Blogs With Bite

what do you like to read?

Published on February 26, 2004 By crimson In Blogging

JeremyG posted about the problems of Joeuser ratings, primarily questioning the validity of those who are in the top 10 and whether they deserve to be or not. Issues about content, a specific circle of responders and referrals were mentioned. I must admit that there are people in the Top Ten that I don't read... it's just not my kind of thing. When reading some of my responses, I pretty much know who is reading my stuff regularly and I think that's great. However, I don't often venture out of my own Top 10 list of people whose blogs I like to read regularly. The thing about the Top Ten Lists is that you often miss new people's entries, instead by going for the steady output of known writers. Not bad, but I know there are more good writers out there.

Anybody have any recommendations, or applications? I like a mix of things; politics, faith issues, and reviews. Mostly, what I am looking for is blogs by people who reveal a bit about themselves and the things that are in their lives. They offer opinions, but not profanity-filled rants. (Usually!) The people I like to read, are people who like to tell a good story, and basically write one themselves.

Keep me posted!

Comments

PoetPhilosopher

on Feb 26, 2004

This is just me, but personally, I like to read articles which are truely insightful. That is to say, there is some new arrangement of ideas, or some connection which is non-obvious that the author is illuminating. Probably second is the humor/satire blogs, and third is the "personal interest".

The articles I will call truely insightful are very very rare. We are talking one in 100 or 200. I will wander around some of my favorite bloggers and post examples here.

The next tier are humor and satire - Muggaz and Messy Buu. And only if I'm in a mood for them since I don't really have a ton of time. But these are fun late at night coz you can just post meaningless replies.

Lastly are personal interest and the problem here is that most people are not interesting enough to keep my attention. WiseFawn is a good one, because she seems real, and her situation is unique.

The bottom of the garbage heap I reserve for the masqueraders:
1) Attempting to be insightful, but just spewing ideological nonsense. The worst of the worst are the politicalos on both the right and left. You can identify this masquerader by a simple posting of statistics or facts and a crude cause and effect argument with no relation to the posted facts. I think my favorite one was - people are poor because they don't work - the ultimate of anti-insightful.
2) Humor reposts. Hey I am guilty of this one - but so what?! Original humor is the best. On the other hand, other people make comedy their life and are better at it than some drunk high-school kid at 3am
3) The blah blah blog. Today I woke up. I was feeling a little sleepy and overslept. I had to get the kids ready because Jennie was going to the dentist. BOOORING. I don't come here to read someones personal narrative of their boring every-day life, talking about things which happen to everyone, about people and places I have no interest in or knowledge of.

There you go - but that's just one pseudo-intellectual's opinion.

Mackintosh

on Feb 27, 2004

I'll agree with all the points sans the 3rd one. Keep in mind that a lot of us write blogs to keep our friends informed of what is going on in our lives. I don't think it's a valid reason to write someone off just because they happen to be using their site for that reason. I know I'm guilty of it, but given that a large share of my friends live overseas this is the only way I can keep them abrest of the happenings in my life.

Having said that, I do believe variety is the spice of life and strive to make my blah blah posts at least somewhat interesting and relevant to casual visitors. I hope that I'm applying a healthy mix of humour, stupidity and rational thinking, alas that is not for me to judge.

PoetPhilosopher

on Feb 27, 2004

I posted this same topic about a week ago with a very minimal set of responses. Funny.

A related topic I've been thinking about - what I want to read, and what I want to author, and what I want to comment on are three COMPLETELY different things. I am pathetic with the written word - especially so creating NEW articles. So my blogs tend to be stupid. And generally my contribution is more to get people to think about things such as questioning their assumptions, getting them out of the box, as opposed to taking a firm stand on any one issue.

At the same time if I spend time reading something I want it to be useful. Time is so precious and it is easy to find a community that really only provides you entertainment. It's an easy trap to fall into but as I get older I prefer to spend my time gathering information, trying to become more knowledgeable about people and the world, issues and society. If I want entertainment - I have a lot of other avenues in the real world. Related to that, I am also less interested in making relationships online - I save that for my hours in the real world where I can see and touch and interact.

I've only been here a month and I think the fascination may have run it's course. I'm teetering on the fence. I think what it comes down to is that I would like a blogsite/community which is more focused on a couple topics, and the ability to create communities here seems to be pretty weak. What you have is a bunch of individual blog homepages written by a single author. It is very much like an online diary format.

Something like Yahoo! Groups is more what I want, but alas there is a lot of lameness in them.

I think the single thing that interests me most about JoeUser - and the reason I come back - is not the topics, not the individual blogs, but rather the entire "phenomenon". The micro-politics are funny; the soap-operas of the actors; the redundancy on the topics; the cliques unfolding and realigning; the constant struggle over control and power.

All that being said and even though I am REALLY trying to resist it - I find several of the people that post here truely interesting - or at least the character they portray interesting. I guess it's human nature.

Recommends:

http://psychx.joeuser.com/

http://madice.joeuser.com/

http://jepel.joeuser.com/

JeremyG

on Feb 27, 2004

Add those people to your personal links so that people visiting your blog can discover them!

PoetPhilosopher

on Feb 27, 2004

I Dont know HOW!!!

imajinit

on Feb 27, 2004

i don't know how to add certain users to my "favorites" list either... i have so many favs, i don't know if i could anyway.

I've only been here a month and I think the fascination may have run it's course. I'm teetering on the fence. I think what it comes down to is that I would like a blogsite/community which is more focused on a couple topics, and the ability to create communities here seems to be pretty weak. What you have is a bunch of individual blog homepages written by a single author. It is very much like an online diary format.

the problem here is that we are all here with a different agenda. some are here to keep a diary, some are here for conversation, some for enlightenment, some for experimentation, some to meet other brilliant people (like me), and the list goes on... some people combine some or all of the above. Personally my agenda changes from one week to the next.

I think it was Nicky that said "sometimes you have to sift thru some garbage to get to the good stuff"... (am i close Nic?) this is very true. I realize that your time is precious, so this may not work for you. But don't give up on the site just because sometimes we like to bullshit.

if i'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the ideal site for you would be one where people only blogged about cutting edge ideas, novel and marvel ideas... the kind that really make people think. That's simply not possible in this environment. It's very discouraging when you really spend a lot of time composing something that you think is great, and then no one reads it. It's a whole lot easier to throw out a bunch of trash, since that seems to get read more than the stuff you're looking for. When a blogger is motivated by points, this last option looks mighty appealing.

how many bloggers sit down at their computer nearly every day and try to think of something new and exciting to blog about, only to find themselves occasionally suffering from writer's block?

it's not my style to "beg" someone to stick around, if they're thinking of leaving... but you are one blogger that i would be sad to see go...

Mackintosh

on Feb 27, 2004

I get writer's block quite often. It is very hard to post something new and interesting each and every day. I look on my blog like I would on a newspaper, I want to "publish" it every day, but like with all newspapers, you only have as many top stories to work with, the rest is rubbish that gets thrown in there as filler. Ditto with music CDs, come on, when was the last time you picked up a CD and instead of 2 or 3 single-grade songs you actually thought every single song was a winner? While the analogy is crude, this is more or less what happens with blogging. Unless you're a multi-skilled genius, you just won't have that many great articles or intriguing things to blog about. Sometimes I get my inspiration from other bloggers, most often from Trinitie, but also from my great friend *cough splat* imajinit or Muggaz, Nicky with whom I seem to share the same wavelength and lately Dan.

Don't give up PP, I'm sure as things progress a lot of bullshit posters will simply stop posting and the hardcore users who actually do bother coming up with their own thoughts and musings will most surely hang around for a long time to come. These are just the forming stages of the JU community, long way to go still

PoetPhilosopher

on Feb 27, 2004

imajinit did you just call yourself brilliant ?

heheh.

imajinit

on Feb 27, 2004

right on write on

i was wondering if anyone was gonna catch that or not...

I like to write comments, words, ideas, etc with dual meanings...

just imajinit

PoetPhilosopher

on Feb 27, 2004

I like to write comments with duel meanings.

imajinit

on Feb 27, 2004

touche'

Ben Belden

on Feb 28, 2004

I've been going around to a lot of different blogs lately and I keep seeing the same names popping up in the comments to every one. I don't really know why I said that because I'm not going anywhere with it. I like to call what I write articles and I spend way too much time on them and as a result they tend to be pages longer than necessary. Also, it keeps me from posting anything more than once or twice a week. Maybe this site isn't the best forum for what I'm attempting to do, but I like it and so I stay here. Generally I write humor with the occasional serious part thrown in, all trying to get a message across. I think my point was that I'd rather read one good article a week that took me five minutes than five bad articles a week that take me one minute each. I'm wondering what the opinion of everyone else is whether they find themselves drawn more to posts that are short and to the point or long and exploratory?

crimson

on Feb 28, 2004

Ben,
I took a stroll on over to your site and I must say... I like it. Well, almost all of it, except for the Calculus one. And that might not have been your fault, really... I just hate Calculus period. My eyes started to automatically glaze over after reading the title.

At first, I was bothered about the length of it. Mind you, I have a crap ISP and a CrapComputer (trademark hehehe) so I was also worried about the time factor involved. You know, your Mike one rocked, and I commented, and was going to post another comment for each one, but then thought... this fucking CrapComputer...reboot.

Seriously, I think Jeremy made a good point. Set up a list of your favorite sites. Keep visiting, and comment. Once people get more familiar with your name, they are more apt to read your stuff. I did and I know that I will keep checking in on you.

Length, size? Does it matter? We'll leave that one for the masses.

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