posts interesting only to me

Yesterday I tried to write a comprehensive and insightful overview of the weblog phenonemon and the philosophy behind my own little weblog. As you may have noticed, nothing much came from it. Instead I’ll highlight some aspects of blogging I feel particularly strong about and how they relate to this site.

To kick off, you may have noticed that I don’t have a comment system at all. This is for simple reason that while I like getting reactions to what I post, I don’t want them on my site. This is my own voice, undilutated by anything else. The proper place to comment on my posts is by either dropping me a note in e-mail at wissewords@cloggie.org or on your own site. This spot is reserved for me and me alone.

Another feature you’re not likely to see on here is the well known Amazon or Paypal begging bowl. I don’t need the money, I don’t think you should feel obligated to pay for something that’s done purely as a hobby and I don’t like to have a commercial relationship, no matter how slender between me and my readers. Frankly I dislike the omnipresent attitude that anything that’s worth doing should be done for commercial gain, that you should attempt to get some money out of everything that you do, that you are a sucker if you don’t.

If I recommend you books, I want to do it because I think you’ll like them, not because you’ll buy them at Amazon and I’ll get a kickback. If I write a controversial post, I want to do so because I feel strongly about it, not in the hope of getting more traffic and more donations.

A common weblog feature you will and in fact do see here is the list or blogroll of other weblogs honoured with a place in the left column of this site. I think it’s important to support sites I find important this way, but I won’t put just any site there.

My policy regarding the blogroll is fairly simple. If we for the moment forget the thousands of weblogs I’ve never read, there are four categories of blogs: 1) blogs I won’t read because they have nothing to offer me, are unoriginal or just plain crap, 2) blogs I read occasionally, who are tolerable but not unmissable, 3) blogs i read regularly (dailey) which are interesting and of a high quality and finally 4) blogs which are of the same standard as the third category or higher, but who also promote the style of blogging I feel should be the norm and/or agree to a high degree with my own politics and biases. The third category I bookmark, the fourth I put on the blogroll.

So what is this “style of blogging I feel should be the norm” then? Reasoned argument. It’s writing that doesn’t rely on the demonising of its opponents, doesn’t use shop worn cliches and political stopwords like “leftist“, “fascist” or “statist“. It doesn’t rely on quoting out of context, or misrepresantation of its opponents, on personal attacks. Its writers are passionate but honest. They have read and understood George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language and have absorbed its lessons.

That’s the style of writing I try to conform to and that’s the style of writing present in the list of weblogs to the left. Any blog that doesn’t adhere to this standard will not enter this list.

On said note I’ll end this entry, though I have no doubt that I will write about this again.