Sunday, November 20, 2005

A Blogger's Pop Quiz

Here's a short math quiz for you.

1. You have ten friends in J-Land, each of whom has an AOL Journal. Then AOL places banner ads on those journals without prior notice, and releases a buggy "upgrade" that makes it nearly impossible to post without taking heroic measures. Within the week,

  • Three of your friends continue to blog on AOL exclusively.

  • Three more set up Blogger accounts, but also keep their AOL Journals going with occasional posts, mostly griping about AOL.

  • Three switch to Blogspot entirely, either letting their AOL Journals lie fallow or taking them private with no readers.

  • One is so upset with the diaspora and ongoing technical difficulties that he stops posting entirely.
How many of these people have betrayed you?
  a) Six
  b) Four
  c) Three
  d) One
  e) Zero

2. You learn that someone has been harrassing the three people who stuck with AOL exclusively, and that someone else is harrassing the three who switched to Blogspot exclusively. Meanwhile, of the three people who had blogs on both services, one decides to go back to AOL for most of her blogging, one decides to keep both blogs going indefinitely, and one decides it's time to make the switch to Blogspot for everything. How many of these people are doing something wrong?
  a) Five
  b) Four
  c) Three
  d) Two
  e) One

Answers:
1. e) Zero. None of these people are doing anything to you. They are merely trying to make the best of a difficult situation. All anyone has really cost you is the convenience of AOL Alerts. (And those have been pretty buggy, anyway!)

2. d) Two. Nobody should be harrassing anyone. The rest are just trying to get on with their lives and blogs.

I've been reading all weekend of people giving each other grief for leaving AOL or not leaving AOL. I've also read a few reports that some people are feeling betrayed by journalers who left AOL, and refuse to read their new blogs on other services. Come on, people! it's only a web address! There is no need for an Us and Them mentality here. If we continue to read and comment (without rancor) on each other's blogs, write the best entries we can, and post our best pictures, then we still have a community. And that's what we all want, isn't it?

Karen



All right, why is my darn sidebar at the bottom of the screen again in IE? None of my pics are over 400 pixels wide, I swear!

13 comments:

ShellyS said...

Too many people have gotten way too emotional over this. The beauty of cyberland and the greater blogosphere is that all you need to connect is to click a link. Doesn't matter where the site is hosted. One click gets you there.

Tried to IM you with a new AOL screen name I'm using (cancelled my account today and am piggybacking on hubby's), but you never answered. My old name seems to work in AIM, but I thought you'd like the other, too. Email me at my gmail addy if you want it. :)

Patrick said...

An excellent post, Karen. I'm shocked by the feelings among those who have chosen to stay with AOL that those who have left have "betrayed" them.

I wonder if they'd feel betrayed by people who had to leave AOL because of budgetary problems, or those who just felt that they needed to get away from the computer for a while.

As I have said elsewhere, the blogs I visit reguarly are on my lists because of the writing and the writers, not because of the webhost.

Jamie the ParkHopper said...

Amen Sister! While I'm annoyed with AOL because I had to pick up and move (just like I did with Xanga after a few months), I'm certainly not going to freak out and cry, yell at poor John & Joe, harass another blogger, or even stop reading the journals I like. The blog list on the side of my new (and improved) journal includes some AOL and some non-AOL, just like my old blog list. I just don't understand why all these people have their panties in a twist!

Becky said...

I heard rumor than you can add an automatic blog roll (links list) using some code from BlogLines. I plan to do that one day soon. Just gotta finish moving my content over. And add everyone to BlogLines. Oh, and I passed the test. Mean people suck.

Donna. W said...

I passed the test! Nobody did anything against me. The only problem I'm having now is, I've discovered new, interesting journals both on and off AOL as a result of this: How will I find time to read them all? HELP! mosie1944

ShellyS said...

"All right, why is my darn sidebar at the bottom of the screen again in IE? None of my pics are over 400 pixels wide, I swear!"

Looks fine on my IE at work, FWIW.

To Becky, yes, you can add a blogroll with a bit of code to your sidebar with Bloglines and Blogrolling. Bloglines, which I use, allows you to do the whole blogroll or just a folder or two.

Smukke said...

Some people, when hurt, need to hurt something in return. Furthermore, they need to know that the other entity has been hurt. Since AOL-the-monster steadfastly refuses to bleed or howl, such people must find something else to hurt. Only then can they feel closure. Not healthy, but that's how some folks are.

Anonymous said...

smukke has made the most astute observation of this situation I have seen anywhere.

On an unrelated note: what's the big idea of including my journal in the AOL USA links? You need another category.

Karen Funk Blocher said...

Sorry, Paul! I was sleepy when I did that! I've renamed the category.

Jod{i} said...

Hey I passed the test too!
Looking good here, and you said this so well, now if we could just get the "rest" of them to just take a deep breath and just move forward!
Jodi

Anonymous said...

Karen,
Much wisdom here, my dear, though how you came up with that quiz just cements in my mind how utterly brilliant you are! You see, I'm so dumb, I had to give up leaving comments 6 different times in 4 different Blogspot journals in order to finally figure out I was an anonymous blogger even though I have a blog. So, if a blogger is anonymous because blogspot doesn't recognize him as a blogger, how many bloggers are leaving this 1 comment?
You're always a pleasure to read and hopefully this week will find many counting their blessings instead of their petty differences.
Maryanne aka as Globetrotter or currently known as Anonymous

emmapeelDallas said...

"If we continue to read and comment (without rancor) on each other's blogs, write the best entries we can, and post our best pictures, then we still have a community. And that's what we all want, isn't it?" It's certainly what I want, and you said it so well...thank you.

:)

Judi

Anonymous said...

Well said, Karen. I remain just one of those who plod along, pretending that nothing happened. And that is pretty much my lifestyle too.