Citizen FrancisPage

Brad Poole writes about the potential pitfalls of blogs in Today's Tucson Citizen. I voluntarily contributed information to the story through inquiries posted at Speed Of Thought, afraid of seeing another blog-bash story hit the streets.

From the story:

"You publish insightful, intelligent content, you will attract an insightful, intelligent audience. Push flamebait, and feel the fire," Francis said in answer to a blog post seeking comment for this story.

...

Francis uses his blog to let people - especially family and friends - see a side of him they don't see in his everyday life and to unleash his muse through writing.

"In a way, it's therapeutic," he said.

My take: He gets it, although I was left with the impression blogging is more dangerous than it really is. I don't agree with the skull-and-crossbones illustration of blogging, although Captain Bartholomew Burgundy might!

Blogging, as Jeff Jarvis has said, is a conversation. And if you're rude, belligerent, or violent in your discourse, you can expect the same in return. That's no different than oral or written communication, which have been around forever. Blogs, like everything else, can be used for good or evil purposes. You have the rabble-rousers like Kos, Wonkette, Huffington, et al., but you also have the apolitical types: people who blog about their families, their hobbies, movies, comic books, anything Star Wars. And somewhere out there you'll find a variation of what were once the seven most dreaded words on the Internet: "Here are some pictures of my cat."