Sean-Ward.com

There isn’t one per se, but Scott Karp thinks people should act as if there is one, and I agree.

As I was reading his post, I was wondering if my post about a previous post of his was included in the first group of people he mentioned.

People who thought I was right because I was being iconoclastic, but who didn’t respond to the substance of my argument. I’m always wary when someone agrees with me completely; I can’t possibly be that right. (A related category is people who agreed with the iconoclasm, but then proceeded to argue the conventional wisdom.)

I didn’t agree with him completely, and I did go off on a tangent in my post. I don’t think I argued the conventional wisdom either. Re-reading that post, I’m not sure what I argued. That, in and of itself, is an example of something he says about blogging:

Think before you post. Blogging has made it too easy to publish without thinking (maybe those pesky editors were good for something). Try rereading everything at least once, if not several times, before posting it.

I need to try and do this more, or at least better.

He immediately ends with the following:

I don’t claim to be a sterling example of any of these suggestions, but we all need something to aspire to. As micropublishers, bloggers are liberated from many of the constraints of Old Media; but that doesn’t mean we should be liberated from intellectual standards. Many in Old Media, as well as many media consumers, are wary of blogging because they think it lacks standards, and to a large degree, they’re right. Blogging is dynamic, liberating, and self-empowering, but with that freedom comes responsibility. If consumer-generated media is the wave of the future, then we need to hold it to the highest standard.

I found this recent article from Publishing 2.0 to be worth the read, as it pointed out many things to take into consideration when blogging.

On a side note, I occasionally comment on articles I find. Part of the reason I do this is because I have found it a bit harder to argue my points of view effectively. My website is pretty much the only way I do critical writing. I can read and understand stuff, but sometimes the communication of those concepts in face-to-face communication, I think, is lacking on my part. Hopefully, my critical writing will improve as I read more articles and comment on them, which will hopefully improve my face-to-face communication.