Today is Vox's first anniversary since the official launch. What's the best experience you've had on Vox in the past year?
Meeting folks around town with whom I have some things in common. (That's rare.)
I've never had a blog before.
That may seem odd for someone with a creative writing degree, an English lit degree, and a job developing web software.
I had mixed feelings about blogging. I used to participate in AOL forums and Usenet and was invariably astonished at the quantity of inexplicable, pointless hostility those threads could generate. But sometimes I learned things. As Gene Spafford said:
Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea–massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.
Blogging moved control toward the original poster, away from the follow-ups (including thread hijackers and spammers). And hell, you could do away with comments altogether if you wanted. That'd be anathema to some, but not to Dave Winer (although he does have a place for comments):
Me, I like diversity of opinion. I learn from the extremes. You think evolution is a liberal plot? Okay, I disagree, but I think you should have the right to say it, and further you should have a place to say it. You think global warming is a lie? Speak your mind brother. You thought the war in Iraq was a bad idea? Thank god you had a place you could say that. That's what's important about blogs, not that people can comment on your ideas. As long as they can start their own blog, there will be no shortage of places to comment.
A low-traffic personal blog like this doesn't get comment crap anyhow, especially in the so-far-friendly Vox world. How much of that is thanks to the gated-community character is up for debate. Jen Rizzo writes:
I also really hate that you have to create an account to leave a comment. I know they're trying to promote a sense of community, and that's great, but if a random googler finds my blog, I'd love to hear what they have to say. A lot of people, myself included, won't register for an account just so they can add their two cents.
I wonder how much more input I'd get, good or bad, if we had the anonymous comment option and I switched it on.
Anyway. It's fun to be here so far. A totally different experience from the anarchic forums of old.
