It was ironic to find this combination of posts in my aggregator (more about aggregators, desktop and server-side later today, I hope) this morning: Alan Levine’s contention that in order to really be blogging rather than just ‘publishing a weblog’ one must have a comments function followed by the Contentious Feedless Hall of Shame where one can’t submit recommendations via the site because– you guessed it– comments were turned off due to spam.

There is more to being a blogger than merely publishing a weblog, just as there is more to being a writer than merely publishing a poem. The emphasis here is on the being aspect, the state of being something as opposed to performing the mechanical tasks involved in an activity. Being is complex, performance most often is not.

The most fascinating aspect of the blog phenomenon is how it focuses precisely on this very difference. One’s words are immediately out for public consumption– there is always an audience without the middleman of publisher (or editor, to my occasional misfortune). The tools and means are available to most without gatekeepers, so there is no particular respect that comes just from the publishing process in the way that many will automatically grant a privilege to something they see in physical print. Everything is about the writing, and good writing is not merely about the product, but about the state of being that enables one to be a good writer. Unlike a print publication there is a community one must work to become– and continue being– a part of both in the ‘blogosphere’ and in the context of one’s own site. Being a good blogger demands more than just publishing a blog.

So what makes a good blogger? Off the top of my head:

  • Attention to Craft (a good blog is all about the writing)
  • Consistency of Approach (without becoming dogmatic)
  • Currency (whether you write of iPods or poetics)
  • Interaction (interact with readers and other blogs)
  • Breadth and Variety (a highly ‘vertical’ blog is an information resource not a blog)
  • Personality (We know how to use a search engine, we come to blogs to hear from a person)