So I wanted to follow up on the post about better linking habits, but wanted to make sure I was alert enough to do it.
Before I get started: I’m a big luddite. (“What is this Hy Par Text of which you speak?”) If something doesn’t sound right here or in future, it probably isn’t.
First up, the simplest solution–from Heliologue–which I actually kinda like:
I think the obvious option is to simply turn off comments for the “big” blogger’s post so that commenters have to go to the original post.
Hestia elaborates on it here:
If it’s just a matter of familiarity, maybe there could be a Don’t Read My Blog Week, during which the bigger blogs could turn off all comments and link only to posts from smaller blogs without elaborating on them outside of the smaller blog’s comment threads. It could either highlight several small blogs or a single blog that could use more attention.
It would be one very effective way to direct people over to another space to talk. I’m not sure whether or not it would effectively cut off discussion altogether. It seems like people here are nice enough and chatty enough that it would work.
Would this annoy the hell out of all of you?
Next, bitchlab favors a labelling system:
1. ask the bloggers.
2. we could make a badge or something that indicates the blogger’s preference so a vistor knows that they shouldn’t link without pushing discussion to the linked blog.
3. Blogger could post bit on their policy in the sidebar. (for those who don’t know how to modify their sidebar, some of us could get together to give instructions for major blog software.)
I worry that this would put the onus on the blogger rather than the miner.
And then a few people commented on this set of ideas:
Brooklynite:
After you post a link (and close comments and encourage people to comment at the other site), you could add a follow-up post (not an update to the original) a bit later if the discussion at the other site proves interesting. Quote from a couple of the comments, and encourage folks to head over and add their voices.
I like this idea a lot myself, and it ties into what keeps me coming back to a blog: a lively discussion on a particular post. Linking to comments rather than only to a post might be a way to keep the original discussion on its tracks and get people to contribute over there.
And yami at Green Gabbro linked to an easy RSS tutorial that I’ll have to take a look at sometime:
Hestia: I heartily recommend Bloglines for anyone new to RSS reading.
And then! Came up with a template and proof of concept for linking and tying together comments threads!
All: I’ve just whipped together a proof-of-concept you might enjoy, where I attach this comment thread to one of my blog entries. The templating scheme needs some help, and Feministe’s engine is for some reason only publishing the first 10 comments in the thread (I think this might be default WordPress behavior), and setting it up required intermediate to advanced tech-nerd skills… but I think it does prove some kind of concept. If there’s interest, I’d be happy to write a tutorial on how to do this (for WordPress only, though, I have no idea how to port to other software).
My thought is, throwing together a collection of threads would:
Give more exposure to the discussion happening on smaller sites
Allow each blog involved to maintain its idiosyncratic mix of chosen discussion topics and moderation styles
Maybe help unite a bunch of related tangents, so each tangent gets its own arena and you’re not repeating the same discussion at different sites?
I’m still somewhat confused, but I like it!
Takers? It’d be a fun way to blog-hop a post, particularly if I could get a few bloggers to take part.
Finally, brownfemipower and textaisle were apparently mulling the question over at around the same time. (brownfemipower follows up here.)
First, some words from textaisle about why I think this question is an important one, and not necessarily incompatible with blogging:
Blogs, in spite of so much triumphalist rhetoric about their egalitarian nature, do a pretty crappy job of disrupting pre-existing hierarchies. They’re written by people and the classes of people with blog power look a whole lot like the classes of people with other privileges in this world. Even among marginalized groups, blog communities tend to look more inward than outward.
The navel-gazing is not the medium’s fault. It is by no means the inevitable consequence of the technology. Quite the contrary, in fact, as the triumphalists point out, the internets can take you to many a splendid place far from your comfort zone. The problem is that we’re not going.
This is me. I am naturally hidebound, an obsessive-refresher rather than a clicker-through. I want to do this so that I take part in more conversations in more venues with more and different people. I know that there is no blogging without linking; there seem, however, to be ways to open traffic rather than bogart it.
Which is why textaisle’s solution is an awesome one:
Blogthropology: the study of people, their cultures and their characteristics by way of their blogs.
(snip)
Blogthropology is a political project aimed at creating solidarity, moving from respect that isn’t to respect. I don’t think of it as an end in itself but instead as a blueprint for other interactions and other dialogues, hopefully happening outside of blogs altogether once we have wrenched ourselves away from our own sites. I am confident that if blogging is usful as a political tool, it’s perhaps most useful as a tool to learn how to discuss. And I don’t mean how to shout louder, jockey for position, and complain about who gets how much attention and how. Blogthropology can realistically acclimate us to decentering our own identities and our own privileges, toward building equitable models of give and take that are not blog-specific. So, let’s make a habit of it. Tenth day of every month.
I’d like to try this myself. Any suggestions? Any interested parties?