Wednesday, May 27, 2009

A Tale of Two Blogs - Well, Three Actually

First the two. I find myself back in good graces of The Victoria Advocate, after being banned. I am not going to go into that other than to say that I accepted being excommunicated, and I moved on, and created or re-created my blog here.
I had or have mixed emotions about being reinstated in that space. I have been blogging there through at least a couple of management and editor changes at the Advocate, and a couple of format an software changes to the blogs. I started out writing stories and a a few opinion pieces, and was fortunate to be part of a small group of writers that was accustomed to their writings being around for a day or two, and having some meaningful dialogue and interaction with a few readers. Needless to say, I was disappointed in the first change instituted by current management, when it became a free for all, anybody could blog if they could remember a password and username. I think after a rocky period, I adapted to the format, however much I grumbled from time to time. It just wasn't the same, and our stories and writings were pushed off the front page, almost before some late sleepers were able to even see them, and quite honestly, there were so many flippant and inconsistent new bloggers, that a lot of the old readers and commenters just gave up and quit reading. Well, was I in for a shock when the latest change was implemented. Same story, tenfold. What once was a small group of reasonably literate writers and readers/commenters, had turned into an absolute circus of geeks, freaks, and a 75/25 mix of some actual serious bloggers/commenters with something constructive to contribute, and in a reasonably literate fashion, and a majority of others just looking for a fight and someone to disagree with and a limited at best grasp of proper grammar, and the spelling skills of fifth graders. Now that I probably have pissed off management again, and that 75%, let me say that I realize that this is apparently the direction our society is headed, when it comes to online newspapers. Which is another reason I started my parallel blog. It is my blog. Only. If some of the other bloggers want to do one, more power to 'em, but what is on my page, is all that will ever be there. If I go a month between comments, that is fine too. As much as I do and have enjoyed the interaction with readers here, at times, I tire of some of the hayseed, illiterate vermin who come out from under the baseboards with no intention of doing anything but harassing and dealing out vicious personal attacks to the other bloggers.
So for anyone who has bothered to stay with me to this point, most everything you see there on my blog will have been published on Blogger first. There will be things posted here that are not relevant there, and there will be things posted here, that would likely get me busted again there. I am not belittling the Advocate forum in any way, and being interested in the issues and comings and goings of the place I was raised and have family and friends, I would like to contribute and participate there as long as I can. By the same token, I would like to invite anyone who reads my blogs there, to feel free to check this blog site also, as well as that of
http://thegrey-beardloon.blogspot.com/ a former staff writer and blogger for the Vicad, and a fine wordsmith and veteran writer and newspaperman with a keen wit, whom I am sure you will find quite informative and very entertaining, with daily (when the urge hits him) to many other very good blogs, online publications and such.

2 comments:

Sugar Magnolia said...

Good to see ya around, Pilot. Now if I can just find the time to get mine off the ground...with the addition of you and Loon, the google world of blogging has instantly become classier. And for the "other" publication, well, that's their loss, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

Incredible this site was amazing. Excellent efforts and/and also maintain the good work. Thanks for the article now this works well for us