Re: [xml-dev] Blog Pruning

[Joel Bender <jjb5@cornell.edu>]

>Should blog owners prune their blogs?

I expect a blog to be a reasonably long term record of public 
comment.  If by pruning you mean remove your own comments, you and 
your readers will lose some valuable history of how your thoughts 
have changed (or not) over time.  If you mean just to remove 
comments, you will, at least to remove spam.

>Should they prune responses that are not in agreement with the theme 
>of their blogs?

I do not expect a blog to be a bulletin board with a bunch of "me 
too" sticky notes all over it, it looses some of its community value. 
I think if it more like a soapbox, and sometimes the cheers and jeers 
of the audience as just as entertaining and informative as the 
speaker.

>For example:  if I write a blog supporting Longhorn and XAML, should 
>I prune out responses from XULies who simply don't like XAML?

You don't have to make comments publicly available at all, if you 
don't want to.  You'll probably find that folks will talk about your 
entries on their own blog.  If that was your only goal, strictly 
supporting Longhorn and XAML, it would be difficult to view it as 
something other than marketing material.

>A blog is not a maillist.  How much should it be respected as an 
>open means of communication?

It depends on the author and how open they are.  There are some 
authors I don't trust, regardless of how "well respected" they are in 
their community or by how much putrid drivel they post on their site. 
In the end the respect it gets will be a reflection of what's written.

>Should we trust aggregations of self-selecting experts by content or 
>by their habits?

I normally would take them just by their content, but then I heard 
Rush Limbaugh come up with a new definition of hypocrisy yesterday 
and it cemented in my mind what my parents taught me all 
along...actions speak louder than words.


Joel