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   A BLOG COMMUNITY UNDER SIEGE

More than twenty months ago I presented a set of rules for blogging at TPMCafe.

For the most part the rules had some real significance in the lives of all the members of that community.

I know this because at least one reader would show up to comment on each and every chapter in the series.

I stole the actual rules from Craig Crawford who was experiencing the same problems at his community blog site that Josh Marshall was experiencing at TPMCafe.  There is just not enough money to be made by investing in a blogging community and after a period of time everyone in his or her blogging community wishes to kill everyone else in that community, anyway.  It is human nature. Kind of like Congress.

(Even though most members of each ‘community’ start out on ‘the same side’.)

Thanks to the miracle of reproduction—I am not speaking of porno sites here you goddamnable perverts—provided through Dagblog, a vast majority of my 8,000 blogs survive to this day. I understand that Genghis at this very minute is negotiating with the Smithsonian for the total package. My attorneys have advised me to remain silent at this time and see what is to be gained from all of this. I have already sent Donal fifty bucks in order to ensure that I shall remain apprised of all progress with regard to these negotiations.

Understand that life is a lot like case law.

In case law the courts must ‘balance’ the rights of the individual against the needs of the society as a whole.

If, for instance, my 30,000 pages of truisms were to become repub talking points, I must balance that evil with the opportunity to purchase a certain Caribbean island and be able to populate it with a lot of nekked women.

I had thought about revisiting those rules at a later date until WWS provided a forum for 4000 different opinions on blogging; the purpose of blogging; the essence of blogging; the Baroque of Blogging.

So this is the first in a series of at least ten posts dedicated to the rules of blogging. I have simply amended Mr. Crawford’s rules to reflect what I have learned following the floggings I have received from blogging over the last two years.

This series may end up being twenty or thirty posts by the time I have completed this quest for internet excellence, but if I could foretell the future I would be betting on election results in Vegas or doing better on my bets as I hit the river.

AND SO I BEGIN MY QUEST.

Rule # 1:   Always be sure of the party to whom you are speaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uINRNwq_TXQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9e3dTOJi0o&feature=related

Okay, so Destor has decided that our entire country is going straight down the corporate toilet, Mr. Seaton has responded that Spain is in a bit of a bog itself and Q decides that all he wishes to write about is hockey or fatigue.

If you are simply going to comment upon Destor’s blog, respond directly to the points made on his post. As a matter of fact, ignore everyone else’s comments as you draft your comment.

Other people’s musings will just confuse you anyway and if you are anything like me you were already confused when you started reading Destor in the first place; I mean does his avatar show off his wondrous body today or is he wearing one of Ventura’s boas? 

Which reminds me; I mean if you are interested in real study, why not just go ahead and read Franz Boaz rather than fuck around with a guy who is wearing a boa. But I digress.

As you work on your comment, make sure that you begin with a correct address, like you would in a letter. After of course, you must make sure that YOU HAVE PUSHED THE PROPER COMMENT BUTTON!!! If you push the reply button to Q’s comment you will end up with one mad Canuck in fatigues coming after you!

Dear Destor—I mean I am heterosexual and all so I do not mean the address ‘dear’ as having any deeper meaning especially since you look like a gay wrestler—I have read your post with great interest.

See now what you have accomplished with this introductory paragraph is to have properly IDENTIFIED THE PERSON WITH WHOM YOU ARE SPEAKING.

Any idiot, with the exception of some troll wandering around TPMCafe, upon discovering your comment would realize that you are not writing to or about some Canuck who is obsessed with hockey. It would also be clear that you have not addressed some expatriot who likes to allude to Hispanic or Iberian customs.

Secondly, you have made clear your purpose which is not to ask out a gay wrestler to the Easter Parade. -------Your purpose is clearly spelled out as attempting to address the traitorous writings of a communist who no longer wishes to live in the Land of Liberty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q77wqDDUDsc

You are attempting to address the issues that are addressed in the post itself all the while addressing your comments to the addressee of the blog.

And did you notice the ‘candy’ I snuck into the first paragraph of the comment? I said that Destor’s post was ‘of interest’.  See that tells the writer that I give one good shite about what he has published even though I never said I really gave one good shite at all.

And I certainly have given no real objective indication that I liked the goddamn thing.

As we learned at TPMCafe, to begin the discussion with something like:

Listen here you commie faggot wrestler….

Well, you have completely blown your cover and he might even end up asking you on a date.

We certainly discuss issues surrounding concepts like ad personam arguments as well as issues encompassing basic human courtesies in this important series; at a later date.

The important thing to remember at the outset is that when you find yourself dealing with a commie gay wrestler, you have to be an idiot to begin with.

But I digress once again.

Another important thing to remember is that others might read your comment, file it somewhere and then just as you find an opportunity to run for the office of Sewage Inspector for the County of Maneur, some arsehole pulls up this old comment of yours and confronts you with it as you appear on the Chris Matthews show. And then Chris will accost you with lines like:

So you hate faggots and wrestlers as well as most of the citizenry of Maneur County? Ha!!!

At least, if you had begun your comment with the introductory paragraph that I suggested, you can wriggle out of the fact that you are a homophobic prick.

Stay tuned for more rules that will set you on a proper course to run someday as Sewage Inspector for Maneur County.

A previous version of this blog has been posted at:

http://onceuponaparadigm.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/how-to-blog-good/#comments