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Someone should post about how Blogs game google's pagerank system to the point where you can't hardly search for anything nowadays without having to sift through 10 pages of blog links. The "link whoring" nature of blogs undermine systems like Google and turn them from a useful tool for finding relevant information and into a "internet moron's opinion engine". "Linkback" makes the problem even worse, since it automagically googlespams TWO blogs at the same time in an automated manner. Kind of like a poor man's "search engine optimization". Naturally, I couldn't contribute this content myself without being NPOV. :)
Under "Creating and publishing weblogs", there are 12 services and 6 server software examples given. Should there be some criteria for inclusion in the main article on weblogs? Could we have a category of weblog management software? (most of which are in Category:Open source content management systems anyway) Or maybe "list of weblog services and software"? -- Christopherlin 02:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
A description (or new page?) of Link blog would be cool! - Sridhar 05:28, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Could anyone provide evidence that Slashdot should be included in this article? silsor 18:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Slashdot does not come close to fitting the description of a "weblog". It is a (1)commercial (2)news site that posts (3)articles with (4)very little writing by its authors, was created (5)before the subculture slang term "weblog" was even invented, and (6)does not consider itself a weblog. Honestly though, I don't even need to be listing these points, since the burden is on you to demonstrate that Slashdot should be included in this article, rather than on me to have to write this down to demonstrate that it should not. silsor 21:49, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
If you can get the BBC to retract their article, maybe I will listen. Stirling Newberry 22:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've decided to go ahead and declare the Slashdot content void due to a consistent 2 to 1 agreement that it be excluded. Slashdot is a news site, not a blog. If anyone else wants to "vote" on this, please do, and if the vote sways the decision to the other side, then the Slashdot content can return. I think this is only fair. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 04:24, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Stirling Newberry called my removal of the slashdot=weblog sentences "unsourced POV". Maybe this would be true if I were adding unsourced material, but in this case I am removing a statement from the article which several people question and hasn't really been backed up. The only evidence supplied that slashdot=blog is a citation in BBC news about a "Bloggies" site that once called Slashdot a "blog"—if you look at the actual "Bloggies" site itself, it defines "blog" to be any page with dated entries. Maybe I should nominate Wikipedia for the next round of voting. silsor 15:59, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
Now my removals are "censorship", according to the Stirling Newberry's edit summaries. silsor 08:17, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
You don't have a cite, your "definition" was, to put it nicely, idiolectic, and now you and Stevie are running a revert war. The material has notable cites, you have none. That's censorship and bad faith. Do it again, and it is straight up vandalism, Stirling Newberry 13:34, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Does not document the question. Stop vandalising the page in your POV mongering. Stirling Newberry 16:50, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'll stop reverting, as I don't like violating Wikipedia rules. But I will say this: Two people have rejected Stirling's cite. And wikicracy is supposed to decide these matters. I've been a user of Slashdot for many years, and I know for a total fact it's not a blog. But perhaps the only true way to find out for those who are clueless about this would be to submit an "Ask Slashdot" article at Slashdot and ask them! I'm confident this assertion (and that's all it is) that Slashdot is a blog will be handily rejected. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 17:50, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Let's copyedit the following:
to read:
How's that? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 18:10, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Major deficit on this page is a section on blogging/journalism conflicts. I'll take a crack at it later unless someone else wants it. Stirling Newberry 19:45, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I put up the link to Committee to Protect Bloggers here before I had created that page. I apologize. I have created that page now and hope that the link will remain in this post. The Committee is not a project I am involved with, but I believe it to be very important. Go check it out, or the article here on it before you revert...please.
As I wrote in the Vote to Remove page for CPB: I think that failure to include this page and a link to it from Weblog leaves an inacurate story being told regarding the political climate around blogging. We read that the DNC and RNC accredited bloggers, but not about how bloggers in other places are facing state repression for blogging? That doesn't seem benificial to wikipedia's coverage of blogs.
Is there discussion in your blog entry here of bloggers facing state repression? -- Mdog 07:46, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The hosting sites listed in the "Creating and publishing weblogs" section need to be notable in an encyclopedia sense to be eligible for listing. However, I'm concerned that some of those listed are not indeed notable. I would normally just remove the sites that don't currently have articles, but I would like to ask first if anyone believes any of the external links in the list point to somewhat notable hosting sites. Please cite sources or Google statistics to back up your selections. At some point soon, I would like to trim this list down. Thanks. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 01:57, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm a 'non-blogger' and pretty ignorant about them, but does the Blog idea relate to the Wiki concepts? ie - socially, and technologically, the concepts seem related (especially the wiki style in 'c2': http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WebLog). How are they related 'historically'? Who created blogs and when?
- Like any other website, any Internet user can read a blog.
- What distinguishes a blog from other kinds of website is how quickly and easily the author posts new entries. The blogging software automatically converts the entry to HTML, adds a time stamp, posts it online, and archives old posts.
Considering that Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, the terminology section seems to have grown out of hand. Many of the terms are rarely used or even completely made up, like "muvilog" and "auralog". I don't believe these terms have ever been used to describe blogs. Other terms like "flog" have been used, but "photoblog" or "photolog" are far more popular terms for photography blogs. Rhobite 16:40, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
Yup, the terminology section (Common terms) is growing out of hand. Some of terms, I haven't seen used anywhere except on this Wiki and this Wiki seems to be the source for a lot more other pages. So every other page takes this Wiki as gospel and quotes these terminology. These terms are the particular ones I am talking about - Blogsnob, Blogorrhoea and Blogfoo. superstarksa 9:59, June 9, 2005 (EST)
I have no personal attachment to any of the recently removed links, but it behooves anyone who rips out so much content to explain each change. Please do this. It's nothing personal. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 00:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Wiki is not a web guide, the default for links is out, not in. Stirling Newberry 00:55, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm reverting until I see an explanation for each one. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 00:55, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to call for mediation on this article. I cannot deal with the obstinance and arrogance of a particular someone who seems to just want to pick fights (and not be a good contributor) any longer. Content cannot simply be wiped out without explanation... it's anti-wiki. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 01:10, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The following links re removed:
They have no encyclopedic content. Mikkalai 02:20, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
At least, all notable citiations have said so (BBC) and it lists itself with the Truth Laid Bear blogging eco system rankings (which is a volitional act, that is, someone at slash dot thinks slash dot should be list). Googling this "controversy" comes up with a few links on a few small blogs. Thus "some" is inaccurate weasel wording.
Stirling Newberry 15:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That is incorrect. "Some believe" is accurate for a minority position. In this case it would be more accurate to say, "which some don't believe is a blog" - since, to date, there has not been one notable, documentable source from those who don't believe it. As for slashdot's status as a blog being debated, there has been at least on conference session on this topic, and the evidence of this talk page is that the matter is being debated. Even if those arguing against it have a thinness of notable documentary sources for their position. There clearly is a controversy, the question is what is documentable. I've listed my sources, and gotten little back for my trouble but three revert wars and ex cathedra assertions. I am going to consider the matter settled until someone on the other side of this discussion produces notable and documentable evidence for their postion.
Stirling Newberry 17:41, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
"ex cathedra"... "descriptive, not perscriptive"... Let's welcome Miss Diane Chambers to the bar, shall we? Note: the term is " prescriptive."
Points I'd like to make:
— Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 04:21, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Barring any further responses from Newberry, we should probably call a vote of editors to make a final decision on the Slashdot text in question. Any more discussion before a vote? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 19:33, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC
The fact that this issue is so contentious seems to support my proposal that the intro should be about ambiguity. (BTW, the guys who maintain the Slash system that Slashdot uses say it's good for managing weblogs.) -- robotwisdom 01:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
consider the inclusion of the term "metablogging", or writing/thinking/blogging about blogging
-Ryan 3:33 PM Feb. 15 2005
As the guy who coined the term, I'm gravely dissatisfied with this whole article.
When I coined it, 'weblog' was a synonym for server log, and blogs were called 'news pages' or 'links pages'. My intention was to specify a page that logged my discoveries on the Web in reverse order, so the critical elements of the term were that each entry described a link, and that they were in reverse order.
I was aware of about a dozen sites that used that format, mostly centered on Dave Winer's Scripting News and his Frontier software, but even Dave didn't follow a strict reverse ordering (which I considered a design error).
Everybody had links pages-- the Drudge Report was one of the most popular, but nobody thinks of it as a blog. To me, the 'ideal' blog includes a link in each entry, follows strict reverse order, archives old entries, and is maintained by a single person who gives their personal opinion about each link.
There were probably online diaries/journals at the time, and some may have been in reverse order, but I still don't consider them weblogs/blogs, although this usage has become so popular I don't think it can be reversed.
The spelling "web log" has never been acceptable to me. I don't see any difference between a weblog and a blog. Neither is a "web application"-- it's just a type of webpage, and can be crafted by hand. There's no truth to the claim about 'blog' disambiguating 'weblog' from 'server log'-- it was just a shorthand, coined by Peter Meerholz (sp?) of PeterMe.
Some weblogs have multiple editors, but I think these should be called "group weblogs" and recognized as a deviation from the 'ideal'. I can't imagine a weblog being maintained in other than reverse order, because readers would complain-- the idea is to be able to see at a glimpse whether there's new content at the top of the page. (Putting so much junk at the top that the first entry isn't visible is another design error.) The commenting system is secondary and doesn't need to be mentioned in the intro. I think it's fine to mention that many weblogs are 'topical' and describe the range of topics, but that's not really important for the intro.
(I will draft a new intro and post it in a bit.) (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
First draft of revised intro:
The term "weblog" (or its shortened form "blog") is not yet well-defined. When it was originally coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997, he was describing an ongoing daily log of his readings on the Web, in reverse order, with personal reactions, pullquotes, and occasional images. Archived original
It has since come to be used as a synonym for "Web diary" or "Web journal", but the original intent was to describe a "log" of Web links, so journals wouldn't strictly qualify.
In order of importance, the 'ideal' features of a weblog are:
- updated frequently (exception: 'orphaned' blogs)
- entries displayed in reverse order
- entries include links, with commentary (exception: diary entries)
- old entries archived
- single author (exception: group weblogs)
Most blogs are maintained using blogging software that automatically specifies a date and time for each entry, and may offer a comments-page where readers can post their own reactions. Most blogging software archives each entry as a separate page with a 'permalink' that allows others to link it individually.
Blogs naturally reflect the interests of the blogger, but many blogs try to specialize in a single theme, which may be anything from politics to celebrities to junk food. (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
Second draft of revised intro:
The term "weblog" (or its shortened form "blog") is not yet well-defined. When it was originally coined in 1997, weblogs were ongoing daily logs of people's readings on the Web, in reverse order, with personal reactions, pullquotes, and occasional images. Archived original
It has since come to be used as a synonym for "Web diary" or "Web journal", but the original intent was to describe a "log" of Web links, so journals wouldn't strictly qualify.
In order of importance, the 'archetypal' features of a weblog are:
Most blogs are maintained using blogging software that automatically specifies a date and time for each entry, and may offer a comments-page where readers can post their own reactions. Most blogging software archives each entry as a separate page with a 'permalink' that allows others to link it individually.
Blogs naturally reflect the interests of the blogger, but many blogs try to specialize in a single theme, which may be anything from politics to celebrities to junk food. -- robotwisdom 16:42, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Okay, let's take it a sentence at a time: "A weblog, web log or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic posts on a common webpage. "
So the useful parts of the existing first sentence are: weblog, blog, posts, and webpage. If you don't want to start with the ambiguity problem, how about: "Any webpage that accumulates posts might be called a weblog (or 'blog' for short)."? -- robotwisdom 00:14, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
By starting (implicitly) from the widest possible definition of weblog, this section effectively treats the precursors of the-Web-in-general, or chat-in-general, which belong in some other article. What should be included:
Vannevar Bush's "Memex" proposal in 1945 included a description of trails of links.
Marc Andreesen's What's New page, started on 14 June 1993, had all the features of a weblog except personal reactions to each page linked. Archived copy
Justin Hall's Links from the Underground started in 1994. history
William Gibson coined the expression "pre-surfing" in 1996.
Dave Winer's "Scripting News", begun in 1996 or 1997 attracted a large regular readership.
The Drudge Report was probably the first webpage to scan many new periodicals as soon as they were posted and link their most interesting stories.
Slashdot was already popular before the term 'weblog' was coined.
This section should probably start with Dave Winer and Frontier, which included a 'suite' of commands for maintaining 'news pages'. Many early weblogs used Frontier as their content management system (aka blogging software).
After I introduced the term 'weblog', Raphael Carter's excellent Honeyguide Weblog was the second to adopt the term, and it took off from there. It took many months to build readership back then-- apparently it wasn't until 1999 that there was enough interest to start a mailing list, which I first did using DejaNews (it's still archived at Google groups: link).
I moved it to eGroups, which was bought by Yahoo and I haven't looked to see if they've kept it up-- I abandoned it at some point.
Establishing the dates for apps like LiveJournal, Pitas, Pyra, and GrokSoup may put them in this section. (I'm not sure this section needs to separate from the next.)
As blogging grew, there was quickly a backlash of people arguing that blogging was self-indulgent and a waste of webspace (ha!), and that a handful of weblogs were plenty. Mainstream media was very slow to take blogs seriously, and the debate about whether blogging should count as journalism arose very early.
Who were the early celebrity bloggers, and when did they start? Wil Wheaton was very early, as I recall.
There were plenty of hot topics that got debated in the early days, but I'll have to dig back to make a list-- happily, pretty much everything is still available.
I think the topic of blogs in politics is always going to be controversial, and should get a separate page to keep the debate separate. That page can be briefly summarized on the main page, with the link.
There were lots of blogs at all points on the political spectrum, from the earliest days. The ability of blogs to draw attention to stories the mainstream media was underplaying, was exactly proportional to the readership of the blog, or to the number of those readers who amplified the story via links in their own blogs.
There are plenty of stories that bloggers got to before the majors, just like there were many that Drudge got to before the majors. Blogs were very good at detecting inconsistencies between different sources, and places where a major media outlet had omitted key facts from a story.
But I think for the first few years the sense of polarization was much milder-- during the Clinton years there were Clinton-bashers, but I don't think many blogs were primarily devoted to Clinton-bashing. (I'm no expert on this, because I ignored that development.) The Monica Lewinski scandal evolved in parallel with early blogs. (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
This has to be handled multi-dimensionally. First try:
- link-oriented or diary-oriented
- topic-oriented or general
- news-oriented or resource-oriented
- single editor, multiple editors, or unedited
- single poster or multiple posters
- commentable or non-commentable
- long entries or short
- personal/intimate or professional/distant
- illustrated or text-only
- topically-sorted archives or chronological only (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
no B? Where's my B at?! I want some orange here!! ;) Lockeownzj00 22:09, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It's probably time we took a good look at each of the remaining links and discuss. Let's try to arrive t a consensus as to what we keep and not keep. Sound good? It seems to me that all the links listed now were added in good faith as places where one can get more info that rounds out the topic. If they're not of sufficient quality, then we should evaluate that. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 16:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
>>Blogs also arose amongst soldiers serving in the Iraq war. Such milblogs have become the modern >>version of a war correspondent. Is this true/NPOV? ~Dpr
I added a few sentences to this section on NPOV grounds. The section was strongly anti-corporate, so I balanced the discussion with an example from Powerline and the lack of evidence that corporate blogs were diminishing the growth of the blogoshere. -- Casey Abell 01:26, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just noticed that "Astanhope" reverted out my example of an employer defending a blogger when he was attacked. Any reason for the revert, beyond simple dislike of the Powerline blog? The only justification given is "inanity." The examples of employers punishing bloggers have remained.
It's silly to get into a dispute about such a quibble. But if examples of employers punishing bloggers are allowed in the article, why can't an example of an employer defending a blogger be included? Seems like a straightforward NPOV balancing.
At any rate, I think a better justification for the revert than "inanity" should be provided.
I have decided to put back the example of an employer defending a blogger. The example is sourced so readers can judge of its "inanity." If the example is reverted out again, I'll take the matter to Wikipedia mediation. -- Casey Abell 15:10, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Here is a list of articles that I propose be rolled into the main weblog article:
These are linked from the "Common terms" section, and are all short are only linked to by the main weblog article and each other. Maybe fork the list of jargon into a new article like List of weblog terms? -- Christopherlin 06:34, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Google search for "weblog" = 71,900,000
Google search for "blog" = 146,000,000
Stancel
20:49, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
The "types of weblogs" section is -- there's no other word for it -- stupid. As evidenced by today's spam war, it's an invitation for every old blogger to come along and add his blog as an example. More importantly, the types listed here are artificial. Do we really have to say that some blogs talk about religion and other blogs talk about the news? I think readers are smart enough to understand that blogs can and do talk about a wide range of topics. If this section should exist at all, it should be a list of archetypes, not a mere list of conversation topics. Archetypes might be culled from the existing list: Personal, corporate, political/opinion, etc. Once we get into "religious" and "directory" weblogs we've gone much too far with our classification. Right now the "types of weblogs" section is analogous to expanding Op-Ed to say that you can write an op-ed complaining about the school board, or about taxes, or about war, or the local sports team. Rhobite 01:51, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Someone should post about how Blogs game google's pagerank system to the point where you can't hardly search for anything nowadays without having to sift through 10 pages of blog links. The "link whoring" nature of blogs undermine systems like Google and turn them from a useful tool for finding relevant information and into a "internet moron's opinion engine". "Linkback" makes the problem even worse, since it automagically googlespams TWO blogs at the same time in an automated manner. Kind of like a poor man's "search engine optimization". Naturally, I couldn't contribute this content myself without being NPOV. :)
Under "Creating and publishing weblogs", there are 12 services and 6 server software examples given. Should there be some criteria for inclusion in the main article on weblogs? Could we have a category of weblog management software? (most of which are in Category:Open source content management systems anyway) Or maybe "list of weblog services and software"? -- Christopherlin 02:51, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
A description (or new page?) of Link blog would be cool! - Sridhar 05:28, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Could anyone provide evidence that Slashdot should be included in this article? silsor 18:02, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Slashdot does not come close to fitting the description of a "weblog". It is a (1)commercial (2)news site that posts (3)articles with (4)very little writing by its authors, was created (5)before the subculture slang term "weblog" was even invented, and (6)does not consider itself a weblog. Honestly though, I don't even need to be listing these points, since the burden is on you to demonstrate that Slashdot should be included in this article, rather than on me to have to write this down to demonstrate that it should not. silsor 21:49, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
If you can get the BBC to retract their article, maybe I will listen. Stirling Newberry 22:26, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've decided to go ahead and declare the Slashdot content void due to a consistent 2 to 1 agreement that it be excluded. Slashdot is a news site, not a blog. If anyone else wants to "vote" on this, please do, and if the vote sways the decision to the other side, then the Slashdot content can return. I think this is only fair. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 04:24, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Stirling Newberry called my removal of the slashdot=weblog sentences "unsourced POV". Maybe this would be true if I were adding unsourced material, but in this case I am removing a statement from the article which several people question and hasn't really been backed up. The only evidence supplied that slashdot=blog is a citation in BBC news about a "Bloggies" site that once called Slashdot a "blog"—if you look at the actual "Bloggies" site itself, it defines "blog" to be any page with dated entries. Maybe I should nominate Wikipedia for the next round of voting. silsor 15:59, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
Now my removals are "censorship", according to the Stirling Newberry's edit summaries. silsor 08:17, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)
You don't have a cite, your "definition" was, to put it nicely, idiolectic, and now you and Stevie are running a revert war. The material has notable cites, you have none. That's censorship and bad faith. Do it again, and it is straight up vandalism, Stirling Newberry 13:34, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Does not document the question. Stop vandalising the page in your POV mongering. Stirling Newberry 16:50, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, I'll stop reverting, as I don't like violating Wikipedia rules. But I will say this: Two people have rejected Stirling's cite. And wikicracy is supposed to decide these matters. I've been a user of Slashdot for many years, and I know for a total fact it's not a blog. But perhaps the only true way to find out for those who are clueless about this would be to submit an "Ask Slashdot" article at Slashdot and ask them! I'm confident this assertion (and that's all it is) that Slashdot is a blog will be handily rejected. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 17:50, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Let's copyedit the following:
to read:
How's that? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 18:10, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Major deficit on this page is a section on blogging/journalism conflicts. I'll take a crack at it later unless someone else wants it. Stirling Newberry 19:45, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I put up the link to Committee to Protect Bloggers here before I had created that page. I apologize. I have created that page now and hope that the link will remain in this post. The Committee is not a project I am involved with, but I believe it to be very important. Go check it out, or the article here on it before you revert...please.
As I wrote in the Vote to Remove page for CPB: I think that failure to include this page and a link to it from Weblog leaves an inacurate story being told regarding the political climate around blogging. We read that the DNC and RNC accredited bloggers, but not about how bloggers in other places are facing state repression for blogging? That doesn't seem benificial to wikipedia's coverage of blogs.
Is there discussion in your blog entry here of bloggers facing state repression? -- Mdog 07:46, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The hosting sites listed in the "Creating and publishing weblogs" section need to be notable in an encyclopedia sense to be eligible for listing. However, I'm concerned that some of those listed are not indeed notable. I would normally just remove the sites that don't currently have articles, but I would like to ask first if anyone believes any of the external links in the list point to somewhat notable hosting sites. Please cite sources or Google statistics to back up your selections. At some point soon, I would like to trim this list down. Thanks. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 01:57, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm a 'non-blogger' and pretty ignorant about them, but does the Blog idea relate to the Wiki concepts? ie - socially, and technologically, the concepts seem related (especially the wiki style in 'c2': http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WebLog). How are they related 'historically'? Who created blogs and when?
- Like any other website, any Internet user can read a blog.
- What distinguishes a blog from other kinds of website is how quickly and easily the author posts new entries. The blogging software automatically converts the entry to HTML, adds a time stamp, posts it online, and archives old posts.
Considering that Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, the terminology section seems to have grown out of hand. Many of the terms are rarely used or even completely made up, like "muvilog" and "auralog". I don't believe these terms have ever been used to describe blogs. Other terms like "flog" have been used, but "photoblog" or "photolog" are far more popular terms for photography blogs. Rhobite 16:40, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
Yup, the terminology section (Common terms) is growing out of hand. Some of terms, I haven't seen used anywhere except on this Wiki and this Wiki seems to be the source for a lot more other pages. So every other page takes this Wiki as gospel and quotes these terminology. These terms are the particular ones I am talking about - Blogsnob, Blogorrhoea and Blogfoo. superstarksa 9:59, June 9, 2005 (EST)
I have no personal attachment to any of the recently removed links, but it behooves anyone who rips out so much content to explain each change. Please do this. It's nothing personal. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 00:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Wiki is not a web guide, the default for links is out, not in. Stirling Newberry 00:55, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm reverting until I see an explanation for each one. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 00:55, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to call for mediation on this article. I cannot deal with the obstinance and arrogance of a particular someone who seems to just want to pick fights (and not be a good contributor) any longer. Content cannot simply be wiped out without explanation... it's anti-wiki. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 01:10, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The following links re removed:
They have no encyclopedic content. Mikkalai 02:20, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
At least, all notable citiations have said so (BBC) and it lists itself with the Truth Laid Bear blogging eco system rankings (which is a volitional act, that is, someone at slash dot thinks slash dot should be list). Googling this "controversy" comes up with a few links on a few small blogs. Thus "some" is inaccurate weasel wording.
Stirling Newberry 15:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That is incorrect. "Some believe" is accurate for a minority position. In this case it would be more accurate to say, "which some don't believe is a blog" - since, to date, there has not been one notable, documentable source from those who don't believe it. As for slashdot's status as a blog being debated, there has been at least on conference session on this topic, and the evidence of this talk page is that the matter is being debated. Even if those arguing against it have a thinness of notable documentary sources for their position. There clearly is a controversy, the question is what is documentable. I've listed my sources, and gotten little back for my trouble but three revert wars and ex cathedra assertions. I am going to consider the matter settled until someone on the other side of this discussion produces notable and documentable evidence for their postion.
Stirling Newberry 17:41, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
"ex cathedra"... "descriptive, not perscriptive"... Let's welcome Miss Diane Chambers to the bar, shall we? Note: the term is " prescriptive."
Points I'd like to make:
— Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 04:21, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Barring any further responses from Newberry, we should probably call a vote of editors to make a final decision on the Slashdot text in question. Any more discussion before a vote? — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 19:33, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC
The fact that this issue is so contentious seems to support my proposal that the intro should be about ambiguity. (BTW, the guys who maintain the Slash system that Slashdot uses say it's good for managing weblogs.) -- robotwisdom 01:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
consider the inclusion of the term "metablogging", or writing/thinking/blogging about blogging
-Ryan 3:33 PM Feb. 15 2005
As the guy who coined the term, I'm gravely dissatisfied with this whole article.
When I coined it, 'weblog' was a synonym for server log, and blogs were called 'news pages' or 'links pages'. My intention was to specify a page that logged my discoveries on the Web in reverse order, so the critical elements of the term were that each entry described a link, and that they were in reverse order.
I was aware of about a dozen sites that used that format, mostly centered on Dave Winer's Scripting News and his Frontier software, but even Dave didn't follow a strict reverse ordering (which I considered a design error).
Everybody had links pages-- the Drudge Report was one of the most popular, but nobody thinks of it as a blog. To me, the 'ideal' blog includes a link in each entry, follows strict reverse order, archives old entries, and is maintained by a single person who gives their personal opinion about each link.
There were probably online diaries/journals at the time, and some may have been in reverse order, but I still don't consider them weblogs/blogs, although this usage has become so popular I don't think it can be reversed.
The spelling "web log" has never been acceptable to me. I don't see any difference between a weblog and a blog. Neither is a "web application"-- it's just a type of webpage, and can be crafted by hand. There's no truth to the claim about 'blog' disambiguating 'weblog' from 'server log'-- it was just a shorthand, coined by Peter Meerholz (sp?) of PeterMe.
Some weblogs have multiple editors, but I think these should be called "group weblogs" and recognized as a deviation from the 'ideal'. I can't imagine a weblog being maintained in other than reverse order, because readers would complain-- the idea is to be able to see at a glimpse whether there's new content at the top of the page. (Putting so much junk at the top that the first entry isn't visible is another design error.) The commenting system is secondary and doesn't need to be mentioned in the intro. I think it's fine to mention that many weblogs are 'topical' and describe the range of topics, but that's not really important for the intro.
(I will draft a new intro and post it in a bit.) (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
First draft of revised intro:
The term "weblog" (or its shortened form "blog") is not yet well-defined. When it was originally coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997, he was describing an ongoing daily log of his readings on the Web, in reverse order, with personal reactions, pullquotes, and occasional images. Archived original
It has since come to be used as a synonym for "Web diary" or "Web journal", but the original intent was to describe a "log" of Web links, so journals wouldn't strictly qualify.
In order of importance, the 'ideal' features of a weblog are:
- updated frequently (exception: 'orphaned' blogs)
- entries displayed in reverse order
- entries include links, with commentary (exception: diary entries)
- old entries archived
- single author (exception: group weblogs)
Most blogs are maintained using blogging software that automatically specifies a date and time for each entry, and may offer a comments-page where readers can post their own reactions. Most blogging software archives each entry as a separate page with a 'permalink' that allows others to link it individually.
Blogs naturally reflect the interests of the blogger, but many blogs try to specialize in a single theme, which may be anything from politics to celebrities to junk food. (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
Second draft of revised intro:
The term "weblog" (or its shortened form "blog") is not yet well-defined. When it was originally coined in 1997, weblogs were ongoing daily logs of people's readings on the Web, in reverse order, with personal reactions, pullquotes, and occasional images. Archived original
It has since come to be used as a synonym for "Web diary" or "Web journal", but the original intent was to describe a "log" of Web links, so journals wouldn't strictly qualify.
In order of importance, the 'archetypal' features of a weblog are:
Most blogs are maintained using blogging software that automatically specifies a date and time for each entry, and may offer a comments-page where readers can post their own reactions. Most blogging software archives each entry as a separate page with a 'permalink' that allows others to link it individually.
Blogs naturally reflect the interests of the blogger, but many blogs try to specialize in a single theme, which may be anything from politics to celebrities to junk food. -- robotwisdom 16:42, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Okay, let's take it a sentence at a time: "A weblog, web log or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic posts on a common webpage. "
So the useful parts of the existing first sentence are: weblog, blog, posts, and webpage. If you don't want to start with the ambiguity problem, how about: "Any webpage that accumulates posts might be called a weblog (or 'blog' for short)."? -- robotwisdom 00:14, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
By starting (implicitly) from the widest possible definition of weblog, this section effectively treats the precursors of the-Web-in-general, or chat-in-general, which belong in some other article. What should be included:
Vannevar Bush's "Memex" proposal in 1945 included a description of trails of links.
Marc Andreesen's What's New page, started on 14 June 1993, had all the features of a weblog except personal reactions to each page linked. Archived copy
Justin Hall's Links from the Underground started in 1994. history
William Gibson coined the expression "pre-surfing" in 1996.
Dave Winer's "Scripting News", begun in 1996 or 1997 attracted a large regular readership.
The Drudge Report was probably the first webpage to scan many new periodicals as soon as they were posted and link their most interesting stories.
Slashdot was already popular before the term 'weblog' was coined.
This section should probably start with Dave Winer and Frontier, which included a 'suite' of commands for maintaining 'news pages'. Many early weblogs used Frontier as their content management system (aka blogging software).
After I introduced the term 'weblog', Raphael Carter's excellent Honeyguide Weblog was the second to adopt the term, and it took off from there. It took many months to build readership back then-- apparently it wasn't until 1999 that there was enough interest to start a mailing list, which I first did using DejaNews (it's still archived at Google groups: link).
I moved it to eGroups, which was bought by Yahoo and I haven't looked to see if they've kept it up-- I abandoned it at some point.
Establishing the dates for apps like LiveJournal, Pitas, Pyra, and GrokSoup may put them in this section. (I'm not sure this section needs to separate from the next.)
As blogging grew, there was quickly a backlash of people arguing that blogging was self-indulgent and a waste of webspace (ha!), and that a handful of weblogs were plenty. Mainstream media was very slow to take blogs seriously, and the debate about whether blogging should count as journalism arose very early.
Who were the early celebrity bloggers, and when did they start? Wil Wheaton was very early, as I recall.
There were plenty of hot topics that got debated in the early days, but I'll have to dig back to make a list-- happily, pretty much everything is still available.
I think the topic of blogs in politics is always going to be controversial, and should get a separate page to keep the debate separate. That page can be briefly summarized on the main page, with the link.
There were lots of blogs at all points on the political spectrum, from the earliest days. The ability of blogs to draw attention to stories the mainstream media was underplaying, was exactly proportional to the readership of the blog, or to the number of those readers who amplified the story via links in their own blogs.
There are plenty of stories that bloggers got to before the majors, just like there were many that Drudge got to before the majors. Blogs were very good at detecting inconsistencies between different sources, and places where a major media outlet had omitted key facts from a story.
But I think for the first few years the sense of polarization was much milder-- during the Clinton years there were Clinton-bashers, but I don't think many blogs were primarily devoted to Clinton-bashing. (I'm no expert on this, because I ignored that development.) The Monica Lewinski scandal evolved in parallel with early blogs. (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
This has to be handled multi-dimensionally. First try:
- link-oriented or diary-oriented
- topic-oriented or general
- news-oriented or resource-oriented
- single editor, multiple editors, or unedited
- single poster or multiple posters
- commentable or non-commentable
- long entries or short
- personal/intimate or professional/distant
- illustrated or text-only
- topically-sorted archives or chronological only (Jorn Barger, 6 March 2005)
no B? Where's my B at?! I want some orange here!! ;) Lockeownzj00 22:09, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It's probably time we took a good look at each of the remaining links and discuss. Let's try to arrive t a consensus as to what we keep and not keep. Sound good? It seems to me that all the links listed now were added in good faith as places where one can get more info that rounds out the topic. If they're not of sufficient quality, then we should evaluate that. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Contrib 16:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
>>Blogs also arose amongst soldiers serving in the Iraq war. Such milblogs have become the modern >>version of a war correspondent. Is this true/NPOV? ~Dpr
I added a few sentences to this section on NPOV grounds. The section was strongly anti-corporate, so I balanced the discussion with an example from Powerline and the lack of evidence that corporate blogs were diminishing the growth of the blogoshere. -- Casey Abell 01:26, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just noticed that "Astanhope" reverted out my example of an employer defending a blogger when he was attacked. Any reason for the revert, beyond simple dislike of the Powerline blog? The only justification given is "inanity." The examples of employers punishing bloggers have remained.
It's silly to get into a dispute about such a quibble. But if examples of employers punishing bloggers are allowed in the article, why can't an example of an employer defending a blogger be included? Seems like a straightforward NPOV balancing.
At any rate, I think a better justification for the revert than "inanity" should be provided.
I have decided to put back the example of an employer defending a blogger. The example is sourced so readers can judge of its "inanity." If the example is reverted out again, I'll take the matter to Wikipedia mediation. -- Casey Abell 15:10, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Here is a list of articles that I propose be rolled into the main weblog article:
These are linked from the "Common terms" section, and are all short are only linked to by the main weblog article and each other. Maybe fork the list of jargon into a new article like List of weblog terms? -- Christopherlin 06:34, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Google search for "weblog" = 71,900,000
Google search for "blog" = 146,000,000
Stancel
20:49, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
The "types of weblogs" section is -- there's no other word for it -- stupid. As evidenced by today's spam war, it's an invitation for every old blogger to come along and add his blog as an example. More importantly, the types listed here are artificial. Do we really have to say that some blogs talk about religion and other blogs talk about the news? I think readers are smart enough to understand that blogs can and do talk about a wide range of topics. If this section should exist at all, it should be a list of archetypes, not a mere list of conversation topics. Archetypes might be culled from the existing list: Personal, corporate, political/opinion, etc. Once we get into "religious" and "directory" weblogs we've gone much too far with our classification. Right now the "types of weblogs" section is analogous to expanding Op-Ed to say that you can write an op-ed complaining about the school board, or about taxes, or about war, or the local sports team. Rhobite 01:51, May 16, 2005 (UTC)