Comments

1. Paul Maurice Martin 10/08/2007 - 8:57 am

   I suspect the criteria for posting are different according to content. A news-oriented blog would ideally post every day. But for a blog on some particular topic that doesn’t constitute “breaking news” I’ve found two or three posts a week seem to be sufficient to keep people coming back and gradually expand readership.

   Paul – originalfaith.com

2. David Nickol 10/08/2007 - 9:40 am  subscriber

   dotCommonweal is safe, since (in my opinion) it isn’t actually a blog. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, a blog is “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.”

3. Jimmy Mac 10/08/2007 - 2:27 pm  subscriber

   So many blogs that I have linked to tended over time to become a bit too specific, too strident, or too boring.

   What is meant to continue, will.

4. Alan C. Mitchell 10/08/2007 - 6:33 pm  subscriber

   This seems like a natural development. There is only so much one can say before becomng predictable and trite. The comments boxes pn blogs are often filled by the same 15 people who are grinding the same axes they have ground for years. Despite the efforts of bloggers to present themselves as “journalists”, what they produce belies their attempts. The article highlights Amy Welborn, who was very successful with her Open Book blog. She had an awakening of sorts that maybe she had a shot at making a mark that was not going to be hit with that kind of blog. Did she burn out on rudimentary blogging? Only she can say. The difference wit h her new blog Charlotte Was Both is palpable.. She obviously has a talent for literature and she is seriously persuing a career as a writer of thoughtful, serious fiction. I don’t blame her for changing her venue. In the end everyone will be a winner.

   As I see it, blogging brings out the best in some people and the worst in others. it is talk radio on the internet, giving a forum to people who should really keep thier ideas to themselves. The anger, hatered, and vitriol of bloggers is inescapable. Catholic blogs (St. Blogs) is notorious for it. I hesitatate to mention the names, but there are rarley any more rude and uncharitable positions on the internet than I see on these blogs.. They go out of their way to show that they are in no way PC for which rudeness is their only response. Wasn’t it an editor at the National Catholic Register who pointed out the serious lack of charity and Christian values on Catholic blogs? Now it is time to pay the piper. it will be intersting to see how many others fall out.

5. Jean Raber 10/10/2007 - 8:07 am  subscriber

   Thought this was an interesting observation from Cathleen’s linked article:

   Alan Jacobs in Books & Culture–”Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought.”

   I think the quote ignores the many other functions blogs, perhaps unintentionally serve and what this blog in particular offers.

   For me, in an isolated rural area, it’s a way to connect with Catholicism that is more than bingo and the canned food drive, worthy as the latter is. (Though I will never understand why some of you big-city sophisticates blench at mention of my cold cream soups. Ain’t you people never heard of vichysoisse?)

   It’s also my continuing education course in Catholicism, a place where I can be honest about what I think (or don’t think, sometimes to the horror of other readers) and have those beliefs hammered on and expanded.

   I see blogs like Commonweal’s as a kind of modern-day pamphleteering, in the best sense of that word. In the early days of our nations, people circulated ideas through pamphlets and sometimes responded in kind. Movements started. Ideas sparked and died for lack of support. In this case, the pamphlets can be circulated immediately, picked up, picked over, and the useful bits inculcated.

   While I doubt anything on this blog much effect on the church’s hierarchs, I like to think it does make the laity more informed and engaged. And, in the main, most people stay on track of the topic. They may be snotty or sarcastic occasionally, which makes the blog like real life.

   There are three downsides to this blog, as I see it.

   One: It often gets too academic and theoretical. I do read those threads, but sometimes they don’t make a lot of sense. My fault for being too impatient to read theology and philosophy.

   Two: Those who uphold the doctrines of the church–let’s take the ban on artificial birth control as an example–usually refer to church documents and the requirement of obedience to bolster their arguments. As if the rest of us weren’t aware of those teachings. They rarely talk in any way about how such teachings have helped them grow as Catholics or Christians. Perhaps that’s because they feel that those benefits should be obvious to the stupidest observer.

   Well, here I am, and it’s not always obvious.

   Three: The blog hasn’t done much to build common ground among Catholics of all types, and perhaps that’s not really possible. It has attracted different types of Catholics and allowed them to interact, with mixed results, I think.

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