sowing the seeds

[Note: I haven't written anything towards this assignment yet (and A-M appears to be busy at the mo) so thought I'd better make a start. If I work from the premise that blogs and discussion forums are places where people can contribute to the web... yet they accentuate different skills, writing styles and personality traits - then that should keep me busy for a while.]

Blogs and discussions can both be regarded as contributions to the web... i.e. one-way traffic which emanates from the author. Both posts are text manifestations of what the author wishes to say - and will be limited by the verbal skills and intellect/knowledge of the author. Whilst the writing styles each environment encourages may differ, the content source of the writing is the same. The content source is the author and is limited by the author. The author, we can extrapolate, will define and limit the scope of what is discussed. Stated another way: an author can only think what they are able to think... and subsequently write what he is able to think. [I am sure there is a better way of saying this, and hence I am proving my point by stumbling to describe what I want to say. I am trying to say that if the only person posting is you, then the best you can expect is the best you are capable of. You are limited by your own limitations. The ruminations of a private blog, will swirl in ever decreasing circles until you reach your conclusion. The only way this will alter is by the contributions of others.]

The environment, whether it be private or public, will impact on the impact on the post (ideas) which evolve. A private blog may enable an elegant unfolding of ideas. In the privacy of a blog ideas may evolve which would not have been possible under the glare of public discussion. Blog posts are indelible so the blogger can be secure that their train of thought will not be interrupted by being edited, moved or deleted by an outside source. The blog can provide the luxury of permanence needed to ruminate in safety. A Private blog may allow different manifestations of thought to be expressed to that of a Public blog. The source (blogger) remains the same, yet the product differs as a result of the environment.

Why? Because if you are anticipating an audience or comments in the Comments field then you will tailor and edit your posts accordingly. I can give a couple of personal examples here. I had a public blog that I contributed to for a number of months. This was in late 2002 when blogs weren't as common as now. So I didn't think anyone read it, and I made entries in the belief that it was just server space on which I could record my ideas. Then I got a hit-counter. Oh my goodness, loads of people visited it. So I went back over the whole thing and edited it - worried that I must sound like a prat. The blog was no longer a record of my ideas, but of my edited ideas. Another example is a public blog I follow which is written by a manic-depressive. Gorgeous tortured writing. He had received no coments in his comments field so I assume he likewise felt no-one read it. In despair one day he posted that he had 're-read all his posts and thought he sounded like a whingeing w*nker and was going to take it down'. Four folk posted comments saying that they valued his blog and perhaps he should take a break but 'please don't take it down'. He resumed posting but his posts are less frequent and seem less genuine (tortured) and are instead contrived and polished. So I am guessing that when he writes now (as I did after getting my hit-counter) blogging has become more Performance Art than Safe Place To Think.

The discussion board may enable different things too. It is possible that the responses posted trigger a pattern of thought and a tangent of thinking that may not have been possible without the interaction. If learning is organic then a discussion being seeded with the ideas of other thinkers may be more fertile than what is cultivated in the private blog (which as I mentioned is limited by the language, writing and cognitive skills of the author).

[Avenues to pursue: Let us consider what might happen if we start with the same post and enter it in a private blog, and subsequently in a discussion board. Let us allow the blogger to ruminate on the topic in successive blogs until a conclusion (or impasse) is reached. Likewise the discussion board posting is contributed to until the topic is exhausted.]