Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
What is a blog (and blogging)?
According to Wikipedia, the definition of a blog is as follows:
A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Well, this definition pretty much describes the format of any blog. The problem with this definition is that it left out the content part of blogs. Of course, to bring in the content into the definition would be a big headache because a blog can be so many different things at the same time.
For some people, a blog is akin to a personal diary. They write down all the things that they experience, as well as all their thoughts. Yet for others, a blog could well be an academic journal or conference paper, where one writes a well-researched entry to prove a point. Some people take blogs as a means for political subversion. Others turn blogs into a business. The varieties of content on blogs can go on and on and on.
I’ve received comments from a couple of people that there are too many loopholes in my entries, and that I shouldn’t be writing so much. One well-meaning commenter said that it usually takes him a week of brainpower to come up with an entry, and it would be good for me to take some time to think and read before I make an argument.
It’s not that I don’t see the value in doing so, but doing that defeats my purpose for blogging. I see blogging as a form of conversation between myself and whoever reads my blog. I have knowledge gaps that sometimes result in less than perfect arguments. However, I think that’s perfectly fine. People who drop leave comments based on their knowledge, and I reply, they reply, and both parties walk away with a little extra knowledge.
I don’t see blogging as an end in itself, which is why I don’t write with tons of research materials backing up my views. To me, blogging is a means to an end. I see blogging as a spontaneous activity where people with imperfect knowledge come together, share their knowledge, discuss and hopefully, everyone walks away with something that they didn’t have to begin with.
It doesn’t matter to me if I happen to look stupid by making some wrong comments due to imperfect knowledge. Making mistakes is part and parcel of learning, and I enjoy learning from the many people who have dropped by my blog and left thoughtful comments. I might not necessarily see eye to eye with everyone all the time, but that’s only natural. What’s important to me is that people (many who are strangers to me) are willing to share their perspectives. Without my blog, I won’t be able to engage in discussions with all of them in real life.
Alright, enough of ranting. Here’s wishing everyone a happy chinese new year, and if you’ve ever dropped by my blog, read and/or left comments, thanks for giving me some of your time. 
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 21/02/2007 at 4:15 pm, and is filed under Ramblings. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 5 years ago
hey Aaron,
good point. A further argument for your stand would be that blogs are still personal – which means that our personal views, ideas, thoughts and stands should come to the foreground.
I’m assuming you have come across my blog before – and well, i don’t do much research. Rather, i would see it as more prudent to comment on a particular issue and put our own ideas and thoughts into it. We’re not running a newspaper, and well-researched articles, while a boon for the reader, may not be what we want.
I think Yawning Bread does pretty thorough research for his articles, but that’s probably why he only writes say twice a week? Either way, the good part of blogging is that we don’t have to be objective (even if the ideal of objectivity cannot really be achieved) and the thesis-antithesis synthesis works.
Let’s take a little example. Earlier on i tended to be more anti-establishment, until i discovered a much larger group of blogs, all taking a more rationalistic stand, not just spouting blind hate – that’s what i have been trying to aim for in my writing as well.
Yet, i suppose that i will never be perfectly objective even if i tried to – everyone sets an aim when he/she writes and strives towards it. There isn’t even an objective history, so i suppose what one can do is to approach objectivity as close as possible…
about 5 years ago
Style is important. The MSM is wrong when they said, content is king, it isnt otherwise all of us will be reading ecyclopedias and watching only boring documentaries. Life is all abt variety, choice and above all fun.
I think if you can somehow manage to fit all 3 into 1, no matter what you write abt ppl will always come back for more.
about 5 years ago
What is a blog?
What a funny question.
Whatever we define it to be.
Don’t worry about other people
Other people don’t usually have your agenda at heart.
about 5 years ago
Thats wasnt really a rant:P i have seen worse (and done worse
)
…actually to add on to annie sincerity is equally impt….i personally have had it with people who keep “talking down” to us as if we are idiots who only have $$ imprinted in our brains…even if u may not be able to write well and all, but if u are sincere, u more than make up for the mistakes that may appear in ur post.
guojun,
dun bluff…ur still an anti estab maggot
about 5 years ago
Guojun,
Well, perhaps blogs are “personal” to the extent that it’s usually written in first person, and there isn’t much of editing and censoring relative to other kinds of publications.
Yes, I have read your blog before. I think I visit up to 20-30 different blogs a day.
I don’t think true objectivity can be achieved. If that is possible, there wouldn’t be so many wars happening. I think the next best solution would be for everyone to lay out all their views in the open and have a civil discussion. Everyone gets their point across and then decide on a middle ground that’s acceptable to most. And, I think blogs are a great way to achieve that!
about 5 years ago
Hi Annie,
I found your comment very interesting and amusing. I never really looked at things from your perspective, but I guess you have a point. We all don’t really want to read encyclopedias everyday! :p
I hope that my blog somewhat fits into all your 3 categories.
about 5 years ago
Ben,
It’s a funny question, perhaps, but it’s something we should wonder sometimes. Just like how we should wonder what is a newspaper. Is it the SPH version or WSJ/NTY version that’s a true newspaper?
about 5 years ago
Hi Stark,
Well, as I wrote the entry I thought that it sounded like a rant, so I just typed it all down. And yes, I agree sincerity is very important. This is why I try to make a point to reply to anyone who has left a comment on my blog. I mean, if the visitor cares enough to leave a comment, I should at least return the favour, right?
A little politeness and civility makes the world a slightly happier place.
about 5 years ago
Hello Aaron.
That was the most un-rantlike rant entry I’ve seen this year (although considering that this year has just begun, it might not be saying much. Lol). =) Haahaa.
That is the thing, or magic, about blogging. The fact that at the end of the day, you are entitled to expouse your own personal view on a subject matter, and people are welcome to agree or disagree. Hey, take you and I for example. We seem to disagree more than agree, and and there are lots of people who can’t seem to agree with my views either. Oh, and this even includes Mr. Rationality Ben (although with him we’ve got the privilege of taking the discussion offline). =)
So yeah. Main thing is just to keep doing what you do. Oh, and actually, the point of this comment was to tell you that I like your header bar and your clock. The doggie butt is extremely endearing – please don’t change it. And so too is that little critter telling us the time. Awww…
about 5 years ago
The brotherhood have got it to a science. They know what we all want. Those space boys just know how to rubba us the right way. LOL
about 5 years ago
stark…once the flag changes to sg flag i am going to settle u ah…for defaming me…u better treat me to laksa with ham…
about 5 years ago
aaron! i totally agree because everyone’s entitled to their opinions. i somehow have problems reading some people’s blogs whose entries turn out to be mini essays that attempt to broadcast how intelligent and well-thought their entry is and how solid and foolproof the argument turns out. i’d rather go back to the newspaper. which is why i prefer to read blogs that aren’t too artificially intellectual.
oh by the way, what a coincidence. kitana’s a very good friend in real life, and thus i happen to know Ben by default too. the world is small.
or maybe it’s just singapore.
keep on writing!
about 5 years ago
Aaron,
Everyone has their own interest and cater to their own target readers. You do journalism, I do economics, totally different balls. Apparently, Xiaxue has 10,000 readers per day! Though I don’t really understand what she is on about. I must be missing something.
about 5 years ago
Bart,
perhaps people need something light to forget the stresses of life?
about 5 years ago
Anyway Guojun…its MEE Siam…pls get ur facts straight
Actually the wonder of the blogosphere is in its diversity…u want humour u got humour, u want intellectual u have intellectual..u want pro u want anti u can find it anywhere…and better yet there are different shades of pro and anti.
In fact there are a lot of stuff that one can learn from bloggers and i must say i have learnt alot from the various bloggers out there, even more so than from our dear senior editors in the MSM. I still have more to learn so i hope everyone continues blogging and continues commenting in the last bastion of democracy (besides potong pasir and hougang)
about 5 years ago
Kitana,
Yeah, alot of times people disagree rather than agree, but as the chinese saying goes, ä¸æ‰“ä¸ç›¸è¯† (translated: if people don’t fight, they won’t know each other). I’m just glad that so far, most people who disagree with me have been very nice about it.
Anyhow, glad that you like both the doggie at the masthead and the time. A pity wordpress.com doesnt allow you to add code to your theme (I think you can add, but it’s not as straightforward as the customised version of wordpress that I use).
about 5 years ago
Wanyi,
Thanks for dropping by!
Don’t worry too much about the rant. It’s something that I’ve been wondering about for a while, and I met with some blogosphere heavyweight yesterday, and this topic of the genre of blogs (and blogging) came up, so I decided to write about it!
And yes Singapore is small. I just found out that Ben was in the same company as me back in National Service days.
about 5 years ago
Hey Bart,
Thanks for the kind words. I don’t know what I’m missing out on Xiaxue too. Her blog makes no sense to me. The only reason that I can think of is that most humans are busybody by nature and like to read tabloids. That’s why TNP, Shin Ming and Wan Bao will never go out of business. Maybe Xiaxue will never go out of business for the same reason too! :p
about 5 years ago
Stark,
I agree that the Internet is the best hope for civil society to develop in Singapore, given our unique historical and political circumstances. I just hope that the gahmen kindly leave the cyberspace alone and let a true civil society emerge. Civil society cannot be created nor managed. It will not flourish if people do not feel anything for it. And, I think Singapore badly needs a civil society that people endorse and identify with as their own.
about 5 years ago
Hmm… In the end, I suppose that each blogger has his/her own style of blogging. And each style of blogging has its own groups of fans & detractors. å„花入å„眼。One may find a blogger’s style of blogging as acting “chim” and thus dislike it but another may just enjoy that sort of blogging. Same goes for the case of some people disliking Xiaxue’s style of blogging but, at the same time, some are ardent fans of her blog (there must be a reason why her blog is so popular, isn’t there?). One person’s delicacy may be another’s poison.
Haa… In the end, I suppose that the local blogging community can be likened to a monopolistic competitive market (apologise for using economics jargon here; been mugging for my economics midterm next week).
about 5 years ago
Aaron,
I am different, I like to read mini essays which provide an unique and different take to what the MSM is offering.
I think, blogland is really quite big and there are really so many readers out there. As for Xiaxue I think she may get 10,000 hits per day, but this should not be confused with actual number of readers. As many of them are teens so they probably log on 10 times per day thus boosting up the number.
As for ppl like Mr Brown and Mr Miyagi, they may have many readers again, but judging from the quality of what is regularly churned out, many of them are still quite young.
But people like the bhood press may have lesser hits and more readers, bc their readers are usually much older and mature. So obviously they have less time and may even log on only once every week.
Then you get people like singapore angle for target I think undergrads, again they may more time on, so there tends to be more open forum style exchanges.
Just my take. I think too many ppl place a wrong emphasis on how to make sense of the visit counters, this is one of the biggest misconceptions that needs to be corrected i.e the more hits means more readers, very misleading and wrong.
Just my 2 cents, very good blog.
about 5 years ago
Sorry guys..at the risk of sounding like an out of touch White Ninja…who are the brotherhood press?
Aaron,
Guojun and i were in the same unit..but since the unit was small we knew each other…he was the sadistic officer who tekanned me and taught me how to tekan people…:P
about 5 years ago
LCC,
Thanks for the little economics nugget.
The MC market analogy is perhaps a good way of looking at the blogosphere. How about doing an analysis of blogopshere from the MC perspective? I’ll be very interested to read if you actually write something about that. Oh, drop me a line if you write ok? I can be a little absent minded at times. 
Good luck for your midterm! Gambatte!
about 5 years ago
Juniper,
Well, some bloggers do care about hits. Mr Wang advertises his 30,000 monthly hits very prominently.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that though. Hit rates can be a motivation for some people to write more. And, if it’s a powerful motivating factor, why not, especially if it adds on to the marketplace of ideas for a better all round discussion.
about 5 years ago
Stark,
Check out the Brotherhood press at Intelligent Singaporean.
Wow. I didn’t know you and guojun actually knew each other.
about 5 years ago
haha…thats why he and i keep insulting each other…actually guojun is kinda ur descendent…he too was from the Chinese High
btw thanks for the info on the brotherhood…apparently SEW is the sisterhood…
about 5 years ago
Haa… Nahh… I think I will leave that task (i.e. analysing the local blogosphere from the monopolistic competition perspective) to Charissa (she’s the honours year Economics major after all).
Thanks for wishing me luck; I will need it sorely.
[So much to do, so little time...]
about 5 years ago
Aaron,
i must clarify…i don’t see you as my ‘father.’ haha!
Well, talk about a marketplace of ideas is very ideal and good indeed, but are ideas there to be sold? i would prefer the Net community (the local one at least) to be a conflux of ideas across the spectrum, a forum where people can express themselves without fear of persecution – a very real fear, i am sorry to say.
about 5 years ago
Apparently workfare aint that unique to Singapore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workfare
The arguments against workfare are rather interesting. The way the press tells it its as if workfare is something thought up by the zheng hu…heh
about 2 months ago
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