So like it says in the title. If you could get one forum member to start their own blog which one would it be? Which forum member (who doesn't have a blog already) would you like to read even more from? Each one gives his nomination, and the forumite who gets the most nominations is then forced to start a blog for us to read. Sounds fair to me. I start. I nominate Kakugo. Who's next?
I was going to say Kakugo too. And now I have.
I would nominate clayton if he didn't already have a blog.
Schools are labour camps.
Student and Escuric (sp?).
JJ would be the most engaging, in my opinion.
Clayton would require me to concentrate for too long.
Some forums members already publich blog-like content (Nielsio, SD).
I would probably go with Esuric.
Or, in fact, I might actually want Birthday Pony to start one. That way I would maybe understand what s/he thinks instead of ambiguous references to who knows what.
JJ would be the most engaging, in my opinion. Clayton would require me to concentrate for too long. Some forums members already publich blog-like content (Nielsio, SD). I would probably go with Esuric. Or, in fact, I might actually want Birthday Pony to start one. That way I would maybe understand what s/he thinks instead of ambiguous references to who knows what.
Link?
They meant "if he doesn't". As in "I'm not sure"
John James, for sure.
Ok, so far it is a two way tie between JJ and Kakugo. This is very exciting. Let us see who will come out on top in the end.
I'll vote for Kakugo.
http://incompressible.blogspot.com/
Last post December 16, 2011. Clayton posts so much content on the forums that he doesn't really need a blog.
I nominate...Esuric. He smashes economic nonsense with astounding Austrian precision.
Clayton for sure. When Liberty Student and Sieben were around I'd have read their blogs too (if they had one)
By my counting the tally at the moment is: Kakugo: 3 JJ: 2 Esuric: 2
This is getting more exciting by the minute so keep them coming! Out of the race on a technicality but a lot of encouragement for Clayton there to pick up his slack.
I stand corrected.
Also, I think Marko might have some interesting thoughts himself.
Definitely -not- Smiling Dave :P
Nice of you to say that, but I'm out of the race for the same reason Clayton is.
Link? :D
John James. Forcefully coerce him into doing it!
I'd vote for a collective, open source blog where users submit articles and they're then voted to either be published or not. Maybe even edited by all the authors to a quality they deem publishable.
*edit* I guess you could call it a peer-reviewed blog.
The race at the moment: Kakugo: 3 JJ: 3 Esuric: 2 Link for Wheylous: here I'd like to share something on the good and bad sides I've found of writing a blog: The good: *.) If taken seriously enough the regular practice makes a huge difference in your writing over time. I look at my posts when I was just starting and the difference is glaring. I cringe now when I re-read the earliest ones, because I see so much room for improvement in their style and language now, and that is just it. I didn't think they were cringeworthy back then when I made them, at the time they were the best I could do and was quite happy with them. Perhaps further along the road I will improve so much I will come to see what I produce now as cringeworthy as well. That is both a scary and a hopeful thought but more so the latter. And no, you will never improve your writing on a forum. You will never take forum posts seriously enough to watch your writing. It is not the convention to do so, it would not be valued if you did, and finally it's extremely unlikely anyone will read it again even after just a few weeks after the topic you have posted in ceased being active. So with all that in mind why bother? I had posted on forums for 8-9 years before opening a blog already, and the only way it advanced my writing in English was as to give me mad flaming skills **.) Your state of mind may take a turn for the better. I find that after I make a blog post on a topic and in this way go on the record on my stance on a matter for all times eternal that I am able to put that issue behind me, rather than revisiting it in my mind over and over again. (Where on forums even after you have comprehensively flamed someone and pushed them close to tears, it is only a matter of time before another buffoon with the same disgusting position comes along again to raise your blood pressure again.) Also while forum posts are more fun to write, it gives you a greater sense of accomplishment to press a publish button on a blog post. The bad: *.) No one will read you. The situation will appear especially ridiculous to you if while running a blog you are simultaneously posting on one or more forums. So you're in a situation where the forum posts you do not put that much work into will be read by hundreds of people, but blog posts you really put large effort into and are much more serious about will be read by seven or eight people. **.) A corollary of that is that you will get no feedback, which is a huge obstacle. Many times I improved my arguments and further developed my thinking on a problem when the view I presented was challenged by a fellow forum poster. That just doesn't happen with a blog no one reads. You will get no comments and no chance to build quickly on your initial thinking. Which leads me to Maynard's idea: I really like the idea of a joint blog, and I've brought it up a couple of times at a few places (don't recall if I ever suggested it here), but it turned out there were no takers. I think running a blog is the one obvious activity someone should take if they have any ambition writing anything serious in the future, (even if it is just a few published submitted articles for lewrockwell.com or mises.org 15 years down the road). But if you do, as I said you will run into the problem of not having any readers. Running a joint blog could be the best answer you could come up to that. Simply because they get updated so much more often joint blogs are much more likely to pick up followers. I bet you're far more likely to have in your bookmarks the Circle Bastiat blog, the LRC blog, the Independent Institute blog, or the antiwar.com blog, than the personal blogs of Stephen Kinsella or Roderick Long. There would be some issues, and some rules would be needed to keep the blog focused rather than all over the place and to avoid too much uneveness in quality, but it's nothing that could not be solved after a while. Maynard suggests a voting system (and an interesting editing idea), but I think a more permissive system may turn out to work better. I think it may be better if submitted posts were published right away, or after recieveing an endorsement from just one or two other co-bloggers, or else there would be one, or two elected admins-editors (someone civilized and nice) with veto/delete rights. In any case I think there is a lot of incentive to launch such a thing and to try to make it work, since a blog with an actual readership doesn't have a downside to it. You get the good effects mentioned above, without the bad, and a regularly-updated joint blog is the best hope of that. We sort of already do this, when you think about it, with our joint monthly low content threads. What are those, but a relaxed form of an internal joint blog? So why not hit the big stage? Why not fill the void left by the shutting down of Mises Economics Blog? Anyone else besides me and Maynard thinks this ('Mises Community Blog'?) may be a worthwhile idea? Think the brains of Kakugo, JJ, Esuric, and other forum greats all combined at a single venue?