Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Jeri C. Gloege" <gloege AT metalab.unc.edu>]

On 22 Apr 2002, Andrew Phillips wrote:

> Does it really matter? Come on.. its a place to rant about your views on
> life, and anything else. Does it matter what you call it? This sounds
> like rants on mailing lists about which programming language is better
> yadda yadda, or who's l33t3r then j00.
> 
> Yeah, call me a Troll, whatever.
> move along... nothing to see here.
> 
> -Andrew

Not really other than that as usual people are bowing to the demands of 
the lowest common denominator.  Does that make me a purist?  If so, oh 
well.  :)

> 
> ------------------------
> Andrew Phillips
> Applications Developer
> aphillips AT buildscape.com
> (919) 484-9843 x 246
> http://www.buildscape.com
> 
> On Mon, 2002-04-22 at 16:56, Steven Champeon wrote:
> > on Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 12:25:49PM -0400, Jeri C. Gloege wrote:
> > > Okay when did we start erroneously calling online journals "blogs"??  A 
> > > blog is simply a list of links folks.  Dare I refer you to 
> > > http://www.spoonfed.net/blogs.html who rants about the misused verbiage 
> > > of late much better than I???  
> > 
> > Dare you? Obviously. But I'm not sure what the point was, exactly. Scott
> > tends to rant a bit, and I admire his style, but I'm never sure exactly
> > what he's saying. It seems he's "upset". Or maybe just depressed. And to
> > say that a definition of "blog" is "simple" is pretty silly.

Hence the dare I.  Yes Scott tends to scream a bit but he has a good 
point.  Just because *you* don't happen to get his point does not mean it 
was silly or that you have any right to dismiss him as "upset" or 
"depressed".  Very um.. nice of you there and so on point.  For more of 
Scott's point go here, http://www.spoonfed.net/point.html.   If you wish 
for another good link on the history of blogs (that really neither proves 
nor disproves anyone's point), check out 
http://www.diarist.net/guide/blogjournal.shtml.


> > 
> > Rebecca Blood has a much more intelligent take on the history of the blog:
> > 
> >  http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
> > 
> > Maybe I'm biased - I know and like Rebecca, and have had the good
> > fortune to know many of the people involved in the early history of
> > the form, going back to Justin Hall's Links from Underground and
> > Michael Sippey's Filtered for Purity, through Peter Merholz, Brig
> > Eaton, Meg and Ev and PB and Jack and Matt Haughey at Blogger, Jesse
> > James Garret, Cameron Barrett, Jason Kottke, Gael Cooper, Jessamyn
> > West, Jeffrey Zeldman, Dave Winer and others.

Sorry I was sitting enthralled with all the web junkies Steve knows.  I am
still not sure what the point was in all the name dropping but okay...

> > 
> > You may want to distinguish between "weblog" in the pure form, which
> > is the term coined by Jorn Barger in 1997, and "blog", which is the
> > looser term, and what all the fuss is about (and which likely dates
> > back to Peterme's coinage of "wee-blog", which I thought was silly,
> > and which was soon shortened to "blog").

Yeah I got that information back from the original source in 97 and just 
now from reading what Rebecca wrote... thanks for um.. copying her 
verbatim.


> > 
> > I've used guestbooks in blog-like ways going back to 1994 or so, and
> > more recently Blogger and Moveable Type and so forth, and still have a
> > blog, of sorts, though I made a conscious decision to make it more of
> > a diary and ranting ground than a high-profile news filter or
> > discussion board.

Um, are you comparing Blogger where you click six boxes and voila, you 
have a site to Moveable Type which is a true web application program?   I 
mean yes, you can take Blogger to the next level and customize it but you 
can also have a sweet lil online journal set up in less time that it takes 
me to cut my fingernails....  geez.


<snip random esoteric conversation that has little to do with the point>

> > 
> > I'm interested in the evolution of the Web as a medium, and whether
> > you like it or not, blogs have had a lot more impact on the way 
> > people speak, listen, and interact online than anything since email.

Way to quote every nontech newshash on blog's posted online for the last 
year.


> > 
> > > Blogs are not going to change the face of anything. 
> > 
> > They already have. That's why you're ranting about it, after all.

Am I ranting?  I think not.  I was simply pointing out that online 
journals and blogs are NOT the same thing.  


> > 
> > > Thanks to Blogger, BlogSpot and every other build-your-own-webspot-in-
> > > thirty-seconds tool, anyone with something they want to say, can.
> > 
> > No, this has always been the case. Now, they can say it online, in a
> > visually rich format, without worrying about the underlying markup or
> > styles. That is changing the face of the Internet, and it may have an
> > effect on a society that is learning, after fifty years of consumption
> > of media, that they can be producers as well.
> > 
> > > If you want a Blog, go to Memepool (www.memepool.com) or Mefi
> > > (www.metafilter.com).
> > 
> > That's ridiculous. I know Matt Haughey doesn't refer to MeFi as a "blog".
> > It's a community site. And memepool is a filter, not a blog.

Actually he DOES call it just that.  "Metafilter  - community *blog* 
that allows anyone to contribute a link or a comment." which is perfectly 
appropriate and apropos by the way.  BLOGS ARE LISTS OF LINKS - the 
definition was never confined to a list by one person.  Are you SURE you 
know what you are talking about.  Nice copy/paste of Rebecca's article 
above by the way but I got it by reading it the first time.   



> > 
> > > If you happen to enjoy blogging then do so.  Just don't call the 
> > > synopsis 
> > > of your day that cause then you are misusing the term.  And let's face 
> > > it, 
> > > if something is going to change anything, can't we at least get the 
> > > words 
> > > right here folks??
> > 
> > I strongly agree - perhaps we can start by using the word "blog" properly.
> > 
> >  http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213547,00.html
> > 
> >   1) A Weblog (which is sometimes written as "web log" or "weblog") is
> >      a Web site of personal or non-commercial origin that uses a dated
> >      log format that is updated on a daily or very frequent basis with
> >      new information about a particular subject or range of subjects.
> >      The information can be written by the site owner, gleaned from
> >      other Web sites or other sources, or contributed by users.

Oh look!  Same definition as an online journal or diary!


> > 
> >      A Web log often has the quality of being a kind of "log of our
> >      times" from a particular point-of-view. Generally, Weblogs are
> >      devoted to one or several subjects or themes, usually of topical
> >      interest, and, in general, can be thought of as developing
> >      commentaries, individual or collective on their particular
> >      themes. A Weblog may consist of the recorded ideas of an
> >      individual (a sort of diary) or be a complex collaboration open
> >      to anyone. Most of the latter are moderated discussions.
> > 
> >      Since there are a number of variations on this idea and new
> >      variations can easily be invented, the meaning of this term is
> >      apt to gather additional connotations with time.
> > 
> >      [...]

I'm sorry - was I fighting against the use of weblog or web log or the 
misuse of the word Blog which as you mentioned above can be distinguished 
as two seperate things.  Shall we should go back to  your plagiarizing of 
Rebecca's article which yes, did a smash up job of  distinguishing between 
the two.  If you hate my example of Mefi or  Memepool (Which ARE blogs 
btw) then go look at Slashdot for another example or Kuro5hin.


> > 
> > Hey, language evolves! Amazing. 
> > 

 Thanks for waving your length of time on the Internet
around so we can assume you know what is going on better than most of us;
however, if we are throwing piss around and bragging about how long we
have been on the net, I think I have you beat unless you were around in
82.  Granted, growing up with a father who helped design Arpanet gives me 
an unfair advantage but if we are pissing in each other's cornflakes then 
why not???

Okay, bitchiness aside (yours and mine), frankly with your time on the net 
you should know better.  You have not really taken a stance other than to 
attack Scott and show the silly merging of the definitions of online 
journals and blogging which are, in fact, NOT THE SAME.   So I guess that 
leaves me asking you what YOUR point is???

jeri


_______________________
Jeri Gloege
jeri AT fractalmind.org
http://www.fractalmind.org

Created and ongoing part of the problem since 1974.