RantWoman is feeling very conscientious about attending to matters of confidentiality and group discernment. Still RantWoman's head tends to be muddled enough, and it sometimes takes RantWoman respectable intervals to collect important points about a topic. Therefore, RantWoman is attempting spiritual houskeeping on the fly in her blog.
The comments below are what RantWoman thinks today. They do not represent official views of any committee or of her Meeting as a whole. Everything here is subject to change, revision, continuing revelation, mental spasms, interventions from space aliens and of course the milling and digestion processes of community discernment.
RantWoman is specifically seasoning questions of what it means as part of a support committee for a ministry to support the work and writing and information collection done by two people's blogs, her own, and that of another Friend. RantWoman has decided that the conversation is intended to be about general process issues. Therefore, even though RantWoman reads Other Friend's blog regularly and likes it very much on several grounds, for purposes of this discussion, Other Blogger gets one of RantWoman's cutesy pseudonyms. .
This entry began as a conversation with Other Blogger. Other Blogger has a ministry supervised by Friends from RantWoman's Meeting. However, the clerk of the support committee has both practical and attitudinal barriers to interacting with the blogosphere as much as Other Blogger originally hoped. Apparently, RantWoman does not always do simplicity very well, and several other considerations have arisen as elaborated in the queries and comments below.
Similarly, several months ago, RantWoman wrote a topical committee asking in a somewhat undefined way for support and attention to her blog. RantWoman has had a couple conversations about writing style and clarity of expression. RantWoman has also had a conversation about confidentiality with respect to the discussions within a certain committee. Rantwoman has had other conversations with people not in line for any kind of oversight of ministry role indicating that numbers of topics and themes are being followed. RantWoman has not, however, had any conversations formalizing any more explicit oversight and RantWoman is seasoning what if anything to do about that.
In the meantime, what has RantWoman come to so far.
Is the support process for the ministry / blogging effort respectful of technical, time and temperamental capacity of the people involved in the process?
Part of the conversation that arose with Other Blogger is about a member of her support committee who has very big time limitations on his access to the internet. RantWoman finds this situation a challenge for a number of reasons. For one thing, this limitation relates partly to a tough decision RantWoman was previously a part of and still does not regret despite the ensuing difficulties.
For another thing, Rantwoman is very dependent on electronic media for independent access to information and resources and can easily interpret this Friend's attitudes as unwillingness to engage at all in two-way conversation. RantWoman CAN interpret this Friend's attitudes this way. However, RantWoman also recognizes that commitment to internet resources may also mean commitment to paying substantial amounts of money every month for connectivity, putting up with the endless horizons of vast expanses of hyperlinks that can be followed if desired, presentation and commentary patterns very different from print media and to other demands on one's time, liberty, and resources.
RantWoman fully supports a variety of Friends' measures for keeping the internet in perspective: not doing email on the Jewish sabbath, severely constrained interaction with social media during Lent. RantWoman can get crabby about the digital inclusion reasons she herself does not have as much access on the fly every second as she might want. When RantWoman feels humble and disciplined--as opposed to merely cranky, demanding, and greedy, RantWoman can file her own situation in the same opportunity for mindfulness or intentionality compartment. In short, RantWoman wants to work with people where they are and that seems to be several different places.
RantWoman is pretty aware for instance that she can crank out a lot of verbiage and that other people may have many demands on their time that RantWoman for different reasons is free of. Writing is easy for RantWoman. Writing cleanly? Probably room for improvement and writing when RantWoman probably should pick up the telephone is one concern. None of this is any guidance to RantWoman about how to refine her request for support.
Does the support process reflect the desired level of interaction with the process of producing content and with the content?
RantWoman was interested to hear at NPYM Annual Session that the NPYM website, http://www.npym.org/ has two overseers, one who handles technical matters and one whose orientation is technical only to the bare minimum necessary and much more solidly focussed on content and clearly defined functionality. RantWoman thinks this is entirely appropriate and reasonable for a Yearly Meeting but she thinks this model might be a bit much for individual ministries.
RantWoman is coming pretty clearly to the conclusion that if one cares about specific people interacting with one's content, one may have to take measures such as printing out content and using snail mail or else making use of conference calls, in-person presentations, and plain old conversation. RantWoman feels pretty generous about this with regard to Very Weighty Friends who still use manual typewriters, Friends who like their blogosphere served with potluck supper, and sundry other Friends who participate in community life but less so in the blogosphere. It is probably a good thing RantWoman strives to maintain such openness because it really helps with certain person-specific irritations.
Does the blog reflect wide readership for example in terms of people who comment on different entries?
RantWoman should probably check some info sources for her own blog. For purposes of this conversation, RantWoman considers it sufficient to know that such information sources exist and other bloggers might also use them.
RantWoman notes that Other Blogger frequently has entries which draw several comments. RantWoman's own blog entries attract few comments--except for a spambot that posts links in Chinese to pictures of what RantWoman assumes are underage or barely of age teenage girls. RantWoman has comments set on moderated and summarily rejects all such contributions; that is not the sort of comments RantWoman has in mind.
Does the blog have many identified followers?
RantWoman specifically notes that Other Blogger has what RantWoman considers a respectable number of people who have stepped through the mysteries that identify them as blog followers. The number of people who have done that for RantWoman's blog is considerably smaller. RantWoman thinks there may be several reasons for this. Other Blogger has been doing her blog longer than RantWoman and also has a ministry with a specific audience.
RantWoman's approach to blogging is a little more hit-or-miss about themes and organization. RantWoman is also interested in some topics such as Quaker peace witness where many of the practitioners may for different reasons be less oriented toward the blogosphere than the Friend's interested in themes related to Other Blogger's ministry.
Finally, RantWoman has spoken to several people she knows read her blog but who have not gotten themselves formally listed as followers. RantWoman imagines this is true for other Blogger as well
Do intersting comment streams arise?
See above.
Do comment streams reflect diverse voices?
See above about the technical prerequisites.
Does the blog use interesting, topical tags and use them consistently?
RantWoman is meditating about what to do with some muddled categories on her own blog; Other Blogger seems to have a nice clear set of tags that are better specified than the amorphous ones RantWoman uses.
Is the content true to Quaker testimonies?
This is one area where RantWoman quite likes Other blogger's blog: it presents many issues in clear interesting language where both the Quaker content and content from other parts of this Friend's interests are quite clear.
RantWoman on the other hand is struggling around the edges: there are good reasons RantWoman maintains two blogs, but the themes RantWoman blogs about frequently have several dimensions including both Quaker and non-Quaker ones. RantWoman does not want to turn off some of the people who read RantWoman in specific secular contexts, but this also means some points are, to RantWoman's mind, underplayed a little.
Frankly RantWoman also sometimes falls short of her own aspirations about respectful inclusiveness. For example, RantWoman has one entry referring to a Friend's hidden disability. No, RantWoman is assuredly NOT going to include a link; the best anyone is going to get--and that by in-person request--would be a search string
RantWoman considers the tone of this entry just awful in a couple respects, for example in terms of telling too much of the truth and also casting an issue in terms that might or might not be problematic to the person involved. RantWoman has decided she feels absolutely no call to edit history. RantWoman has also heard mixed opinions about whether speaking of this Friend's hidden disability is entirely rude and insensitive or whether it helps others feel compassion and interact on a more realistic basis. RantWoman has decided she really must speak to the Friend referred to, to affirm RantWoman's appreciation for this Friend's presence and gifts, and to determine whether this Friend necessarily even minds RantWoman's frankness. Friend herself is sometimes quite frank. RantWoman also knows this Friend in a context outside of Meeting and there is a certain "walk with me, Friend" aspect of that acquaintance that RantWoman also feels called to attend to.
Is the content true to a Friend's calling about some or another question?
For example, RantWoman is finding herself called in ways she sometimes find uncomfortable to speak up about many issues of abelism and people's relationships to people with disabilities and to the challenges of living with disabilities. RantWoman is feeling called to do this not only among Quakers but in other sectors of her life. For a few different reasons, RantWoman has decided to maintain separate blogs though her non-Quaker blog appears in blog roll.
How well does the blog uphold accessibility standards?
RantWoman finds Blogger blogs, including the ones run by Other Blogger, easy to read except for graphics. RantWoman has not paid enough attention to the level of html needed to tag the few graphical items she includes. Even worse, RantWoman's non-Quaker blog has a really fun Flash control that opens a new window with a map of the world and dots showing all the locations where people have visited RantWoman's blog. RantWoman has not tried very hard to figure out whether JAWS would read the city names. RantWoman has decided just to live with this level of imperfection in the realm of accessibility.
Now RantWoman gets to have conversations and to see whether some of her own fixations are even on others' radar screens; Then RantWOman will have to figure out how to blog further. Stay tuned?
Posts
Oooh. What a great post.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a thoughtful comment to add. But I don't right now. I have a feeling bits of what you've written will rattle around in my head for a while and then prompt new things. This is good. (This is very good.) You have raised all sorts of good ideas and questions and thoughts about blogging as ministry and leading and, and...
One thought. NPYM's Friend-in-Residence Bridget Moix reminded us that it's not one's responsibility to be successful, but to be faithful. I have had cause quite a bit over the last few years to remind myself of this. It's not my job to make sure an event, workshop, etc., is successful; it's my job to be faithful to my leading, to hold that space, to offer that opportunity, etc.
It's very, very hard for bloggers to keep that in mind. We can't tell how many people follow our blogs, because there are so many ways to follow that we can't track, in addition to the ones we can. So we look for how many readers we can track, and we look for how many people comment, and how "good" or chewy the comment conversations are. And we compare ourselves to other bloggers, especially other bloggers with niches we can remotely compare to ours (authors or Quakers or singers or ministers or teachers or...).
Every blogger I know who does it as ministry wants to know someone reads and gets something out of their blog. We all would like that encouragement.
It's hard to remember that it might well be important to blog even if no one subscribes, no one comments, no one ever talks to one about it in person.
(Dang. I would find that very hard.)
I know that when I hold myself up against other people with remotely similar niches, I feel inferior. So I try not to, and just try to hang out and follow my leading and have conversations with the people who drop by for a chat prompted by something I've rambled about.
Thanks for this post, Rantwoman!
p.s. I get those foreign-language comments, too. How do they get past word verification??
ReplyDeleteHeh! RantWoman assumes that the foreign language comments represent more than anything the acuity of someone's adeptness at hacking security.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, given the volume of similar content RantWoman receives through other channels in Russian, a language in which she is actually conversant, RantWoman is a little surprised that she seems only to have Chinese spambot issues on her blog. RantWoman requests that this NOT be considered an invitation....
As an aside, flattery will get you everywhere. To RantWoman the POINT of blogging rather than scribbling at home in one's journal is the chance that someone somewhere will read it. well, okay, RantWoman recognizes several "plop your journal in the cloud" aspects of blogging and does temper her content SOMEWHAT on the assumption that there are many good reasons not to do a total striptease of everything in her heart and soul....
But thank you for reading and responding and I have also been thinking about the quote about being faithful to one's Light / leading and not worrying necessarily about other measures of success.
RantWoman has realized she forgot one property of interesting web prsence: are posts or thread of posts discernibly part of larger conversations and cycles of comments across blogs. RantWoman has noted a few different topics where one blogger wil post something and other bloggers will riff or elaborate on things that have come up from the posts they have read.
ReplyDeleteRantWoman frankly thinks this conversations playing off each other part of the web is one of the coolest things about the modern internet.