Blogging Etiquette

In my previous post, I mentioned about state of the blogosphere and bloggers are now blogging even more compared to last time. Some blogs about political issues, some blogs about food and places and some blogs for fun. Have you ever think of what you wrote in your blog may bring you some hard time? A Malaysian political blogger was arrested for posting anti-government comment on his website (Walker, 2008).

Raja Petra Kamarudin is a well-known political blogger and also the editor of Malaysia Today (Walker, 2008). He was arrested under Internal Security Act (ISA), an act that detains citizens who are considered as a threat to the country indefinitely without any trial. The reason behind his detainment was due to his hate incitement on Islam in his articles. Another similar incident, a 34-year-old woman was arrested for blogging about police (DarkGovernement, 2009). She was accused of intending to harass a police officer.

As a blogger, we wouldn't want to be arrested just because of what we posted on our blogs. In order to avoid the problem, we should be aware of and practice blogging etiquette. Tan (2007) pointed some tips for bloggers and also readers of blogs. 

For bloggers;-

• always keep in mind that our blogs are published and accessible to anyone, though it may be personal one.
• never steal other people's contents just to maintain your blog.
• always return credit to if you are using other people's contents or images.
• think twice before you reply comments especially when you are riled by commenters.

(For more blogging etiquette by Tan, please click here)

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References

DarkGovernemnt 2009, 'Women Arrested For Blogging About Police', 20 August, viewed 12 November 2010, from <http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/woman-arrested-for-blogging-about-police/>

Tan, Z.M 2007, 'Blogging etiquette: for bloggers and readers', suite101, viewed 12 November 2010, from <http://www.suite101.com/content/blogging-etiquette-a22222>

Walker, R 2008, 'Malaysian blogger arrested for posting anti-government comments', Guardian, 12 September, viewed 12 November 2010, from <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/12/malaysia.pressandpublishing>

Blogging Communities

'Blog' as defined by Marketingterms.com (n.d), it is a frequent chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links (more info of blog, see here). Dictionary.com (n.d) defined 'community' as a social group sharing common interests and perceived/ perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists. Therefore, blogging community can be defined as a group of people who share a common interest (blogging) in blogosphere. Bloggers share links, photos and videos and support each other by exchanging ideas and comments. Some of the widely used blogging site are Blogger, WordPress and Xanga.

So, how are we going to get support from other bloggers once we have a blog? All we have to do is to build a blogging community. There are various options for you to build your blogging community.

1.Using social media
   - Reed (2009) suggests that we should reach a larger audience via Facebook and Twitter.
   - Networking ourselves online by creating profile outside of our blogs (LeMerle, 2007).
2. Comments
   -Leaving comment with your blog URL enable other people to find you.
   -Reply to comments enhance interactivity between the authors and readers.
   


As listed by White (2006), there are three types of blogging communities. Single Blog Community is that the visitors of a blog can interact not only with the author, but also with others who leave comments there.

Single Blog Community (Source: White, 2006)

The second blogging community is Central Connecting Topic Community. This community is a group of blogs linked by shared passion or topic. Food bloggers and travel bloggers are examples given by White.

Central Connecting Topic Community (Source: White, 2006)

Boundaried Communities, as defined by White (2006), is a collections of blogs and blog readers engaged within a single platform. Members need to register to join in the community and are able to interact with other members using built-in tools such as discussion board and instant messaging.

Boundaried Communities (Source: White, 2006)

DONGBANGCITY is an example of boundaried community. This site is aimed for readers/fans who admire a South Korean boyband namely TVXQ. This site need members to register before releasing any posts on the discussion boards. Only registered members are able to leave comments on posts and all the posts are nicely separated by subjects. Members are able to communicate with others members using the built-in instant messaging tool called 'ShoutBox'. It also make use of social networking site such as Twitter and Facebookto keep engaging with its readers and also to build a bigger blogging community.

source: onetvxq.com

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References

LeMerle, R 2007, 10 Step Guide to Building Your Blogging Community, neodigitalist, viewed 30 September 2010, from <http://www.neodigitalist.com/2007/02/10-step-guide-to-building-your-blog-community/>

Reed, M 2009, How to build an online community, communityspark, viewed 30 Spetember 2010, from <http://www.communityspark.com/how-to-build-an-online-community/>

White, N 2006, Blogs and Community-launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 30 September 2010, from <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Classification of blogs

Technorati tracked over 70 million of weblogs back in 2007 and it mentioned in their State of The Blogosphere 2009 report that bloggers are now blogging more than ever. All of these blogs cover a variety of topic discussed from politic to daily lifestyle. Hence, it is essential to classify blogs into different category so that blogs readers have a clear vision on which blogs to refer to. However, classifying them is a not as easy as it seems to be. According to Simons (2008), he classified blogs into 9 different categories as follows;

• Pamphleteering blogs
• Digest blogs
• Advocacy blogs
• Popular Mechanics blogs
• Exhibition blogs
• Gatewatcher blogs
• Diary 
• Advertisement
• News blogs

(for more information of  Simons' classification of blogs, read here)

Blogs are not limited to word-based only. There are other medium of blogs exist now such as video blogs (YouTube), sketch blogs (Deviantart) and photo blogs (Photobucket). Not to forget about the emergence of blogs that combine multiple styles and subjects together at one time. However, this kind of blogs create troublesome for us when it comes to searching for the right blogs for the right information. Fear not, as Reep (2006) mentioned that design feature of a document can guide us to the information that we want. She mentioned that design features such as graphic aids provide readers with quick access to information.

As for me, I would look at the topics of the blog as a way to classify the blogs. To be clearer, when you visit a blog which most entries related to personal lifestyle or feeling, based on Simons' taxonomy of blogs, you can easily classify the blog as diary.

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References

Reep, DC 2006, 'Document design', in Technical Writing, 6th ed, Pearson/Longman, New York, pp133-172.

Simons, M 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, Australian Policy Online, viewed 28 September 2010, from <http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>

Blogs As Current Phenomenon and Benefits to the Community

Over 70 million of weblogs were tracked in 2007 compared to 4 million back in 2004 (Sifry, 2007). This indicates that the growth of blogosphere has been rising tremendously. While the latest number of tracked blogs are not given by Technorati, MacLean (2009) stated that bloggers are now blogging even more and the State of the Blogosphere is strong.

Source: www.technorati.com

Self-expression and sharing expertise remain to be the primary factors for bloggers (Sussman, 2009). In Malaysian context, Gaman (2007) found out that 28% of the Malaysian Top 50 Bloggers write about their personal stuff through his survey. About 16% of bloggers take on technology and politics respectively. The reason of this trend may be due to 64% of Malaysian bloggers are female which 56% of them wanted to have a space for their opinions (Ooi, 2006).

The print media in Malaysia is strictly controlled by government. Therefore, blogs become an alternative way to search for in-depth information that are shunned by mainstream media. It is beneficial because blogs provide us different aspects on news found in mainstream media as we no longer blindly believe what is reported on paper. In Malaysia, taking politics into context, opposition parties were able to take over the ruling power for 5 states in 2008 Malaysia General Election. This is because they were able to state out their messages and reach the masses through blogs which the government have limited control on online publishing media. Thus, the community are able to obtain wider perspective in political landscape.



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References
Gaman 2007, 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia, Sabahan.com, viewed 27 September 2010, from <http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>

MacLean, J 2009, State of the Blogosphere 2009 Introduction, Technorati, viewed 26 September 2010, from <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009-introduction/>

Ooi, J 2006, Microsoft: '64% of Malaysian bloggers are female', AsianCORRESPONDENT, viewed 27 September 2010, from <http://asiancorrespondent.com/jeff-ooi-blog/2006/12/64_of_malaysian_bloggers_are_f.php>

Sifry, D 2007, The State of the Live Web, Sifry's Alerts, viewed 26 September 2010, from <http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html>

Sussman, M 2009, Day 2:The What and Why of Blogging-SOTB 2009, Techorati, viewed 27 September 2010, from <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-2-the-what-and-why2/>