These are my del.icio.us links for August 27th:
- Harvard Business School CIO Stephen Laster on Web 2.0 Technologies … CIO.com – “Wikipedia is a controlled and managed environment. There’s a community [that manages it] and a de facto hierarchy in the community…”
- Software maker spreads wings … IndyStar.com – Angel Learning has grown 70 percent in last two years.
- eSchool News online : Blackboard, WebCT combining forces – Includes estimates for market share as of 2005 (51% for Blackboard, 32 % for WebCT)
- History of virtual learning environments 1990s : Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Whew, everything you always wanted to know about the history of courseware in the 1990s.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Excerpt, Essay 4, Chow - 2006
- Getting Ready to Review... - 2004
- ALA and Blogging - 2004
Bookmark to:
So, I have to admit, I find your auto-blogged delicious links to be unhelpful and annoying, especially when they show up in the planet.code4lib. Of course, that’s just my own personal opinion/preference. But I’m curious what you see as the purpose/usefulness of auto-blogging all your bookmarks.
You may or may not have noticed a thread over on Mark Linder’s blog debating/complaining about the practice:
http://marklindner.info/blog/2007/08/22/a-plea-to-those-who-output-their-delicious-stuff-to-their-blog/
Jonathan, I wondered what people would think and was actually mulling about reducing this to a “link of the day” — tagging *a* post, not all posts. But I am not particularly compelled by Mark’s post and the comments; it’s like the post on annoyedlibrarian about 2.0. Well, of course the folks who have an ax to grind would comment. Get me started about okra, and I’m sure I’ll have many me-tooers!
In terms of purpose, the idea was another way of saying “this is what interests me right now.” I’ve been annotating the posts more, but I’m not sure it’s working. I really value your feedback (maybe because though I like Mark, he’s almost as cranky as I am, while you seem pretty easy-going ;> ).
I’ll ask tonight, when it’s Posting Time…
Me, easy going! Ha! I mean, I am easy going, but I’m also easily as cranky as Mark, for sure. I’m one cranky guy.
But I’m just not that interested in seeing everything you bookmark. I just skip right over those in my feed reader, and in planet.code4lib. I notice that you let people subscribe JUST to ‘writing’ categorized posts, for instance. I can already subscribe to all your delicious stuff on delicious itself if I’m interested–personally, I read your blog to see what you have to say, not to see what you bookmarked (for personal or professional or whatever reasons).
I guess the more interesting thing, that I have no answer to, is the whole ‘planet’ thing. These days I don’t even have time to read my own personal aggregator. I usually just scan planet.code4lib and planetcataloging (although there seems to be nothing in the latter that’s not also in the former?), and call it a day. So if you offered various RSS feeds (with or without delicious, like you have the writing-specific one),that would work if I were actually using my own aggregator, but meanwhile the planet has what the planet has.
I guess part of it is that I’d guess most people on the planet post a few times a week at most. But you had one or more posts every single day–with nothing but links, which may or may not be relevant. I find scanning/skimming a post of links takes way more time for me than it’s length in words would indicate. Each link is really like a paragraph’s worth of skimming time. So I just started skipping over the posts entirely.
Heh, except check it out, jbrinley just figured out a way to filter delicious out of a planet (or any other RSS feed) with Yahoo Pipes:
http://xplus3.net/2007/08/29/filter-your-feeds-with-yahoo-pipes/
I think I’ll use that.
Well, I thought I had tamed that feature but the darn thing posted last night anyway! I’m disabling the plugin for now… because when I tell it to do one thing, I don’t want it doing another!
Karen, as I said in a comment on my post, I am sorry for not linking to you. I had sat on the idea of that post for a couple weeks and never intended to use a specific example. Then when one of the people I value most for their writing started doing it I got cranky (which I readily accept) and forgot to not “point fingers.” In the process I forgot to link when I did use an example.
As for whether or not only people with “an ax to grind” commented I won’t debate. But “so what?”
I will agree that my post could have been written better. Or that I could have done a better job asking people for they why they post their del.icio.us links? I have no doubt that I could have done a lot of things better in that post.
But dismissing the idea out of hand because a few people–not all as you imply–agree with me is unconscionable and cheap.
Mark, I didn’t “dismiss the idea out of hand.” What I did was not fall into the trap of generalizing from the people posting to YOUR blog about the preferences of the people posting HERE. I don’t really know what people want. I should find out, and your blog provides useful cues for future action, but to take action based on those complaints would do a disservice to the 3,000-plus FRL readers.
I really don’t think my words deserve to be labeled as “unconscionable and cheap”–particularly since the one time I changed a post based on your reaction to it, you advised me not to do that! Remember that? I’m following YOUR advice!
More broadly: a lot of library policy is made piecemeal in panic mode. Someone has a soupstain on his tie, so we write a dress policy. Someone spills frozen yogurt on the carpet, so we ban covered drinks.
Whether we’re talking libraries, blogs, or other organizations, if you only react to the loudest voices and to the complaints, you’re doing the organization a disservice.
I fully agree people should be able to vent about things they don’t like (as Jonathan did here on this blog). I do not agree that we should take those comments out of context and immediately take action on them. Listening to the quiet is an important management strategy. Tease out what people are really thinking. Think broadly, decide carefully.
I would actually prefer you point fingers; you’re good at that, and I mean that as a compliment. It’s vastly preferable to the passive-aggressive practice I talk about today of referring to people without referring to people.
As people have stated elsewhere, we seem to have difficulty disagreeing. It’s either all or nothing. Look at my comments and ask yourself if you have perhaps overreacted a wee bit. Go have some dark chocolate and take some nice photographs we can all enjoy, or do something else to deescalate this anger I am sensing. I for one plan to ponder NCIP for an hour or two!
Karen, yes, “Out of hand” was over the top. I apologize. Not an excuse at all, but I don’t do well with short and it was around 3:30 in the AM. Still the wrong phrase though. Sorry.
Besides that, I also see that I am completely failing to make myself understood. I have a lifetime of experience at this so I assume it is me. Sorry for that, too. I will try to clarify and be as brief as possible.
First off, I am not mad about anything. I am a tad cranky 😉 about one point, but I am not mad at all.
Second, I in no way meant to imply that you needed to make a change. I certainly do not think me or my 4 or so commenters should have much impact on your decisions. Not one iota.
Third, I actually should thank you and say that I appreciate what you have done. Thank you.
My post started out as a personal request for folks not to do x. I quickly regrouped because I knew that there are valid reasons for folks to do x and that some other readers of your and others’ blogs will appreciate x. I even asked folks for feedback so that I might learn for myself the whys of and value found by both readers and bloggers who do x. I have learned some valuable lessons and taken on some new habits that I could not find a personal use for on my own by asking just such questions on my blog. This old dog can learn new tricks; slowly.
In the end, in the post and multiple times in the comments, I said that bloggers should do what works for them, that I was in no way trying to tell them what they should do (only expressing an opinion), and that if folks who did x would only consider the purpose of their blog for them and decide whether x fit within that purpose.
You did just that. You said in your response to Jonathan that you were thinking about how it fit. That is all, in the end, that I asked of anyone. If it works for you and your readers (or even just you, really) then I am happy. Maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough on that point initially.
My crankiness, which led to my “dismissing out of hand” comment was more about likening my post and the commenters on it to AL’s 2.0 post and I assume the more negative commenters on it. That I felt, and still do, is a bad comparison. You may not and that’s OK. Differences of opinion are OK and expected.
I don’t generally like the AL and do not generally read her, but I did get pointed to that post early on somehow and I actually like the post. As I said on Meredith’s post today about all this, I don’t know who some of those people are or where they come from. But those people are not the commenters on my post, nor on my blog generally, if ever. That is where my crankiness came from.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I did reference your take on the AL 2.0 post in my comment. I hope you full well know–as you stated indirectly above–that I do not like “they” arguments generally either. They are usually quite dangerous, damaging, unproductive or cowardly, or any combination of the previous.
But in this case, I think it is applicable. My reasonings are in my lengthy comment at Meredith’s. But the short of it is that I (and others), despite not being able (in my case, anyway) to point at any specific “rabid 2.0pian” still palpably feel this position is argued in the “dialogue” around these issues. Strawman, yes. But, in my case anyway, honestly felt.
I do apologize for my making you think I meant you should radically change what you do because of me and/or a few of my readers. That was in no way my intent! I have not forgotten our history and I stand by it.
It was a request to be considered, a suggestion perhaps. You did all that I truly asked in the end; you considered it for your situation. Thank you for that. Truly. 🙂
Now I will shut up before I risk finding more ways to make myself misundertood. And I promise to try and write or call more. 😉