This is why I blog
Published Mon, Feb 19 2007 11:29 PM
Technorati Tags: Blogging, Open Trackbacks
I love a good debate.
Generally verbal political discussions have a tendency to turn into shouting matches when two people are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and discussing issues they're passionate about. That's not a good debate.
Today I had one of the best exchanges with a reader to my blog that I've ever had. I doubt very much that I convinced her to take my point of view. In fact I'm pretty sure I didn't. Hopefully I made her think about the things she believes. I know I had to think a bit to give decent responses to her arguments.
It was obvious from her responses that Sheila is an ideological liberal. It also became obvious fairly quickly that nothing I had to say would sway her. The fun in the conversation though was having the opportunity to explore some of the issues in more depth than I did in the original post.
I've had very few discussions like this one on this blog, or on any other blog. Most of the time I feel like bloggers are really preaching to the choir. We generally have a tendency to read blogs that conform to our ideological viewpoint and we comment on the posts we tend to agree with.
At times like that, blogging gets to be a bit of a drag. Sometimes it seems that we're all saying the same thing, or variations on the same tune. Sometimes it seems like we're all trying to be the one that makes the same point in the "best" way, or to come up with the most profound insight into an issue.
That's not why I blog.
I blog because I want to have a discussion with my readers. I might choose a deliberately provocative approach to something I have to say about the news, but ultimately the goal is to have an open discussion. When a reader feels passionately enough about something I write to argue with me about it, I've achieved my first goal in blogging.
I'm happy when I get a chance to learn new things while I'm blogging or reading other people's blogs. Sometimes I learn more detail about why things are the way they are, as when Lemuel Calhoon and I had a discussion about the concept of "anchor babies" and the 14th amendment over on his blog. I learned a lot then, and I'm sure it will help me to debate the topic more effectively the next time I have a discussion.
I'm also happy when someone can convince me to change my view about events. The recent flap over the Christmas trees at Sea-Tac airport comes to mind. When I first read the news about that incident, I wasn't inclined to look very kindly on Rabbi Bogomilsky. Angel and Michael Medved convinced me that I was wrong.
That's why I blog.
I've been thinking about new features to work on for the blog. I've written about a few that I have planned, and I intend to implement all of them someday. The nice thing about working on the software for this blog as a hobby though, is there aren't any deadlines, and no customers to disappoint if I don't implement them all right away.
Still, I've announced the plans, and I will follow through on them.
Having said that though, I like to work on the fun stuff from time to time. So I've come up with a new feature that I'll be implementing as soon as I've got it designed.
The new feature is inspired by the GOP Bloggers straw poll that some of you commented on when I embedded it into one of my recent posts. I'm going to create a survey engine that can be used to conduct online polls and to take reader surveys. I don't know whether the idea will take off or not, but I've got a fairly decent idea of how I want to do it, and some of the questions I'd like to ask.
I've also thought about implementing a post rating widget. I think it would be interesting to see how my readers rate my posts, and why.
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Angel responded with: my response..:)
 | aw shux so can I disagree with this post so we can have active dialogue?..LOL..j/k!...nice post my friend..and thank u for that mention..It surprised me !..I think I understand how ya feel but my experiences with Liberals have left me believing that few of them are interested in reasonable debate..sigh. I applaud u Perri! |
Perri Nelson responded with:
 | Angel, I'm always happy to have an active dialogue with you. Thanks for the visit and for reading my posts.
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