’re experiencing any difficulties leaving comments it may just take a bit longer for everything to sync up so please try again in a few hours if possible.
Here’s what’s making headlines in the news and the Vancouver blogosphere today.
Darren asks, when does an homage just become a rip-off, in regards to Citizens Bank’s new RSP video that looks suspiciously like something CommonCraft would make. Sure, they credited and linked one of CC’s YouTube videos on their site, but still.
A Taco... New Democrats Online … now online! via Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues
What a great looking blog aggregator: the new New Democrats Online aggregator and website for what used to be known as the Blogging Dippers is now online.
It really looks quite professional and provides a members only area for discussions, etc. Green hearts will be aflutter once it becomes widely known that the site is hosted in a carbon-neutral manner -- at least, that's the claim made on the New Democrats Online website.
Devin Johnston, and a few others, have been working really hard to improve the old Blogging Dippers site and brand (and the creator of the original Blogging Dippers, therefore, is not too happy).
For Devin, who started law school just this past fall, to pull that off and then some, that's just remarkable and worthy of respect. Chapeau, mon......
Blog profile: IndieScribe via Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues
Amid a sea of millions of blogs, it is only too easy to be overlooked. This is what's been happening to the excellent IndieScribe blog.
The author of the blog is identified as Evelyn Dreiling (and apart from syndicated blog posts, there isn't much information about her available online), but an older page identifies Scott Robarts as the blog owner, who writes, for example, the following inspiring words:I consider myself a freelance journalist and aim to break out of what some are calling the blog echo chamber. I will be doing original reporting on various issues which are affecting our world.Scott and Evelyn seem to be an item -- professionally and/or privately -- as they also both appear on this blog. At any rate, Scott seems to have moved on from his goal of becoming a journalist,...
Professionalizing the blogosphere via Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues
Recently a few of us bloggers in Alberta were interviewed for a newspaper article on blogging (Town & Country, part of the Great West Newspapers group, which includes, for example, the Athabasca Advocate). Among those interviewed were myself, Ken Chapman, David Cournoyer and Aaron Braaten (blogger and creator/owner of AlbertaBlogs).
In the article (Update: now available online), Aaron Braaten is quoted as saying about the role of blogs in politics:Blogging will be good for the politicians who understand the medium ??? I think the technology might be enough to steal some votes away from the stodgy incumbents who just don???t get the technology.Ken Chapman agrees, who feels that politicians have been "notoriously slow" in adopting, and adapting to, the new medium. He expects more...
Anonymous bloggers are like phone perverts via Werner Patels - Ideas and Issues
by Werner Patels
In the world of media, there are those who produce media content and those who consume it. Even now, with millions and millions of blogs around the world -- and they, too, are media content -- the group of consumers of TV programming, newspapers, magazines, etc. is still the bigger of the two. Still, the producers of content continue to have more power and influence than their numbers would suggest, particularly the news media, because they do not only sway public opinion but, in fact, often shape it and determine the outcome of elections. This, among other things, is possibly the main reason why political blogging came into being. People had gotten sick and tired of sending their letters to the editors of newspapers for publication, only to have them rejected because... Libel chill — or necessary ‘tough love’? via THE SPADE
This is not going to make me many friends in the blogosphere (who cares), but I agree with Richard Warman. While it is true that some of the insults listed in his libel lawsuit are too trivial to be considered on their own, when combined with some of the other things people have written about him, it is clear to me that he does have a strong case (and I would have sued too if I were in his shoes).
That doesn't mean that I agree with his "hobby" of scanning the Internet for potentially offensive remarks, so that a cart load of people can be hauled before some human rights tribunal yet again, but when people write insulting and defamatory things -- not by accident, but by design and out of maliciousness -- it actually becomes criminal, rather than merely civil libel.
It is one of those...
I’ll be darn! via THE SPADE
Hell has frozen over -- Warren Kinsella has actually remodelled his "blog" into a real blog:After more than half-a-decade - and after no shortage of complaining and kvetching from some folks, demanding permalinks and RSS feeds and the like - www.warrenkinsella.com is changing.Yes, his new blog has permalinks and even trackbacks (although he'll never allow any trackbacks), but still no comments.......
Blogosphere must differentiate itself via THE SPADE
by Werner Patels
A leftist blogger wondered recently about the reasons why conservative (or non-leftist) blogs were more popular than those on the political left. His question spawned a slew of responses in the comment section of his blog, and most of it wasn't flattering to leftists at all.
To give a real answer to his question, one must remember the original situation that gave rise to political blogging in the first place. At the time public political debate was dominated by the media and the politicians themselves. Members of the general public could give their ??? modest ??? input on election day and, for example, by writing letters-to-the-editors to newspapers and magazines (most of which were censored or tossed in the bin). If anyone wanted to be heard and have a real voice,...
Blogrolling.com via THE SPADE
Bloggers may have noticed that the Blogrolling.com blogroll service has not been working properly for days. While blogrolls based on the service are up and running, the pinging/update feature isn't working.
This has happened many, many, many times before -- and users' support requests sent to Blogrolling.com would go unanswered for weeks, sometimes months (Blogrolling.com is not exactly known for speedy or effective customer service).
To my surprise, though, I received a reply to my query within 72 hours (but it took three support requests to get a reply). Here's what they had to say:We are currently working on a new version of BlogRolling with updated features and some fixes to commonly encountered problems, such as pinging and some formatting issues.
We don't have a set timeframe as...
They can’t be serious via THE SPADE
I just noticed, for the first time, that one well-known blogging aggregator has started advertising on Google Ads: the Blogging Tories.
Why would they have to advertise on Google Ads? They're already the most established aggregator in the Canadian political blogosphere.
Who would be paying for the cost of advertising? Members of Blogging Tories? Stephen Taylor? Or, perhaps, the Conservative Party?
After all, the Conservative Party seems quite fond of its Blogging brothers and sisters.
Then, there were also some (embarrassing) revelations in Tom Flanagan's new book:Some Liberal strategists grumble that the Tories use sympathetic bloggers to provide political spin that the party cannot or will not, by circulating information that may be misleading, with little accountability.
In his... Are right-wing blogs more successful? via WERNER PATELS.COM
Why are so few Canadian left-wing blogs popular, wonders this blogger.If you've ever been interested in reading Canadian political blogs but have no idea where to start, Paulitics compiled a list last month of some of the most popular political blogs in the country. It's not even close to an authoritative or scientific ranking, but it does give a sense of some of the better-read online writing on politics.
What I don't get is why so many on the list lean to the right, or at least fail to identify as progressive, small-l liberal or lefty in any way. How are left-wing blogs getting it wrong? Or perhaps more aptly, how are conservative blogs finding large audiences? Is this a comment on the reach of the left in general?One commenter replies:The left has newspapers, the right has...
Manage your aggregator or let someone else do it via WERNER PATELS.COM
In the past seven days or so, I have had to send and request updates to my blog listings on two blog aggregators, Opinions Canada and Blogging Canadians. In one case, I even got a read receipt, but the request for the update was still ignored. In the other case, silence is the only reply I have received so far (and the update has not been implemented either).
There are a couple of things that are wrong with this:
In return for my (correct!) listing, I provide links or even buttons to those aggregators
If you want to run an aggregator, you must also be prepared to spend some time managing it and cannot ignore requests from your users.
I'll give it another week (and send out more reminders), but if my listings have not been updated as requested, I will remove the links/buttons from my...
Blogging tips via WERNER PATELS.COM
Bloggers4Labour provides probably the most extensive list of blogging tips I have come across so far:Post regularly - but don't worry if you aren't posting every day.
Make sure your Atom or RSS feed is working - there are services like Feedburner that can provide you with excellent additional features that will help people find your blog and keep reading it.
Make sure your feed has valid dates, so Bloggers4Labour can use it
Don't feel you have to allow comments on your blog (though they usually lead to a higher and more 'loyal' readership) but if you do, respond promptly to comments and don't delete comments just because you don't like what people say, but do feel free to delete them if they are offensive. If this becomes an issue you may want to develop a comments policy....
State of the Blogosphere Address via The Alberta Globe
My fellow Canadians,
A serious and grave matter has been brought to my attention. As I have learned, my recent post about abolishing the Liberal Party of Canada has caused a major rise in Global Wernering.
After instructing senior staff to investigate the situation thoroughly, it has become clear that the BlogO2 emission standards under the Calgary Protocol were exceeded by at least 110%.
Reports have been coming in about increased levels in nausea, while many bloggers also report about their blogging software shutting down as a result of increases in BlogO2 emissions.
Let me assure you, my fellow Canadians, that I am not taking this lightly. A breach of the Calgary Protocol cannot be tolerated and is fully and categorically unacceptable. This most recent incident has set us back in...
Wingnuterer: ‘Global Wernering’ via The Alberta Globe
I absolutely love the idea:Werner Patels, has re-invented himself again,... seriously what is this guy? Mr. potatohead of the Canadian Blogosphere? Damn the man changes blogs, blogging styles, political allegiances like I change my underwear,... Daily.
So now he's the Alberta Globe,... this gives rise to a new threat of,....
GLOBAL WERNERING
Never before has so much dense, hot air come from one single source in all of Canada,... my god, I think he may even give those morons in Ottawa a run for their money. This raises an interesting question, though: do we now have to approach the UN to draft a new Kyoto Protocol to set the emission standards to prevent Global Wernering?
More importantly, will Stéphane Dion champion such a new Protocol? Will he get a second dog and name it after me?...
Mistakes via The Alberta Globe
Well, The Alberta Globe is fully in place, taking over from the previous Alberta Spectator.
Why the change, you ask? Because I had not been all that happy with the way the AS had been going in terms of how I approached things and such -- hence the relaunch and change to AG.
I also tended to take criticism voiced by other bloggers too personally, instead of simply recognizing and acknowledging their right to have different opinions.
In the past, I certainly dished it out and insulted a number of other bloggers. In fact, I broke my own golden rule: attack the ideas or issues, but not the person raising them.
So by relaunching this site, I also wanted to give myself the necessary "mental kickstart" really to do things differently (the new car, er, blog smell helps a lot).
Since this...
No more wrangling via Alberta Spectator: Werner Patels
Finally some good news from the Canadian political blogosphere: The Prairie Wrangler, aka Olaf Raskolnikov (it's highly doubtful that something like that is a real name), has decided to stop blogging and move to Africa to help the wretched.
Olaf was something of an irritating pest in the blogosphere: a Liberal posing as a Conservative, pretending to be absolutely clueless about most everything when, in fact, he was absolutely clueless about most everything.
It was also highly irritating to see him pretend that he was literate -- he could never write a single sentence without raping the grammar and orthography of the English language. Personally, I am very happy that we won't be exposed to that anymore.
I wish him well, though, for his "missionary" work in Africa (if...
Update on Blogging Canadians via Alberta Spectator: Werner Patels
Many have reported problems with the aggregator BloggingCanadians.ca on this site and elsewhere.
This evening, I was alerted by email to the following update on the BloggingCanadians.ca website:I spent the whole night upgrading the backend of the site and its done, with some new features!
Un-vote - Now users can un-vote stories they have voted for.
Private Messages - You can add other bloggers to your friends list then have the ability to PM them.
Search for users - On the profile page users can search for other users.
"Reporting/Burying" Stories - Users can bury stories that are spam, inaccurate etc etc. Burying a story grays it out to signify you have buried it.
"Save" stories - A new feature has been added that lets users save or bookmark any stories they want. The stories...
Blogging Canadians: Censorship? via Alberta Spectator: Werner Patels
The fairly new blog aggregator BloggingCanadians.ca seems to be anything but a neutral service. Even though member blogs are grouped into the categories of Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green and Non-Partisan, it would appear that posts picked up from member blogs are censored, i.e., not all posts are actually published on the aggregator.
In fact, I have discovered a strong liberal bias on the part of the owner(s) of BloggingCanadians.ca.
Take today as an example:
My post, Rex Murphy: Harper's a control freak, made it to the aggregator, but my previous post, Stéphane Dion: Paranoid or liar?, didn't.
Those who follow this blog will know that I dish it out on an equal-opportunity basis: sometimes the Liberals get whacked by me, then again the Tories. But what I have noticed is that my...
The silencing of bloggers via Alberta Spectator: Werner Patels
There you go: bloggers do get a lot of attention and are considered powerful enough to be sued: LIBEL CHILL.
As I wrote here a while ago, there seems to be a trend (primarily among lefties and/or Liberals) to muzzle bloggers by slapping them with lawsuits. Funny how you never hear about conservatives suing bloggers (unless I missed something, so if you have information on such a case, please do drop me a line in the comments section below).
The website/blog LIBEL CHILL is a group effort by some bloggers who are currently being sued.
Apparently, in the UK or in New Zealand, for example, bloggers are free to criticize politicians and other public figures without the threat of being sued for libel -- it's considered a proper exercise of one's freedom of speech.
Sadly, Canadian law is...
Abandoned stuff via Alberta Spectator: Werner Patels
It looks like Saskboy now includes in his Abandoned Stuff the blogroll for Green Bloggers.
I recently removed the blogroll from the main page because it was causing too much trouble with the download speed of this blog. So I moved it to a separate page for links and blogrolls. But Saskboy seems to have abandoned his Green Bloggers completely. I wonder if he's jumped ship or something -- like this guy, who recently left the Green movement and became a -- wait for it -- Liberal (yuck!) (no wonder people are out to sue him......
The cult of the amateur via Alberta Spectator: Werner Patels
In The Cult of the Amateur, Andrew Keen launches a serious attack on bloggers and YouTubers:Blogging has become such a mania that a new blog is being created every second of every minute of every hour of every day. We are blogging with monkey-like shamelessness about our private lives, our sex lives, our dream lives, our lack of lives, our Second Lives. At the time of writing, there are 53 million blogs on the Internet, and this number is doubling every six months. In the time it took you to read this paragraph, 10 new blogs were launched.
If we keep up this pace, there will be over 500 million blogs by 2010, collectively corrupting and confusing popular opinion about everything from politics, to commerce, to arts and culture. Blogs have become so dizzyingly infinite that they've...