Recently I've been thinking about why I haven't blogged much in the last several months. I guess it's because blogging seems more like talking to the clothes in my closet than having a meaningful conversation. For me there is something motivating about conversing with other people. In interaction there is something to keep me interested and engaged. I have limited use for just writing thoughts down just to get them "out there." (Ironically, like this blog entry.)
On the other hand, I have had several people tell me in the last couple of months that they saw this on my blog or that on my blog, so I guess people are reading. It does make for a nice way to let people know what's going on. A kind of news feed for the Neumann family.
So, I guess I'm in a bit of a quandary: I kind of like my blog and I kind of hate it. I like it because it seems to be filling its role, but I hate it because as I generate content it doesn't feel like I'm doing anything worthwile I certainly don't need a place to just rant.
I'll have to think about this more. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post them.
Posted by enigma at May 22, 2006 11:20 PMFWIW-I read just about all of your posts. I respond when I have something to say. Which (obviously) isn't often.
On LJ my posts tend to be one of three things:
1) General life notes that might interest family and friends (usually stuff about Ryan)
2) Topics that are on my mind and I'm interested in discussing with anyone who cares to respond (tends to be about religion, politics, and/or technology)
3) Random rants that no one really cares about (I WANT PEACH COBBLER!!!)
I post #1 because it helps family and friends feel connected with what's going on, #2 to organize my own thoughts and see if it prompts a discussion, and #3 because you never know when a random response to one of those posts will lead to something interesting (oh, and vanity... musn't forget vanity).
Like your case, responses to my posts are pretty rare. I know several people who read all the posts I write so I've just always assumed they feel the same way about my posts that I do about theirs--they just don't have much to say.
Part of the issue is that you're looking for two-way (or N-way) communication. With friends who also blog, the communication is two-way... it's just often not a "dialogue". Unfortunately dialogue in a personal blog is difficult, mostly because a) it takes time to write thought-out responses that are worth posting and b) the lack of immediate feedback discourages continuing a conversation.
In my case, whenever I respond to your blog there's only a limited amount of time in which I check back for responses (usually about 24 hours). On a technical note--It occurs to me that I might check back more regularly if the RDF feed had a field indicating the number of comments attached to a post.
Anyways, I appreciate that you post on your blog and hope you continue to do so; regardless of frequency.
Posted by: Kevin Worcester at May 23, 2006 05:51 PMI would have to agree with Kevin, keep going bro!
I haven't written much on my blog lately, and probably don't include enough of kevin's #1 category (I struggle with how much privacy related stuff to let out). But being that you moved away, I think its wonderful to stay up on your life.
As far as #2 this is also good, especially areas of your professional life and research. Opinions are also good, but I have found myself drifting further and further away from mixing my thoughts on spiritual things from political things. And your right about the over-use of the rant.
I have benefited from the past as well, of a few of us who share our little technical findings on some shared technology such as gentoo. Like problem x was driving me nuts until I found answer y. But I do struggle with whether anyone but advanced users will use the categories to filter the stuff they don't care about.
Where originally I think I would post stuff I didn't want to forget, little tech notes and the like, I find myself doing that in a private wiki (tomboy) in Linux. But then... thats not very portable.
Kevin is right that it can be bi-directional. But probably the greater principle involved with blogs (and wiki's for that matter), is that it is often un-refined thought as most journaling should be. There are errors, raw expressions etc. Often the thoughts become refined through conversation which is a good thing. The bad thing is that the wide distribution and somewhat permananent (internet archive, google etc.) nature of these words could be miss-understood and held against you.
Sadly many young people have no concept of what should be public or private, and will find out the hard way when a future employer raises concerns after doing a search.
For we Christians there is an exciting opportunity to speak the truth in a public way, perhaps one day these things will be held against us, and perhaps we will like Paul count it as joy to suffer for the name of Christ.
But I wonder how many words have left my mouth in person that I am so glad were not written down, recorded etc.... and that the dear people who love, understand and forgive me have forgotten them.
Hehe, maybe it has been too long since I have blogged since I am randomly writing a huge comment here :)
In any case Christoph, I love the fact that you blog occasionally about life, interests, and stuff. I find the subscription model of rss far less precocious than the emails some people send out to a giant list of contacts of friends and family members.
As to the problem of keeping the conversation going, I think the best approach to that is enabling rss for all comments which many blog engines are providing now. I need to enable it for my blog.
Posted by: jamesj at May 23, 2006 08:00 PMKeep on blogging, man. I think it provides a unique forum for one to dump their thoughts out on the keyboard, sift them around, come to a semi-conclusion and then see if anyone responds. I have feedreader open on my computer at home, so I notice whenever you post updates to your blog and read all of them, even if I don't respond.
I like that blogs tend to consolidate conversations together as well so that as in in this case, I can read not only what you said, but also what kevin and james wrote.
As far as the comments side of things, I know that my wordpress has an rss feed simply for blog comments, I wonder if movable type does as well. That's how I monitor comments on my blog is with an rss feedreader.
I know that for me with blogging, I'll often sit down with soemthing I've been thinking about and then wonder if a) anyone's going to care or b) this is going to get me into trouble with either future employers or current friends :) Also, if a friend decides to publish your url on somewhere like slashdot, one can get annoyed both with the amount of traffic and also with the comments that come from the troll zone.
Anyway, keep blogging, when you come upon interesting topics such as these, hopefully you will find fulfilling responses. :) I'll catch you in IM soon and we'll catch up in a better forum (no pun intended).
Posted by: Dave at May 23, 2006 10:15 PMWhat, comments work now? :) Yes, keep it up. One thing I found helpful is to install a ticker that records visits. Lots of people visit and don't comment often, so with a ticker or a record of hits ( you can filter out search engines and some spam too) you get encouraged because you know people are reading.
Posted by: Steve at May 28, 2006 10:32 PM