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October 21, 2006
The Blog Tag
Beep Beep It's Me took up the challenge from The Atheist Jew and offers a virtual tag to anyone who wants to be tagged.
I accept the virtual tag, answer the questions and pass it on to anyone who is interested in accepting it.
1-Do you like the look and the contents of your blog?
I'm not real crazy about how my blog looks. I have quite a few ideas on how to improve it but am just too lazy to implement them. I do like the random Mark Twain quotes and will keep them no matter what else I might do. As to the contents: I feel good about a few of my posts. I'm OK with quite a few others. There is a large group that I wish I had spent more time on. And there are a couple that I wish I had never posted.
2-Does your family know about your blog?
Yes, Shirley (my wife) reads most of my posts but not always totally willingly. I don't think my children ever do. But my daughter-in-law has dropped by a couple of times. My sister-in-law reads it from time to time and my nephew has visited it a few times. No one in my family has ever left a comment although Shirley has influenced many of my posts.
3-Can you tell your friends about your blog?
Yes, I do tell them when I post something that I think they will find interesting but that doesn't come up very often. A couple of my friends are frequent readers and I know that a few others drop by now and again. On the other hand, I don't go out of my way to advertise my blog to friends. Of course, now there are several other bloggers that I consider friends, a few I have met and more I have not met.
4-Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog?
No, I look at a couple of dozen blogs every day and many of those bloggers likely don't know that I even have a site. I do leave comments myself at a few blogs but not with great frequency.
5-Did your blog positively affect your mind? Give an example.
I'm not sure. I have a goal of posting something every day and something substantive every week. While I have missed a few days, the disciple of the daily goal requires that I think every day. As to the weekly goal, I will leave that to others to judge. I'm not claiming that all those thoughts are good, I'm only claiming that I have them.
6-What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?
I do want to be read; otherwise I would just reflect on my abnormal interests in a word processor or private diary. One of the issues with an increasing number of visitors is server performance and bandwidth. I maintain my own server. It is about eight feet away from the keyboard on which I am typing. I'm not sure how long I can continue to do this, so I do monitor performance and bandwidth as the number of visitors grows. So far so good (I think). Yes, I do have a traffic counter and I do look at it.
7-Did you imagine what other bloggers look like?
Occasionally. If you look around their sites long enough you can usually find a picture. People whose ego allows/drives them to write for a public audience, often like to show others their face too. I actually went out of my way to see what a couple of bloggers looked like because I was supposed to meet them in public places and I thought it a good idea to be able to pick them out of a crowd.
8-Do you think blogging has any real benefit?
This is a tough one. I think it has real benefit for me. Does it have social benefit? I'm not sure. I do think that blogs are beginning to influence public opinion and in so far as that influence is positive it has benefit.
9-Do you think that the blogsphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?
No, only a very few hermit communities can even claim to be separated from the real world. Blogs are part of the real world. In my view, the best posts by the best bloggers are based on their real world experience. And good bloggers read and interact with a lot more than other blogs.
10-Do some political blogs scare you?
I am not sure that "scare" is quite the right word. I am very concerned about the quality of our political discourse in general, so I try to keep it civilized here at Abnormal Interests and I tend to learn more from blogs that do the same. It's easy to call people names and to retell stories that are known to be false. It's much harder to seek the truth of the matter through civil discourse.
11-Do you think that criticizing your blog is useful?
No, criticizing my blog per se is not useful. Reflected and informed criticism of the ideas I express here is very useful; arbitrary and capricious remarks are not.
12-Have you ever thought about what happens to your blog in case you died?
Yes, I hope that Shirley or whomever has to deal with the consequences of that event will let my readers know that I will not be posting for a while. But I have no plans for anyone else to pick up the keyboard and share their abnormal interests here. Actually, Coturnix at Blog Around the Clock has posted some important points on the "Proper Procedure For Shutting Down A Blog." I hope that most of his suggestions will be followed but not anytime soon.
13-Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?
This is hard to say. I find PZ Myers at Pharyngula consistently interesting and informative. I can't figure out how he can post as often as he does and at such a high level. Chris Heard at Higgaion always impresses but for quite different reasons. But I could name a half a dozen blogs that have at least one post per day that impresses me.
14-Which blogger do you think is the most similar to you?
I'm not at all sure I know how to answer this. No blogger shares the same exact set of abnormal interests but there are several blogs that share one or two of them. And I read several blogs because they are great blogs even if their interests, style and opinions are considerably different than my own. In some ways I think I am most like afarensis. While our interests don't totally overlap and we tend to focus on different things, we are both amateurs with several fairly advanced overlapping abnormal interests.
15-Name a song you want to listen to?
Like Beep-Beep It's Me, I am not sure what this has to do with the above line of questioning. How about "The Bolgger's Serenade?" I hope someone writes it soon.
I will also tag anyone who wants to be tagged. Just answer the questions and pass on the virtual tag.
Posted by Duane Smith at October 21, 2006 10:17 AM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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