An Open Comment on Natalie’s Rules

Posted on March 12, 2003 in Crosstalk InterNet Debates

Natalie posted a list of rules (originally ten, but extended to twelve in a comment) on her blog. I got to writing a response which exceeded her 2500 character limit. So, though I know that she doesn’t like it, I’ve posted the whole message here in response. Please read her first:

I don’t feel quite so darkly as bloggers as you do. I figure that the act of sitting down and writing is a good thing, just like educational experts contend that it is better to read utter garbage than to read nothing at all. These folks are trying, Natalie, trying to put their minds out there. The new bloggers and new writers are just in a different stage from us — a place we’ve been. Let’s try not to be like the eight year old who gets upset because his two year old brother likes to say “poo poo”: he was there once himself.

When I critique a piece of writing for form and style, I make an effort to consider what is good about it as well as how it might be strengthened. Content is none of my business except as a counterpoint to my own views.

As for pings, I do it and I have my site enabled to allow others to do it. I think it helps both the pinger and the pinged: it shows that the words we have written have been received and commented upon. It shows that what we’ve written has inspired ~thinking~. That’s a good thing. Trackback pings are a victory for me as well as for the poster. I encourage people to jump in (as long as they are nice about it.)

On the issue of attacking other blogs: I don’t do it much — except when I have an interesting mix of prescription drugs in my system — (roaches provide me with too much material anyways) but whenever I write something, I keep in mind that the biggest price we pay for freedom of speech is that someone else might not like what we write and say so. I can pay that price (it’s certainly better than the alternative which is to have a state or self-appointed etiquette board coercing us to say nice things about one another). I just remind anyone who would take a pot shot in my direction on their blog that their criticism may not be the last word. What goes for me, goes for them. It is by the free exchange of ideas and the testing of them by discussion that a society grows strong, not by silence. Sometimes a crackpot saying nasty things says something worthwhile.

By the way, though you write about different things than me, I like your blog. It’s your letter to the world. You’re welcome to apply these rules to your own writing — developing a personal literary canon is a perk that goes with this thing — but my only comment is not to become so addicted to the rules that you cannot break them when circumstances call for it. Or attempt to make others abide by them.

Hypocrite? I think the word is overused. You’re on a writer’s search. I suspect that these rules are a stage in your development. I also suspect that you will cast them aside for yourself and for others in time. Experimentation is OK. To conduct a proper experiment, you need to outline a protocol.