Anatomy of a Blogger

Martha has asked over at the Fish Wrapper, what kind of bloggers we are, with the goal of complicating the notion of any one style or method or purpose of blogging. [She's right, I do tend to think of blogging as more or less the same. This is another case of us confusing the technology with the conversation.] I'll answer Martha's questions for myself below.

Generally, are you an impetuous blogger? Or do you mull over an idea or post for hours, days, weeks before hand? Do you draft a post and then let it sit until you’ve had a chance to revise it multiple times, perfecting your language and point?

No, I'm a muller. I will let posts sit for months at a time. But, oddly, now that I think about it, not generally because I want to revise them more. I'm an impetuous drafter, writing blog posts as inspired, but I tend not to hit "Publish" on them very quickly. [Faculty Academy this year being an exception.] That has more to do with a deliberate (self)consciousness of my online presence than the care with which Barbara Ganley calls for in "slow blogging".

Do you “collect” the references in your posts before you write them (if so, describe your system)? Or do you blog with 15 windows open, copying and pasting quotes and URLs, as needed?

15 tabs in Firefox (7 right now....)

Do you blog in the admin panel of your blog? Or do you use some third-party tool? If you use a tool, what features does it have that hooked you?

The admin panel. It's worked pretty well for me.

Do you automatically consider placing images in your posts? Or does this not even occur to you, usually?

I don't usually even think of it. I'm generally blogging about concepts, but I see Barbara and others do the same, but with pictures. I'll have to think about this idea more.

Do you write posts and then delete them before clicking “Publish?” Or, by extension, do you have draft posts that have languished for days, weeks, months waiting for you to pull the trigger?

Yes, see above....

Do you feel compelled to blog on a schedule? Do you feel guilty when you don’t?

No, but I feel left out when I see lots of other people posting and I haven't had time (or something to say).

Do you “craft” the experience of your blog, adding sidebar widgets and custom graphics to lure readers into your space?

I've added some sidebar stuff, but I've not thought about it as drawing readers in. After all, I tend to read other people's stuff in Google Reader (and generally visit their blogs only to comment), so I tend not to worry as much about the reader's Techist blog experience. [Maybe I'd have more readers if I did.... :-]

Martha and Laura's posts about this view of blogging and technology suggest we really need to work harder to clarify that these tools are just that, tools, and ways of furthering conversations, creating interactions, and reading, processing, and adding to, that torrent of information to which we all have access, and with which we all have to deal.