The Therapy of Blogging While Showing Off Your Ideas Out in the Open

5 thoughts on “The Therapy of Blogging While Showing Off Your Ideas Out in the Open”

  1. Hi Luis
    As usual – a fascinating topic! Is there “always time for blogging”? I haven’t worked that one out yet (as you might have guessed!).
    As for questioning whether a “blog is blog without comments enabled” – that is a very good question. There are of course bloggers out there who don’t enable comments (and clearly not just because of spamming) but chose to follow up through different channels (twitter, google+ etc)
    That would be more akin to the original web logs (as you say) that were merely a vehicle for publishing their ideas and thoughts in short bursts – and perhaps as a prelude to a book. In a far more social and connected world a blog without comments seems ….”wanting” – devoid of that opportunity to engage in dialogue with fellow thinkers and followers. “Oratory” – for want of a better word – no less valid but quite different in nature.
    It does the opposite of empowering people to go to it with their expertise – but leaves them out in the cold. They want to share their ideas and thoughts publicly – but don’t want others to share with them?
    Is it an unwillingness to engage? A fear of criticism? or simply a different technique?

    I love your analogy with the blog being your home – a very social home where people can drop by and learn from each other. That’s such a great thought!
    But what does that say about those bloggers who don’t enable comments?
    Is it their ivory tower? Does it make it less or more valuable – or just different?

    I hope the spam attacks don’t continue Luis because I would hate not to be able to drop by and join in the conversations in your home! Being muted doesn’t come naturally!

    1. Hi Marie-Louise, finally, found a bit of time to drop by this blog post and share across a proper follow-up response. Many thanks for the wonderful feedback comments, as usual, incredibly helpful!

      Yes, there *is* always time for blogging. It’s just a matter of whether we would want to have a chance to order our thoughts in longer chunks than 140 characters and share them along. I am glad I’m finally making that time to keep blogging away what’s been in my mind for a while 🙂 hehe

      I am starting to think that one key item that could be brought up into the mix is that situation where when having a blog with a relatively “small” number of blog comments to handle it becomes easier to participate and facilitate the conversations, like over here, for instance. However, when you have got an extremely popular blog, the ones that always come along with trolls, it becomes much more of an issue to manage the commenting capabilities effectively and people may just prefer to write the blog posts without comments and entertain them elsewhere, like on Twitter or G+.

      So I wouldn’t think it’s an issue of living in an ivory tower, or the unwillingness to engage, or the fear of criticism per se, but perhaps something much more mundane: scalability and our inability to scale as human beings, which means popular bloggers would need to sacrifice their blogging and conversations for the sake of that popularity forbidden for higher degrees of engagement.

      It’s a fine line to walk by, for sure, but one that now that the spam commentary attack is over I’m willing to take it for a spin and see how it goes 🙂 hehe

      Thanks again for dropping by and for coming to my home to engage in rather helpful and inspiring conversations. As always, greatly appreciated.

  2. Hi Luis, great post and sorry to hear about the problems you’ve been experiencing with spam comments – they’re a real blight!

    I’ve always found blogging a great way to help me think-through and clarify rough ideas that come to mind. By writing them down and publishing them, it encourages me to develop them further and helps me articulate them more clearly.

    And if people choose to comment on them…it’s a welcome bonus! 🙂

    1. Hi Tim, I couldn’t have agreed more with you on your thoughts about blog comments being a welcome bonus. Indeed, that’s also the main reason as to why I keep blogging myself: as an opportunity for self-reflection on ideas, thoughts and work I’m currently doing or getting exposed and that I would want to reflect on it some more over the course of time. If that exercise then benefits others and they decide to leave a comment or two, I’ll be doing my best to try to respond in a timely manner as a token of appreciation, not only for dropping by and sharing the comment, but for taking the time of their busy schedules and join the conversations.

      As far as I am concerned it just can’t get better than that, and for that I’d like to thank you as well, personally, for dropping by and for sharing your feedback. Greatly appreciated.

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