Pen-Elayne on the Web

Looking Up Our Own

From the commentary engendered by my Feedback Loop entry, I think it's pretty clear that many of us like to engage in meta conversations - that is, we like to discuss process just as much as (if not sometimes more than) what that process is designed to do. I admit it, I'm a total process wonk, and like other blogs I'm opinionated, and we all know what opinions are like. I actually think self-administered proctology isn't nearly as harmful when it's bloggers talking about blogging or message board posters discussing board dos and don'ts as it is when, for instance, the news media decides to cover other news media rather than reporting on actual substantive news. (Okay, FAIR excepted because they're a watchdog group and monitoring process is the job of watchdog groups.)

I know there's a danger of self-absorption when you talk process too much, but much writing is inherently given to self-absorption anyway, and I don't see that many bloggers - at least the ones I read regularly, listed at the sidebar - neglecting to look out the window in favor of extended navel-gazing. Instead I've seen lovely bits like this one from Anne at Peevish, which makes a very good case that, while we bloggers certainly aren't claiming that regularly writing to an unseen audience out there in the aether makes us any better than the average citizen, it tends to make some of us better and more thoughtful citizens than we may have been had we not taken up our online diaries, partly because of the mental preparation that goes into organizing our thoughts and partly because of the discussion our entries engender. So this is a rather longwinded way of me saying "Hear hear!" to Anne's essay.