Stuff I Write Elsewhere
I wish the stuff I write on my own blog was as good as the stuff I write on yours. But the truth is, sometimes the only erudite, impassioned and insightful things that ever leave these fingertips end up in the comments area of someone else’s blog. I think it’s because you all piss me off so regularly and nothing gets my mental wheels turning faster than a good argument. Whatever the case, I’m vain enough to wish that everything I write publicly could be amassed into one big, searchable place. This blog is a good example of how it would work, but, as I said, many of the best thing I write aren’t here. They’re on Plastic, Orkut, Slashdot, Macslash, a myriad personal blogs that I read regularly and a few that I just stumble upon, never to return again.
At some point I hope to figure out a sensible way to archive the stuff here on the blog for far-future perusal. After all, I doubt whether anyone will have a working copy of WordPress 20 years hence, let alone the antique hardware to run it on. But what about the material that’s else where on the web? Is there a way for me to see to its preservation and future findability?
Apparently I’m not the only one worrying about these things. Clive Thompson over at Collision Detection has recently written very eloquently about this issue. Check it out. And thanks to David Weinberger for drawing my attention to it.
January 16th, 2005
When people read the idea, the main thing they take away is the idea of archiving, and while I’d like to see something that offers that functionality, the main idea is that aggregating comments would allow someone to follow someone’s thoughts through the blogosphere. As you said, the most interesting stuff that you write is comments on other people’s blogs. IF that is so, and you have something interesting to say, at some point, I could do a search for all comments that you have left behind on other people’s blogs, and get a better idea of the sorts of blogs you go to, what you have to say, what interests you, etc. If people knew that there comments could be viewed in aggregate in this fashio (what would amount to a de facto blog of comments) the blogosphere would become much more interactive than it is. More people would leave behind comments, and they would take better care in writing them.
January 16th, 2005
Blog of comments. I love it. Someone elsewhere in this discussion pointed out how you can sort of do this on slashdot. Any author you’re curious about you can find their comments aggregated across various threads.