Starting a blog

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

At times I think about starting a blog. My collection of ideas revolves around social and mildly philosphic themes, but often quite controversy ones. I’ve been keeping a small diary of ideas for articles and I have some material to start, and keep going for a while. I plan to post bi-weekly, more often if there are hot topics in the news.

I’m a bit afraid of the time needed to take care of discussion and moderatation. But I have no expoerience how much time that really will be and how problematic the respones might be.

Also I like my peace, and I’m worried that writing a blog about problems of the current society and the like will make me a target for attacks of people who believe otherwise. I don’t want to lose my peace. I’ve got some social anxiety problems already (always feeling worried of other people and their - often unpredictable - doings), and I’m afraid I’m not able to author such a blog because it will make my problems worse and I’ll have to shut it down again soon. I had run a website and forum twice in the past, and two times shut it down due to mental problems, sort of panic attacks. There was actually nothing bad happening, just my anxiety ran wild.

On the other hand, I want to voice my opinion …

… and so I’m asking for experience and advice. Do you have a blog? How much time do you need to spend for moderation? Can you give me some advice?

#2

You could post a few blog entries in JGO/Misc… ? We’re a friendly bunch (they say) :point:

As for comments and moderation on a personal blog - the delete button is your friend. Not everybody is there to have a sensible discussion. Just look at YouTube, some people are best ignored because there’s no slapping sense into them.

#3

Yes, definitely. And if I have something Java/game development related I’ll surely post here :slight_smile:

The blog I intended to write in my mothers tongue, because there are subtle messages which I can’t express well in other languages. While some topics are of interest outside the country, most of the social and politial topics will somewhat specific to the country, its laws and regulations. In the past I published a lot in English, but I think this time it’s better to stick to German.

#4

There is not much in German you cannot somehow express in English, but not that precise, so you think it is better…
You could start a blog, just use it as a kind of diary, read comments and if you see that they are not senseful decrease your attention to them.
If you are not in the mental constitution to do that, you should not do something so public communicative.

#5

Hi

My personal blog is both in French and in English, comments are disabled. If you fear to be attacked, use a pseudonym, don’t mention your real name but keep in mind that as long as you decide to exist and to make something of your life, you’ll find someone to criticize you, even outside of the Internet. Personally, I don’t want to spend any time in moderating comments, I prefer writing useful and interesting articles and the audience of my blog has been growing for years, I can’t complain, even some mass media (mainly newspapers) reuse my photos. Good luck.

#6

English sure is as mighty as German as a media of communication, it’s just that I’m afraid the number of misunderstandings will be bigger if I write in English, because it’s not my mothers tongue and I’ll make more mistakes. E.g. in my first message I used the word “themes”, which was a try to translate “themen”, but the proper translation should have been topics - my dictionary lists both as possible translation, but “topics” seems to be sued much more frequently in this context. Such mistakes will happen less frequently in ones mother tongue.

One thing I found particularly hard is to transpose made up words, which one would understand and presumably recognize as funny in the original language, but have no good replacement in other languages. The other thing is poetry, if I try to rhyme in a foreign language it is much harder because of the lack of vocabulary. But that is only a question how well one has mastered a language, not a problem of English in particular.

I guess that’s the point. It feels a bit unsatisfying, but until I feel more self-assure I guess it will be best to collect topics, but not publish. A few of the topics will be outdated in a while, because they are/were about daily politics and popular people (who might not be important anymore in a year or two), but at times I must accept limits. It feels good to write the small articles, but incomplete if not doing the final step and publish.

I’ve been hiding behind pseudonyms for some time, while my anxiety problems have been rather big, but it causes other problems - you must keep track if you posted a photo under one pseudonym, and avoid posting it again under another, likewise for text and project links.

I’ve grown a bit tired of this, actually it felt very unsatisfying. I’d like to become a “whole” again.

And yes, everyone is a critic. I’ve got the problem at work and as well in the family. The “peace” generally only last as long as you keep your ideas to yourself, once you work on things or publish, it’s over. There is always someone who will dislike some aspect of your work, some aspect of you, or just use you as a target to do their own campaign.

I dunno. This world is a difficult place.

#7

I do a little bit of blog writing here and there. Doing it in the language you are most comfortable in is highly recommended. For me, it is more like a personal diary and many of the topics you state in it you’d want people to respect.

Like in all things, though, it is not that way. I usually shield myself by writing “disclaimers” to make sure that people know items I write are opinionated. For some reason, many would take what people write in their blogs as absolute fact when in most cases it is what you feel at that moment. Blogs are very human things. Of course, as the OP said, hiding behind a “pseudonym” can only do so much to avert some of the negative attention one can get from a blog comment.

I know for my blog, I keep things very business based and try to keep personal issues out of the blog to prevent viewers from taking material the wrong way. However, those types of blogs are also the least interesting because they are not “human” enough to get attention. However, there is both positive and negative attention out there.

It is just realizing there are consequences for every action you make, even if it is as simple as a blog post.

#8

I think I’ve acquired some skill in wording my postings so that people don’t feel inspired to reply. I must have done so unconsciously, but it is the only answer to my observation that 90% of my posting do not trigger responses, unless I actually ask for opinions and help. I’m not particularly proud on this skill and wish I could control that better.

Today I feel somewhat stable and active, and so I have registered on a free blogging site. I’ll leave out the difficult topics until I feel more adventurous, but I hope that some day I’ll be strong enough to voice my opinion freely. Free speech is a high achievement, and it is a pity that so many minor threats are present which hinder people to speech freely even in so called “free” countries. Peer pressure, social pressure and the wish to fit in and have peace all are adversaries of free speech, even if the laws protect free speech.

Three articles up so far - the introduction (English), a trace back to something I read in school and which sparked the thought that adults lose some “open” curiosity while growing up, which children naturally have (German) and about my latest try to get into non-computer related hobbies (English).

Feedback is welcome, also on grammar, wording and writing style.

I plan to post bi-weekly, but some articles will be rather short I assume.

#9

On my Chrome web browser the font looks jagged. If I zoom it to 110% it looks smoother. But I would change the font anyway, since the jagged look makes it not so comfortable to read.

#10

I must admit, my customization options are limited. I noticed a very bad layout in Firefox and IE. In Firefox it helped to make the browser window larger, the display in IE keeps broken. I haven’t tried Chrome yet.

I had expected a better quality from the wordpress output. But it’s a free service, so there isn’t mich to complain. I can try to change the theme, and see if one of the other free themes works better.

Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

#11

In my humble opinion, the freedom of speech has a meaning only in a certain frame, some limitations are necessary to protect the right of public portrayal, the privacy, to fight against defamation, … For example, several people claimed that I have never worked as an engineer in computer science, I was very happy that defamation is considered as a misdemeanor in France, you don’t imagine how a boundless freedom of speech could harm people’s reputation on the Internet and have consequences on their daily lives, where they look for a job or a girlfriend / boyfriend. Of course, what would harm us the most would be the exact opposite, the total absence of freedom of speech.

You made me realize that I’m still able to understand your mother tongue. Danke! (=Thanks)

#12

You are right there, and defamation is a misdemeanor in Germany too. Free speech is important in many cases, but using it to tell untrue or harmful about other people is not what is was meant for.

Unfortunately I never learned French, my parents told me I should take the combination English + Latin at school. Latin actually helps to read and understand some French words, but it’s not that useful as a language, except in certain professions.

Deutsch ist eine schwierige Sprache. Ich bewundere jeden der es schafft, all die Grammatik und die Ausnahmeregeln zu erlernen. Congrats :slight_smile:

#13

Interesting: I am german and read your english text, no problem, but it was really hard to understand a german sentence inside that english one…

#14

You have failed to code switch normally.