Possumblog

Wow--talk about questions!

I wondered the other day if I could steal a copy of the questions the blogger panel was going to talk about today, and before I could even find my black ski mask and magical aerosol laser-detection spray, I was sent them--BY THE MODERATOR!

For those of you who won't get to go, and in case I act the way I usually do and not say a word, I figure it won't hurt any to go ahead and post them and give my answers ahead of time.

Hi everyone.

Jeremy Flint here. I will be moderating the panel tomorrow. I know it may be a little late, but I thought I would shoot y'all a list of questions that sort of gives a sample of where we are wanting the discussion to go tomorrow.

I will try to have printouts for you tomorrow if you need it, but in general, just relax and have a good time. Should be lots of fun.

1. Where do you get your material? How do you determine what topic you will blog about?

Well, hello, Jeremy!

I get stuff from everywhere--online news, various information websites, other blogs, life. I blog on what strikes me at the moment--there is no real theme or intent or goal or point to what I do. One minute it might be about monkeys, then next, it might be about foreign policy. The net effect is to bring substantive discussions down to a level of forgettable farce, and to elevate lower primates to a much higher plain than they deserve.

2. Depending on the critic, blogs are the ultimate, savior media outlet or poorly written, inaccurate and unaccountable wannabe media. Can blogs ever be mainstream, legitimate sources, or should that be their goal?

Yeah, well, you know what they say--everyone's a critic.

Blogs are tools, nothing more. They are a means of distributing information.

They are no more or less legitimate than any other source, being that legitimacy is not something conferred by having a big building and an offset press, but rather it is something bestowed by the readership.

The question is not really whether blog writers can ever be mainstream, legitimate sources, but rather can the people who are information professionals (i.e., mainstream paid journalists) ever again be able to hide behind the supposed authority and impartiality of "The Press," when it is so easy now to quickly, accurately, and dispassionately show their biases and ability to misinform, and their ability to manipulate information so it more readily fits with their preconceived notions. The press would do well to welcome readers who pore through their copy and help correct mistakes and factual errors, not to try to shunt them off as hacks and know-nothings.

3. {For the personal/social bloggers} Blogs are sometimes like confessional poetry—a public sharing of private thoughts, feelings and actions. When is something too personal or private to blog? Have you ever regretted a post for this reason?

I will not write about anything I would not be willing to tell my mother. Therefore, I have never regretted a single post.

4. {For Ashley?} Making a living by blogging is an unreachable goal for most of us, but some pocket change would be nice. What are your tips for getting syndicated and building an audience?

Well, obviously I don't fit into this, but I will say if you are going to be a professional writer, you better know how to write like a professional.

5. {For Matt} Lumping in blogs with traditional media, PR practitioners have begun pitching bloggers to cover stories of all types. How do you respond to pitches in your posts?

Again, another one where I will have to sit and just eat my sammich.

6. Blog tools continue to improve and make getting a web log off the ground nearly effortless. What are your favorite tools? What features do you especially appreciate, or hope are incorporated into the next versions?

Well, I will have to say that Blogger is really much better than when I started. I don't like the toolbar at the top, but you can't complain a lot when something's free. For Revolvoblog, it has been just fine, and you can host images on Blogger now when before you had to have an online photo account of some sort, such as Photobucket. I have been well satisfied with the folks at Mu.nu, which somehow manages to provide ad free blogging for a wide range of Munuvians by some sort of Ponzi scheme, I think. Not being all graphicky and all, either one does fine for what I need--I don't really know what I might be missing or wanting.

7. How do you measure traffic to your blog? Do most of your visitors come by way of search engine? RSS feed? Direct link?

I have several ways--Mu.nu blogs come with a wide variety of site stat applications, and I also have a Sitemeter account, and a Gostats hit counter. Why? They're free. Visitors are pretty evenly split between search engines and bookmarks. Only a very few people have syndicated Possumblog, probably out of embarrassment.

And finally,

8. How do you handle comments? Do you moderate them heavily? Let things go in whatever direction they take? Do you allow comments at all?

Well, this was a big concern of mine when I first added them in--before I put HaloScan comments on the older Blogspot site, I had my e-mail address and if anyone wanted to say something, they could just e-mail me. But there seemed to be a desire for being able to make a quick comment or quip that would be more convenient than sending it to me, and comments were the only way to accomodate that. My big fear were comment trolls, having seen so many comment features rendered unreadable due to the crap.

But, luckily, my biggest worry has gone unfulfilled. The real big problem is comment spammers, who should be forced to listen to Kevin Federline's new CD. I have had about two or three trolls over the past few years, and they were deleted as soon as I found them. That's the policy--my blog, my comments--if you can't act right, you won't get to play.

Comments now are as entertaining as the original post, and often will allow a more full explanation of my (or other's) point, or offer corrections and further information that wasn't in the original. I don't really try to make them go one way or another, other than to insist on no potty mouthing and if the point is one about substantive matters that participants be polite and civil and not engage in fallacious reasoning. Having said that, most times the comments devolve into a pie-throwing Marx Brothers movie.

Now then, I guess I CAN just sit there and not say anything!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at November 3, 2005 08:57 AM