Productive Debate in the Blogosphere
May 25, 2003
Discussion and Citation in the Blogosphere... (0000R7)
Tom Coates makes some excellent and lengthy comments comparing debate in blogs with debate on centralized threaded media such as web boards as well as with academic debate carried out in peer reviewed journals and the like. He suggests the mechanics of commentary and linking effectively weed out some of the fluff. (0000R8)
Much of what he says is not too new--the blog crowd has been congratulating itself on this feature for some time--but it is well explained. (0000R9)
An additional aspect that is touched upon is that of reputation. Since a blog acts as a fairly high resolution standin for a person's identity, the distributed commentary supported by blogging grants more exposure to the full context of someone's thought than happens in a mailing list or web board. The context helps to grant authority and meaning to the comments. (0000RA)
More on these sorts of things in earlier entries and, if I can manage to poop it out, a forthcoming entry in response to the HeadShift Smarter, Simpler Social paper. (0000RB)
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