- Its my blog and I can do what I want
- They're all tagged if you want to read some things but exclude the microblogging posts
- They're nowhere near the majority of posts (let alone words written)
- They form a useful reference for me when I need to go back to something later
- I only tend to use them when I only have a small thing to say or can't make a more complete post for technical reasons, such as travel
Tim and Andrew don't like the microblogging I do. My initial response it to point out that this site is my personal blog and I can really do whatever I want with it. However, let's get past that point shall we?
All the blather posts are tagged as such, so they're easy to exclude if you have a RSS aggregator which doesn't suck. In fact even if you don't you can just hit next on your keyboard or scroll past them. Total time lost, a couple of seconds. Additionally, they're not very common -- there are 2,767 posts on this blog (not including this one), and 128 of them are blather posts. That's not really a fair comparison though, because I haven't used blather since the creation of this blog in July 2000. If we count only posts which have occurred since my first blather post (10 May 2007), there are 247 more traditional posts compared with the 128 blather posts. I think that's still a pretty good signal to noise ratio.
Additionally, I have always had some form of linking to articles I thought were interesting, mostly because I often go back to find them again later when I need to. An example is the example of how to do alpha blending with Python's PIL module that I linked to the other day. I was actively working with such problems at the time, and wanted to make a note of the site so that I could find it again. So, the reference aspect of this blog will remain because I find it useful.
Finally, I only tend to microblog non-links when I only have something very small to say, or when its technically hard for me to write a traditional blog post. For example my flights from hell to get to LCA 2007. Would you rather that I spin a comment which can be said in one sentence out into a paragraph just to make it seem like a bigger thought?
To summarise:
I don't intend to comment any further on this issue.
Tags for this post: blather(
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posted at: 21:28 | path: /blather | permanent link to this entry
#1 Joe LaPenna
Keep blathering.
#2 Matthew Garrett
I read your blog via Advogato, which your tags don't propagate to in any useful way.
#3 Nathan Myers
I had to rate your blog syndication on Advogato down to "2" so I wouldn't see your blather postings. (I only saw this entry because I had just posted myself, and the filter is off.) Why syndicate blather-tagged postings at all?
#4 Joseph
Seems to me the complainers miss the point of microblogging, esp Andrew in his well written retort. Actually Andrew comes close to recognizing the potential when he recognizes that he prefers facebook status over other forms of microblogging, but probably doesn't realize the full potential or would have probably taken the thought a few steps further. Its obvious that he equates the new medium as an evolution of previous mediums, but has failed to realize that with evolution comes new abilities and potential. That being said, I don't use more than a few word processor functions, so maybe that kind of evolution is not for everyone.
I tend to prefer a few trusted sources that have a dense link count in a post rather than someones inane ramblings about a topic that may have one or two links to actual content. My social network provides the trusted sources, and blathering provides the dense link count. Context is provided by me. I'd rather have the ability to make up my mind about what I'm reading than have some random blogger (90% of which are total idiots anyway) trying to provide context by telling me what to think about the links provided. It's probably the same tendency that makes me want to read multiple independent news sources than simply trusting Faux News.
Keep blathering, I appreciate your stream of consciousness.
#5 Mikal
Ok, because I was bored and it was quick and easy there is now a no blathering version of the RSS feed for the site. I guess this means people can chose what they want, unless they're using a site like a planet or Advogato in which case its up to the site admin.
#6 James
Um, Advogato is under your control. Not that it matters, I've used CSS to ignore you everywhere I can (and don't read ploa)
#8 Gordon Taylor
I like the blathering. All good stuff - keep it coming.
:)