Tag Archives: Blogging

Has the net become a more hostile place?

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Tim Hall

A few days ago I had some discussions online with an online friend who, like me, had been blogging for well over a decade. We both agreed that we self-censor a lot more nowadays compared with the early days of blogging. I’m very reluctant to promote political posts on Twitter, for example.

It might be that we’re both slightly older and wiser and more aware that we could tread on people’s toes with careless words. But I don’t think that’s the whole story; the growth of social media has made the net a more hostile place.

Sites like 4chan, Tumblr and parts of Reddit spawn toxic communities that don’t play nice with the rest of the net. It’s also it’s far easier nowadays to end up at the wrong end of a social media witch hunt if you say anything that someone with a substantial bully pulpit doesn’t like. I’ve had to remove posts in the recent past because the comments section turned toxic after a major figure linked to it.

This is sounding a bit like a grumpy “Kids, get off my lawn” post, I know. But I do think somewhere along the line, something good has been lost

Posted in Social Media | Tagged | 1 Comment

Forums vs. Twitter vs. Blogs

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Tim Hall

Over on Twitter, Rosie Sherry lamented the fact that too many conversations happen in ephemeral places like Twitter rather than on forums with greater permanence.

I’ve previously blogged about the ways social networking sites all too frequently suck the life out of forums and blogging, and I think the challenge is finding a space for blogs and forums in a world where everyone has accounts in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. People are naturally lazy, and prefer a “one stop shop” approach expecting content to come to them rather than keep track of dozens of individual sites. It’s why so many businesses have abandoned their own web forums in favour of Facebook groups; that’s where their customers are.

A technical fix would be on solution; synching content between a blog or forum and a social network; I’ve looked at WordPress plugins that do precisely that. It’s certainly technically feasible for content to be shared both ways, for example, between a Facebook group and a stand-alone forum. The bigger problem is this comes up against the social networks’ walled-garden approach to monetising their services.

But that’s probably only a partial solution. For example, I find Twitter especially is very different in style and feel from blog and forum discussions. In some contexts, blogs and their associated comments sections are like conference presentations followed by a formal Q&A session. In contrast, Twitter is more like the informal discussions in the bar afterwards. So I’m not convinced that it’s a good idea to try and merge the two.

On the other hand, far more people are likely to read what I say on Twitter than on my blog, so the two need to coexist. Bloggers and forum owners need to make their sites sufficiently compelling that people will visit, and to use social media to promote them.

What do you think?

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Any Comments?

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Tim Hall

When I post something of substance to this site, I usually post links on social media, typically Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to make the world aware of it. I notice that people are far more willing to leave comments on those social media links than they are against the blog posts themselves.

While I appreciate feedback and engagement via any route it would be nice if the conversations weren’t fragmented across multiple sites. I have done a bit of superficial research to see if there are any WordPress plugins that let me synchronise comments between WordPress and this blog, and to date (like Bono) I haven’t found what I’m looking for. It may well be that Facebook want to keep things within their walled garden for monetisation purposes, so such a plugin would defeat their evil plans for world domination.

So, those of you who tend to leave comments on Facebook rather than here on the blog, why do you do this? It can’t be to do with privacy, because I usually make links to my blog public, and unlike Facebook this site allows you to comment pseudonymously. Are there things I could or should do to make you more willing to leave comments on the actual blog?

Note that the first comment you leave will go into a moderation queue purely as an anti-spam measure, but once that one’s been approved, all subsequent comments will go straight through.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , | 8 Comments