What's With The Flood of Useless Bloggers?

My Least Favorite Type of Blogger

Published on October 5, 2004 By Zoomba In Politics

Lots of people blog daily on this site... I visit and read articles at least 2-3 times daily if I can manage it. Some of the stuff here is excellent, some is paranoid dribbling. And some of it is completely useless... the sort of stuff that adds no value or content to the site (I rank online diaries higher than the following blogger types simply because diary writers at least are putting thought behind what they're writing). Linkers, Spammers and Article Reposters.

It started with blogs like JoeKnowledge with his flurry of posts every few days that were just lists of links... then diamond-d made his appearance with his jibberish about some Fred Haerties (sp?) guy that he'd flood the site with 10 articles at a time for several days straight. Now, with everyone getting so politically charged as the election approaches, we're seeing a return to my least favorite, and probably most useless blogger... The Article Poster. This type is different from The Linker (Joe) or The Spammer (diamond-d), this variety of blogger will post the entire contents of an article published elsewhere, and post it with pretty much NO meaningful comment or analysis (aside from "Check this out!!...").

They claim they are simply educating the masses, that people want to read what they're posting and that since information should be free, it's their right to repost it anytime they want! They scream fair use and first ammendment rights. This is essentially what The Linker does... no analysis, no comment, just LINKS to the relevant information. Links are legal and OK... Complete reposts aren't, and no amount of pleading, whining, foot stomping or creative logic can make it so (despite what people try).

I had hoped that we'd seen the last of this variety back in February when Brad put his foot down on the matter Link

Apparantly not.

Some people are just a huge waste of 1s and 0s

Comments

on Oct 05, 2004

I agree. Just posting an article isn't really writing. It's just a big quote. In few cases, a big illegal quote without works cited.

bakerstreet

on Oct 05, 2004

Some people consider this activism instead of expression, believe it or not. People have gone, and have been sent, to blog communities simply to flood the sites with propaganda and often blatent lies.

I am really wary of a couple of people who just showed up lately. I have a feeling once the election is resolved, most of them will evaporate.

Bungy32

on Oct 05, 2004

I am really wary of a couple of people who just showed up lately. I have a feeling once the election is resolved, most of them will evaporate.

Yah, maybe. But I also think blogs have been getting a lot of mainstream press lately. The New York Times Magazine had a fairly interesting article on blogs last weekend. Plus, the blowup around the CBS memogate is credited to blog action (initially). I think more people are becoming curious about blogs and what their role is in the current state of journalism. I came here a little over a month ago because a line of argument in a book by Lawrence Lessig suggested that blogging is offering an important corrective to media consolidation and shrinking public domain. I think Lessig may prove to be a bit optimistic, but I'm still here and find value in (many of) the blogs I read.

Re-posting, excessive linking (especially in the place of argument), and short provocative assertions are my least favorite forms of blog entry. The best blogs I read make a clear argument on and of their own, often with a sources list or "for further reading if you're interested" link. I also make a distinciton between "articles" and subsequent discussions. Discussions are more like old-style BBS sites but are best when each post maintains some relation to the original article.

This is all just my humble opinion, though. The logic of the blog seems to be that the free market of ideas corrects for itself. Post crap and people will stop reading what you have to say. Post gold and the prospectors will find you. Post spam and the administrator will fry your ass.

Zoomba

on Oct 05, 2004

Yeah, seems the worst of the useless bloggers right now are very recent additions to the site. I'll go with your guess and bet most of them will be gone completely in little over a month.

What happened to the good-old-days where Marvin was our main resident kool-aid drinking right wing nutcase? He gets my vote for the most entertaining blogger on the Net

These new guys are just annoying... they can't hope to come close to emulating the unintentional comedic genius that is Mr. Cooley

sandy2

on Oct 05, 2004

You guys aren't talking about new-coming politically involved people like me are you? I mean I know I have posted a few articles to back up commentary, or to go along with another post, but I don't post them without use... do I?

Solitair

on Oct 06, 2004

Interesting.

I wonder whether this feeling of new useless bloggers is anything like Brad's previous post about stages of community (http://draginol.joeuser.com/index.asp?AID=20782). Maybe we're just going through the old school versus new school stage?

paul.

Zoomba

on Oct 06, 2004

I don't think it's so much an old-school v new-school issue. I'm not talking about bloggers who simply post blog entries that annoy me, I'm talking about the bloggers who do nothing but copy and paste other people's work with no added comment, or the ones who simply spam the site. JoeKnowledge has been here for a while now posting nothing but his link posts. Diamond-D has been spamming his Fred Haerties stuff for a few months now too. My issue is with bloggers who a) contribute nothing new to the site

violate copyright law and c) flood the articles list.

-Z

blogic

on Oct 06, 2004

While I agree about the importance of respecting copyright law, I see no obvious reason to say that posting linked article excerpts is a less valid form of blogging than writing original entries. A number of the most popular blogs on the Web are basically link blogs. The Drudge Report -- yes, I'm aware that's not a blog -- shows there's a huge demand for collections of interesting links. It's not clear to me why bloggers shouldn't be part of filling that demand.

BlueDev

on Oct 06, 2004

I suppose it doesn't really bother me that much because I figure out who the folks who simply post full articles or links (without any commentary) and just don't go to their articles unless it really interests me. While I suppose it can be irritating in that they can bump well thought actual writing from the front page of the forums let us never forget that there is a "more" button that will let us see plenty of forum posts.

Myrrander

on Oct 06, 2004

Which is more useless, the useless blog, the bitchy article about useless blogs, or the useless comment about the bitchy article about useless blogs? It's like a Zen koan.

Zoomba

on Oct 06, 2004

I say the useless blog is still the worst. I at least had to come up with my own words to complain

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