Talk:Blog/Archive 1

This is the archive of talk pre-2005.

History/Precursors

I think the article could use a paragraph noting the evolution of personal webpages to blogs in the mid-90s. Back in '94 and '95, lots of us were running personal homepages and posting updates in a reverse-chronological fashion. Examples include Justin Hall's Links from Underground and my site, Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth, both of which date back to '94. From an editorial point of view, they were blogs, since they expressed our opinions and were published by us, but from a technical point of view they weren't, since we were just typing our own HTML and FTPing the pages to our servers manually. The most important evolutionary moment occurred when someone decided to _automate_ the process so that a journal writer could focus on writing while the blogging software would HTML it, post it online and archive. It was the creation of this assistive technology that made Web journaling an activity that any Internet user could do, even with zero HTML experience. This opened up Web journaling to everyone, and thus the blogging phenomenon was born.

---acarvin, http://www.andycarvin.com

Blog definition

Who can post on a weblog? How it is different from wikipedia and internet forums? Please explain. Reading your article gives no answer to this essential question for someone (like me) who has no idea what blog is.

Weblog/diary

It should be noted on the main page that personal weblogs are better known as "diaries", because that's what they are. To call LiveJournals weblogs is to give a new word to something that's already got a meaning.

I would disagree with this; yes, most blogs function as diaries, but not all blogs are diaries; far from it. Blogs gained popularity as a journaling tool, but they've become much more powerful than that, being used for civic journalism, online collaboration, education, etc. - --acarvin

I will revise that section as such; if you want to change it back, please post a response here when doing so.

But LiveJournals tend to be public media, and allows users to not only view each entry, but comment on them as well. I don't think the word 'diary' connotes such public interaction. While the word 'diary' can be used for a subset of LiveJournal (specifically LJs with entries that whose views are restricted to the author or only a select group of people), I don't think they apply to LiveJournals that allow the general public to view and comment on its entries. --T-Boy

Minor definition quibbles

Why is this article "Web log" with a space? The authorities cited in the article don't spell it that way -- Jorn Barger doesn't, and neither does Dave Winer. In fact, hardly anyone spells it that way. -- Mpt 07:35, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I agree. I propose to move this to weblog. --seav 07:06, Sep 4, 2003 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. - Hephaestos 07:12, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Um, I made this change unilaterally without realizing that it was up for discussion. My concern was simply one of consistency within the article. Please let me know if I should revert the article. - cobra libre 19:10, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Personally I would think that this article should be at 'Blog' rather than 'Weblog' - that is overwhelmingly what the thing is known as. After all, hardly anyone uses the latter term ;-) It should just be a matter of moving and swapping the redirect? Blorg 22:55, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Weblog" is coming archaic, relatively speaking. Blog is the term people recognize and use in the majority of situations. How about if you call the article Blog but acknowledge upfront that it's an abbreviation of Weblog, which is used less frequently? ---acarvin

More definition quibble

Next quibble: "A weblog ... is a website that tracks headlines and articles from other websites." That would have been a decent definition before about 1999. But now that excludes Weblogs like the Fermi National Laboratory Accelerator Update [Google cache], not to mention practically all the Weblogs on LiveJournal. The defining feature of a Weblog, I think, is that it gives more prominence to the date an item was posted than other Web sites do. (I have to go home now, but I'll revise the article later if no-one does it first.) -- Mpt 07:32, 26 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Another defintion quibble about the scope of the blog label. When I think of blog, I think of something run by an individual posting diary type stuff, or personal commentary on sites. As the definition stands, sites like Something Awful and Fark.com fit in (and are defined as) blogs. I'm not sure this is truly accurate. --Barry 17:08, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps say something to the effect that blogs are a form of online publishing that generally is written by a single person or a small group, with the most recent entries posted at the top and previous entries appearing serially below that. One key thing to communicate is that blogs became a big phenomenon because blogging technology - ie, the software that run blogs -- made it easy for anyone with relatively little tech skills to publish their ideas on the Net. Prior to blogs, personal publishers needed to know HTML, FTPing, etc, which meant most journals were technically oriented. But once anyone could post their own journal thanks to the new blogging tools, the medium transformed in to a broad free-for-all of ideas, all following a similar serialized journal format. ---acarvin

Weblog versus blogs

It's a shame that this entry conflates blogs with weblogs. It could use some disambiguation with an entry on blogs and one on weblogs. Blogs are more about one person whereas weblogs are more like a news website. Andrew Sullivan's site is a blog, whereas Slashdot and Kuro5hin are weblogs. I looked through this entry and didn't see any mention of weblog software such as phpNuke and PostNuke. This entry conflates blogs and weblogs and will end up confusing people.

This entry should also talk about personal zines, which are really the cultural phenomenon that precedes blogging. In fact, there are more than a few perzine editors who made the move from printed perzines to blogging. Blogging really follows in the footsteps of all the zining that was going on in the 1980s and 90s.

Chuck0 Blog: http://chuck.mahost.org Weblog: http://www.infoshop.org/inews/

I have never heard of a distinction between blogs and weblogs. If you want to include that in the article, you might want to mention that most do not make the distinction. I absolutely agree, though, that personal zines were a precursor to weblogs. - cobra libre 19:15, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah I always thaught blog=weblog. To define it otherwise would really muddy the waters. More debatable would be whether or not Slashdot can really be classed as a blog. Where is the boundry between community blogs and plain old news sites-- Nojer2 16:04, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

On a similar note, I dont really agree with that first definition [1]. Who the hell calls webserver log a web log? Certainly people who come to wikipedia seeking the definition of 'blog' will be confused by this. Maybe the best thing would be to move the blog definition back to the Blog page, and make Weblog a dissambiguation page. -- Nojer2 16:04, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

I looked around, and found server log, which covers the first definition. It's an orphan and deadend right now. Christopherlin 02:50, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Merged definition (1) into server log. --Christopherlin 06:22, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Move from Blog

This was written in BLOG, so I moved it here:

A blog is a journal that is available on the web.

The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger."

Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.

Blogs have become increasingle popular with many public figures now keeping them...

Microsoft have become one of the first major companies to actively encourage their employees to keep BLOGs with many of their employees now sharing their thoughts and information with the general public...

Microsoft BLOGs

Broadband

This line was in the entry:

As of 2001, possibly due to the introduction of broadband Internet making self-hosted sites easier, the popularity of blogs increased dramatically.

I wasn't sure what the original author intended that to mean, but as it stands it is incoherent. So I took it out. -Fuzzrock

Looks to me like the sentence says that Blogs became more popular after wider access to faster internet connections made it easier to host their own sites, including blogs. I have no idea whether that's correct, as I really don't know anything about the subject, but the sentence is coherent. Could use a little rearranging, perhaps, for aesthetics. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Misc.

[1] is another interesting description of a blog that I found at [2]. <>< Tim Chambers

Trackback controversy

The controversy over Trackbacks is a genuine phenomenon and thus deserves inclusion in the article, but I am wondering if the point should be made that Trackback's perceived faults actually lie with the common pop-up page implementation, and not with Trackback itself? This is actually discussed in the link to sixapart.com, but not in the article. - cobra libre 19:22, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

As of 8/31/04, in the section "Blogging Begins," Dave Winer is credited as follows: "One of his most important contributions was the creation of servers which weblogs would "ping" to show that they had updated." This is correct. However, the sentence that followed was incorrect: "This made it possible for blogs to easily "trackback" other blogs that referenced a particular story, a key feature of blogging." Userland's Weblogs.com is a central update ping broadcast service, and has nothing to do with "trackbacks" and blog cross references. I had removed this sentence once before, but it has since been restored. I have removed it again; if I am wrong, please post an explanation.

Persistency of Blog?

The word log usually means something meant to be a permanent record of some events. Since a lot of these weblogs are published in a few software service companies like blogger.com, how likely are these logs vanish upon the termination of these companies? For example, some photo posting companies like photopoint.com left million of their users in a limbo when they went out of business. Are these Blogs archivible by the authors?

In many cases, yes. Blogger publishes your weblog to your own web hosting service, so if Blogger disappears, the web pages remain. For software you install yourself, such as MovableType, your website and underlying data remain yours even if Six Apart disappears. As for hosted weblogs, if the company disappears, the weblog may become inaccessible, and it's up to the company to give their users the opportunity to retrieve their data-- just as if your web hosting provider went out of business.

The Blog Examples

Do we put all blogs that Wikipedia contributors want to put there? --Menchi 07:57 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm an RC junkie. This page got my attention after an anon added (his own?) to the list of example blogs. I have renamed "Example weblogs" to "Noteable weblogs" and cleaned house accordingly. The purpose of an example is to give someone an idea of what is being discussed. A few examples will suffice in this case. The list had grown excessively long, effectively becoming a place to "list your own blog." That is unnecessary and contrary to the spirit of the Wikipedia. Some of the blogs listed no longer exist. In one case, the blog still exists but the blog begins with "Why I've stopped blogging." I cleaned the list to include only noteable, active blogs. I believe these should be plenty to use as examples. I'm not familiar with all of these blogs, so I may have made errors of judgement as to which are actually noteable. Feel free to modify the list, but please do keep the new header "Noteable weblogs" to keep this list from becoming a long list of advertisements. SWAdair | Talk 09:55, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If you look at the table of contents, this article seems a bit cluttered, I think all these listed examples of blogs and blogging systems should all be under 'External Links'. Any objections to that change? -- Nojer2 17:02, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Standards for significance: Good technorati numbers, mentions in the press or books, blogging author mentioned in the press or books. Technorati 6 blogs with no mentions are not significant. Stirling Newberry 20:58, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

blogs are never interesting to read

Should we menction that blogs are never interesting to read and you can get the general idea of what blogs are like by reading the selected ones at this link? And no before someone here tries to stand up for losers and their blogs by saying it's my opinion remember the statement that blogs are never intresting to read is a FACT ,not opinion. --Armus Aran

No, that is your opinion, as I think some blogs (like the slashdot and BBC blogs rather interesting! --there_is_no_spoon 21:08, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No not blogs that are about web sites. I'm talking about personal blogs like Livejournal and crap like that. Just some loser posting mundane crap about their boring life that nobody cares about. --Armus Aran

Aren't words like 'crap', 'loser', 'mundane' and 'boring' subjective terms that are defined differently by different people? Doesn't that make your statement a subjective opinion, as opposed to an objective fact? --T-Boy

Possibly. It still doesnt change the fact that all the people who post about their boring life in Livejournal and Xanga(that includes you Fred Durst) have nothing to say and none are intresting to read. We dont care about your life. You wanna keep a journal? Fine go to the store and buy a diary. Or if you wanna type it open up a new doucment in Wordpad and start typing. But dont post in some big web site and think someone actually cares about your life. --Armus Aran

Yeah now you agree with me that blogs are boring to read. Even if the persons famous. Not to say Fred Durst is the kinda person who could write something and have it be intresting. Nothing more then a bunch of rambling and trying to sound smart. A pseudo-intellectual at best. --Arm

I didn't say I agreed with you.--T-Boy 17:12, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Someone, presumably, finds Fred Durst's meanderings interesting, those poor folks. :) --T-Boy 10:43, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Holy missing-the-point, Batman! Not that one would expect anything better from someone who unironically links to "youhavebadtasteinmusic.com" just after saying "I like thrash metal".

In any case, I think anyone using the word "blog" in a serious context should be shot without trial. For "blogosphere", some severe torture beforehand might be warranted. -- User:207.59.86.5

I think what readers of this article should realize is that the quality of blogs varies enormously because the blogosphere is a reflection of the offline world. Some people are interesting, some are boring; some are great writers, some are abysmal. There's no way to typecast all blogs are being boring or interesting or well-written or trite or insightful because it all depends on who's writing a blog. The quality of blogs is less relevant than the fact that _anyone_ can become a blogger, whether any of us want to hear what they have to say or not. Like Jello Biafra said, Don't hate the media - become the media. ---acarvin

Holy missing-the-point, Batman! Not that one would expect anything better from someone who unironically links to "youhavebadtasteinmusic.com" just after saying "I like thrash metal"

You Have Bad Taste in Music.com rags on heavivly commercialised "artists" like Nickelback. I think them going after Iced Earth and the 4 big thrash metal bands of the 80s would be the last on their list to criticize. Maybe if you actually looked at the site and watched the videos youde understand.

Of course that doesnt matter seeing as how your petty attack against me was pure ad hominem and completly irrevelent to the argument. --Arm

glogs

"Ham radio also had logs called "glogs" that were personal diaries made using wearable computers in the early 1980s."

ham radio? wouldn't it be wearable computer users? i mean, i'm sure the two intersect a little, but i don't see that the ham radio community is the same as the self-made cyborgs. also i think people still keep glogs, though i'm too lazy to seek out examples. - Omegatron 03:18, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Google Groups doesn't know this usage, nor the implausible "cyborglog", and I don't believe in either. (Jorn Barger 6 Mar 2005)

List of weblogs

First, List of notable weblogs (which contained content originally in this article) went through VfD and the decision was to delete. Then, List of notable weblogs was redirected to List of weblogs, which also went through VfD and the decision was to delete. Now, recently, there have been two attempts to add this Wikicracy-rejected material to the Weblogs article itself.

I'm just one person (of course), but I'm going to revert any re-addition of this content. It was rejected by the wikicracy twice, and it needs to stay out. If there's an issue with this, take it to mediation instead of starting an edit war. -- Stevietheman 17:58, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Meaning of "weblog"

I've heard weblog dissected by some bloggers specifically as "we blog, not web log". I don't know if this is common or not.

I very much doubt that. Every news story I've heard about blogs descrbe the word as short for "web log". If it stemmed from "we blog", then where does the word "blog" come from? BenFrantzDale 21:15, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Just a stylistic point. The word "blog" is used 187 times in this article. I know this an article about blogs, but it does make for extremely repetative and clumsy reading, made worse by the fact that "blog" is a clumsy and unfortunate word in the first place. Blog blogging blogs blogged blogger blog blog. Ugh. Someone please find ways of avoiding the repetition. Palefire

Ease of Use

I think the key aspect of a blog is how easy it is to update. The reason they are so popular is that you don't necessarily need to know anything about HTML to have one, if you use Blogger or LiveJournal. This allows anyone to produce one, which gives us the variety and range of blogs that you can find today.

In other words, the huge number of them is almost certainly down to their ease of creation and ease of maintainance. How you could prove this, I don't know. Out of interest, does anyone have any idea how many blogs exist today (whether still updated or not)? --Adam (03/11/04)

According to the BBC: Technorati now estimates that the number of blogs in existence has exceeded 4.8 million. Some speculate that less than a quarter of this number are regularly maintained. Céçaquiéça 22:46, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)