15 August 03
A Place In Cyberspace
This is a post on weblogs as place for the Ecotone Wiki.
Writing this weblog has really been my first endeavor in online community. I have been on the Internet ever since 1990, but would only post very occasionally to places like various mailing lists or Usenet, and never hung out for very long in IRC-land. Nor have I been inclined to participate in web communities such as Kuro5hin or Slashdot, though I lurk omnivorously. There I sense my identity would get lost in the tumult of voices, whereas this weblog is more my own home, a place where my own sensibilities can emerge.
Is there something special about weblogs that make them possess more of a sense of place than other online fora? Place has always been an important metaphor for the Web—witness the use of “home page” and “web site”—and perhaps the combination of the graphic design elements of the Web and the prominence weblogs give to the individual writer’s voice enables a strong sense of place. And a weblog is happiest when other people stop by—it is always reaching towards community.
To turn the metaphor about, a weblog feels like a home on a street with neighbor bloggers who frequently visit, or at least check if your cat is outside. From outside your neighborhood, people occasionally drive through and comment on your choice of house paint. Outside your town, the world of bloggers is vast, growing unfathomably, but all share a desire to create their own little nook in cyberspace.
- Glad you mentioned the ‘home page’. A you’ve been online since 1990, don’t you think some of the greatest attractions to the web which kept us up till the early hours Back Then was the Home Page. You could connect with amazing aspects of the real people. In recent years, the search engines don’t service home pages. It’s all Kellogs and Cars and Crap inc. Blogs are the transcontinental way of waving hello again to people with whom you fel some connection. Or some such thing!— Coup de Vent 16. August 2003, 01:55 Link
- I notice you coyly neglect to mention that you and I met on one of these “various mailing lists” (Scribes) back in 1995 when I posted a request for the best quill knife…— Pica 16. August 2003, 05:03 Link
- Seems like somebody with extra time on her hands who can’t be running around right now chasing birds or collecting quills ought to post an old scroll she wrote in the 90’s about Hermes.— BuoysInMyBinos 16. August 2003, 08:25 Link
- I noticed he coyly neglected to mention that, too!— Doc Rock 16. August 2003, 10:56 Link
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