Carnival of the Transmundane #39

I have won Matthew Caverhill's Carnival of the Transmundane for this post on a Predator dance party. This is an award that Matthew bestows on a blogger "for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period."

I'd like to thank the Academy, my parents, and most of all, my college history professor Dr. Bill Walker who prudently counseled me on academic writing by saying "Documentation is like sex. When it's good, it's very, very good. And when it's bad, it's still better than nothing."

Well, That Didn't Work

So I decided to make a few changes on my blog, like a new header. Which worked perfectly. Then I decided to get rid of Adsense. Blogger Help told me how to do so -- look up a certain section of code, delete, and republish.

Ah, in my younger days, I was more careful. Before making any changes, I would copy the entire coding into a Word document, save it, and then preview changes in my template before saving them.

I followed Google's instructions precisely, and now my sidebar is way over there. I can't figure out why.

Star Wars Facebook Updates

Yeah, but they're teddy bears that eat people, so don't feel too bad. Brian Murphy of CollegeHumor put together five Facebook update pages as though they had been written by Star Wars characters.

Link via Hell in a Handbasket

How Blogging Has Changed

This post was written in July, but it's still quite relevant. Laura McKenna has been blogging for six years and reflects on what changes she's seen in the medium during that time. In various updates to the post, many big-name bloggers leave their thoughts on the subject.

McKenna notes the decline of linking and blogrolling. I think that this is because of the staggering size of blogosphere. It's no longer a community in any sense, and only very specific niches can maintain a sense of community, where people know each other beyond blog name in the header.

four years ago, when I taught classes on blogging, I said "Blogging is a communitarian activity. Don't just write stuff and expect people to link to you unless you link to them. Don't expect people to read you unless you read them. Don't expect people to blogroll you unless you blogroll them."

To an extent, this is true. And it's especially true for new bloggers who have yet to develop an audience. But eventually, the monkeysphere grows too large and interesting content matters more than relationships.

I state this with some hesitation, however, because the blogosphere is so large that it's impossible to get a grasp of it from the tiny inkling of what I can encounter (example: until I found this post, I had never heard of Laura McKenna, even though several big-name bloggers refer to her as an important voice).

Which is why I make this further hypothesis with even more hesitation: blogging has become more of a commercial enterprise. Not everyone can blog effectively, even fairly talented print freelance writers. When newspapers and magazines began giving their print journalists blogs, they couldn't compete with independent bloggers because the print journalists weren't able to write effectively in the new medium. When they began hiring people who could blog to blog -- and began making money off the effort through ad revenues -- established media companies began to thrive in the medium.

Which is why, I suspect, there has been a decline in hat tipping. At least, that is my assessment from a very limited perspective. In a more niche communitarian model (such as the Methoblogosphere), not hat tipping will hurt a blogger's reputation. In a commercial model, hat tipping hurts your bottom line by suggesting that readers visit your competitors.

But, as I've said in caveats, it's hard to know with any certainty because the medium has become ubiquitous. The plural of anecdote is not data, and there's a need for comprehensive quantitative research to make any solid assertions about blogospheric evolution.

In your time reading blogs or actively blogging, what changes have you noticed?

HT: Grow A Brain

The Utility of Twitter

David Harsanyi has an article in Reason about Twitter. He's not a fan:

Pressed by personal, professional, and cultural forces, I sporadically deploy short missives for fear of becoming one of those cantankerous technophobes who is too dense to recognize the miracle of letting "followers" know he hates raisins or that he loved the finale of Mad Men.

Now not only am I expected to transmit this minutiae mere seconds after I think it but also some 20-year-old in California has decreed that I must do it within the brevity of 140 characters. This need for conciseness, in fact, induces normally articulate friends of mine to write in Prince lyrics—recklessly using "2" and "4" and "U" as words[...]

Now, admittedly, Twitter can be entertaining on occasion, as it turns out that 140 characters offers a great chance to be misunderstood—and an even greater chance one will expose his inner troglodyte.

In these past few weeks alone, a clueless Colorado state Sen. Dave Schultheis tweeted, "Don't for a second, think Obama wants what is best for U.S. He is flying the U.S. Plane right into the ground at full speed. Let's Roll." NFL running back Larry Johnson took time out from his busy day of stinking at his job to ridicule his coach and question the heterosexuality (crudely) of a critical tweeter. He lost his job.

So you see, though only a reported 11 percent of Twitter's users are actually teenagers, nearly everyone who participates may end up sounding like one.

So far, the only use for Twitter that I have found is for delivering one-liner comedy, such as Favrd. Otherwise, I'm not sure what it has to offer. How about you?

Sarah Palin's New Health Care Editorial

So Sarah Palin has an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal. I don't plan to read it.

Sarah, let's talk...

I love your style. You've got a great campaign presence and you say good small-government phrases. And sometimes act upon them.

But the "death panels" post was far, far over the line of acceptable political discourse. I mean, it just wasn't true.

I'm going to guess that you got an email forward that said various inflammatory remarks about Obamacare, got angry, logged into Facebook, started typing, and clicked on "Publish" before either calming down or verifying the information.

I've done that, too. It's embarrassing and hard to live with, but it happened. And you need to take responsibility for it. Just apologize and recant the post. It's okay -- we all make mistakes. It's just important to own up to them.

After you do so, I'd be interested in knowing what you think about public policy issues effecting our country. But not until then.

My 15 Seconds of Anonymous Fame

On the subject of blogging anonymously, I sent off an e-mail to Jonah Goldberg, who excoriated the practice. The part of the e-mail that Goldberg quoted was:

Jonah-

If it's cowardly to blog anonymously, were Madison, Hamilton, and Jay cowards for publishing the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius"?

Apparently, I touched a nerve. Or, perhaps better phrased, Goldberg did in his response to me. I'm slightly giddy that I was able to cause a ripple in the deep end of the political blogosphere. This is Goldberg's follow-up.

Ed Whelan Has Apologized

Good for him (background here).

Also, Jonah Goldberg published an e-mail that I sent him, which is kinda cool. He does, however, fail to explain why it is okay for professional bloggers (or writers/commentators) to write pseudonymously, but not mere peasants like yours truly, whom he deems "cowardly".

Blogging Anonymously and Pseudonymously

The political blogosphere is buzzing over a tiff between National Review legal blogger Ed Whelan and a liberal blogger named Publius at Obsidian Wings. Whelan and Publius have apparently had long-running arguments over Supreme Court nominations and federal judicial decisions.

Well, Whelan somehow found out Publius' real name, and published it in a post.* Publius is an untenured law professor and apparently keeps some of his liberal political views private away from his conservative extended family. Now, he no longer enjoys the privacy of pseudonymity. You can read round-up of the issue here.

Now before I get into the issues of pseudonymous and anonymous blogging, I'd like to say that Ed Whelan's actions were shameful. Perhaps people should not blog under an assumed name. But Whelan was clearly motivated by a desire to hurt an ideological opponent personally, rather than undermine his arguments logically -- especially given that Whelan immediately followed up his post with an e-mail to Publius calling him a "coward and idiot".

Whelan's motivation was not to defeat an opponent in debate, but destroy an enemy's career. As Joe Gandelman wrote:

And the question then becomes: then just WHO was this revelation supposed to impressed?

Who was it supposed to sway?

It will not undercut Publius’ credibility one bit with people who read him or link to him.

It will not change how people who read Whalen’s posts already detest Publius’ writings.

It was, basically, taking the battle a step further — using the big blogging tool (a post, indexed on Google Web forever) to try to undercut someone personally.

Exactly.

Now, on to the subject of anonymous and pseudonymous blogging. I agree with Jonathan Alder:

I also think it is important to distinguish between anonymous and pseudonymous blogging. While complete anonymity may enable someone to evade any accountability for intemperate or unwise remarks, the creation and maintenance of a pseudonym can have a disciplining effect on blogger behavior, and thus should be encouraged as an alternative to purely anonymous blogging and posting. Reputation effects and the desire to maintain readership can impose significant discipline. A pseudonym operates like a brand name, and the value of the brand is, at least in part, a function of how the pseudonymous blogger acts over time. This disciplining effect is hardly perfect, however, particularly when it comes to maintaining civility. As I believe the tone and snarkiness of many pseudonymous bloggers and commenters attests, a pseudonym can reduce a blogger’s vulnerability to personal attacks and can shield him or her from social sanctions fur uncivil conduct. I believe this means that those who utilize pseudonyms should take greater responsibility for the tone and content of their own posts so their pseudonymous shield does not become a license for nastiness and snark (and I hope I was able to do this when I used a pseudonym). But I also believe that, barring exceptional circumstances (e.g. something far worse than wrong-headed criticism) other bloggers should respect the choice of others to rely upon pseudonyms.

Now anyone who thinks that he is truly anonymous on the Internet is a damned fool, so, as I've written before, it's best to assume that everyone in your life reads your blog every day -- even if they don't. Never think that you can live two separate lives.

Although I have made exceptions, I generally don't respond to completely anonymous comments. There needs to be a measure of accountability. And although I operate under a pseudonym, there are many readers who know my real name and could hold me personally accountable for what I have written -- and have. And there are many more readers who know me only pseudonymously, but can hold me accountable to the reputation that I would like for that pseudonym and this blog to have.

Totally anonymous commentors have no such accountability, and often act accordingly. Which is why I felt no compunction about outing the nasty anonymous comments left on my blog by Karen Sutherland, the lay leader of my former church that slandered me to my District Superintendent, Rick Neal, and had me driven out of the church and herself appointed pastor in my place. Which pissed her off.

But I digress. A little. Back to Whelan/Publius.

Whelan refers to Publius as "irresponsible". What exactly does that mean? Did Publius lie? Did he slash Whelan's tires? Or is "irresponsible" a codeword for "disagrees with me"?

Unless Whelan can express convincingly what Publius wrote that was so reprehensible, then his outing of Publius' real name was nothing but a particularly nasty ad hominem attack.

------------
*I would like to note the irony that Whelan used an anonymous source to out an anonymous blogger.

How Scientific Information Moves Through the News Cycle

A funny explanation from PhD Comics. As a blogger, I play a critical role in this model by exaggerating correlations and conflating them with causality in order to drive up traffic.

HT: Hit & Run.

Get Ahead in the Blogging World

So it's been going around the Internet that The Huffington Post is offering an internship at the price of $15,000. That's right -- not only will you not be paid for this internship, you have to pay. A lot!

It seems to surprise a lot of folks that a lot of internships require cash payment, and not the reverse. Still, I can understand why many people are balking at HuffPo's steep price.

That's why I'd like to offer readers a year-long internship here at The Zeray Gazette for a mere $7,500. You'll have the opportunity to work at a premier blogging enterprise and among some of the blogosphere's most thoughtful and insightful public intellectuals, such as myself. Take advantage of our benefits, such as free criticism and clothing-optional Fridays. Live the dream that you've held since you first started reading this blog.

Just hit the tip jar in the sidebar and copy/paste your resume in the comments.

The Social Media Blues

[Video Link] A country song by Scott Rogers about a man trying to get a girl's attention online.

HT: Yes But No But Yes

I Have Succumbed

Yesterday, I left my first tweet at my employer's twitter feed.

Surely, I shall soon be twittering toward Gomorrah.

Question of the Day

What is the best blog post that you've ever written or read?

Link to it in the comments.

Nobody Tell Gavin Richardson About This New Technology

He's an "early adopter" on everything, and we need to prevent him from jumping into this one: an office chair has been equipped with sensors to publish a tweet on a twitter feed every time someone farts on it.

HT: Neatorama

Flutter: Taking Twitter to the Next Level

Two programmers from Twitter have started their own company that is making the Twitter concept faster and more accessible. Pretty clever.

[Video Link]

Rev Mommy is Getting Pounded

First her cat dies. And then another cat vanishes. And now her daughter has a ruptured ovarian cyst. That's a whole of heavy blows to get all at once. Pop over and leave a supportive comment, if you can.

Love in the Blogosphere

Ann Althouse is now engaged to be married. She met her beau for the first time when he left a comment on her blog.

I wonder who among my commentors will someday sweep me off my feet....

HT: Insty

Quote of the Day

Today, it's from my wife. Unlike my mother and my mother-in-law, she's not a daily reader. So she's only just now seen that I've switched header pictures from Henri Rousseau's The Dream to Francois Pompon's Polar Bear.

"I like it! It's so not tits!"


I guess that that's an accurate critique.

Twitter Throughout History

And Gavin always thinks that he's ahead of the curve for early-adopting into new social networking tools. Ha!

Follow the link for Tweets from Australopithecus, Adolf Hitler, and Julius Ceasar.

HT: Neatorama