Blogs Suck. Camille Paglia says, in her new interview in Salon: "Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit. " Read the whole article here. What a breath of fresh air! I have had countless arguments with other bloggers (mainly on LiveJournal) about whether blogs are open to criticism, and time and time again I get responses like, "Well, it's a transcript of my cortex" or "I only write it for my friends." One even told me that I could criticize her content, but not her style; a style clearly enamored with itself, but for no reason I could discern. So that Camile (and the rest of us) don't have to suffer anymore, I present the following: Japhy's Rules of Blogging I, John Q. Blogger do hereby proclaim: 1.) My blog is not a diary. If I publish something, I realize it is for other people to read and that if I only wanted my friends to read what I write, I could always just email them. A blog is a public thing. 2.) I accept that if I publish something on the web, I must accept criticism of it, even if I don't agree. 3.) I will spell check. 4.) I will not simply copy the text of someone elses work and say something like, "Look, this is cool" . 5.) I promise to try to write better each time I write. 6.) The majority of my blog entries will be longer than five sentences long. 7.) I will punctuate and capitalize and do my best to follow the grammatical conventions of my native language- unless I have a damn good reason not to. 8.) I will google the subject of my blog before posting. I will see if someone has already written the thought I have in my head. I do this not only to take part in the online community I am a part of, but also to see if my thought has been expressed in a way which is better than mine. If I can not expand on what has already been said, I will shut my piehole. 9.) I will not be boring. Any bloggers who wish to agree to these rules and emails me will get a swanky "Japhy Rule Certified" banner for their site.

posted by Japhy at 10/29/2003 01:30:00 PM || #