{"id":596,"date":"2002-06-20T01:06:32","date_gmt":"2002-06-20T09:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/06\/20\/the-bloggers-manifesto\/"},"modified":"2019-11-27T09:07:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T17:07:44","slug":"the-bloggers-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/06\/20\/the-bloggers-manifesto\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blogger&#8217;s Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:16058,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/bloggermanifesto.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16059,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/doc.weblogs.com\\\/2002\\\/06\\\/19#manifestBreakage&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20130718201234\\\/http:\\\/\\\/doc.weblogs.com\\\/2002\\\/06\\\/19&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 03:39:12&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 10:23:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-06 23:51:06&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-11 16:51:44&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-16 11:34:06&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-25 00:38:43&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-25 00:38:43&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:9201,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.metafilter.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260310020235\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.metafilter.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 17:21:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-23 07:40:06&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-26 10:49:03&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-30 04:02:38&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-06 17:54:42&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-10 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23:04:24&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:8146,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.boingboing.net&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/boingboing.net\\\/&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16060,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.daypop.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:8570,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/chat.yahoo.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260127022521\\\/https:\\\/\\\/chat.yahoo.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 14:04:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 05:33:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-28 12:58:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-01 01:29:46&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-04 05:11:18&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 07:15:59&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-11 16:51:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-15 09:10:39&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-19 00:41:39&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-25 21:02:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-30 08:29:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-05 08:08:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-05-05 08:08:54&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16061,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.divine-interventions.com&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260210215600\\\/http:\\\/\\\/divine-interventions.com\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-14 03:39:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-08 17:42:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-08 17:42:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:16062,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.oed.com\\\/public\\\/news\\\/0206.htm#naeu&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I just found <a href=\"http:\/\/bloggermanifesto.com\/\" title=\"The Blogger's Manifesto\">the Blogger&#8217;s Manifesto<\/a> through a link on <a href=\"http:\/\/doc.weblogs.com\/2002\/06\/19#manifestBreakage\" title=\"Doc Searls: Manifest Breakage\">Doc&#8217;s blog<\/a>. As one of the many people across the &#8216;net who are blogging, it&#8217;s both interesting and amusing &#8212; however, for various reasons, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll be adopting it.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  I hereby solemnly swear to you, the reader, that I will never use this website to make myself look more interesting than I actually am.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>At times, I wonder if this website doesn&#8217;t do more to make me <em>less<\/em> interesting than I really am! While I&#8217;m told I&#8217;ve got a fairly engaging personality and can comport myself fairly well the majority of the time in person, I&#8217;ve never been too sure how much of that carrys over well into the written form. I do my best, of course, but is my rambling really <em>that<\/em> interesting?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  I am not a filter for Metafilter. I am not more spiffy than Drew from Fark. I am not deeper than the Memepool. I am not bouncier than Boing Boing. Stealing from them shows that I can&#8217;t find anything new on the internet.<\/p>\n<p>  If any of my links are also in the Daypop Top 40, that does not prove that I have my &#8216;finger on the pulse&#8217;. It means that I am two days behind.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Okay, sure, I&#8217;m kind of guilty here &#8212; many of my <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/links\/index.html\" title=\"Eclecticism archives: Linkbits\">Linkbits<\/a> come from three of the four mentioned sites (specifically, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metafilter.com\/\" title=\"MetaFilter\">MeFi<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boingboing.net\/\" title=\"Boing Boing\">Boing Boing<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.daypop.com\/\" title=\"DayPop\">DayPop<\/a>). The only excuse I can give for that is that I don&#8217;t have the time to crawl the web for the gems that they produce, and I&#8217;ve got a small enough readership that there&#8217;s a good chance that they haven&#8217;t become regular visitors of those sites also. At least I try to remember to give credit where credit is due, and don&#8217;t merely blatantly rip off the links.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  I will not link to anyone cooler than me unless I send them something they use, or they link to me first.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Heck, on the &#8216;net, <em>everyone<\/em> is potentially cooler than me &#8212; and if we judge by regular readership, they all are. Why shouldn&#8217;t I link to them? Chances of them linking to me are, let&#8217;s face it, slim to none.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Having a website is not a chat-up line.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>True. That&#8217;s why I tend to hang out in <a href=\"http:\/\/chat.yahoo.com\/\" title=\"Yahoo! Crack\">Yahoo! Chat<\/a> too much.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  There are reasons why reviewers in the newspapers are paid. Nobody cares what I think about Big Brother, sport or the possible revival of the A-Team starring Jim Carrey.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Granted. However, I care what I think, and my blog is, primarily, for me. If anyone else wants to read my blather, wonderful &#8212; however, if not, other sites are a mere click away. Besides, I like to think that some of my friends and family might care a <em>little<\/em> bit.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  If I put a photograph of myself on my site, it will actually look like me. I will not use Photoshop to alter the image to include shadow\/friends\/colour to my pale, monitor-bleached cheeks.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think I ever have been &#8212; nor ever will be &#8212; guitly of this one. If I can be proven wrong, feel free to let me know!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Every 5.8 seconds, someone posts a quote from Douglas Adams, Star Wars or Monty Python. Currently, 34.2% of the internet is made up of the word &#8216;Ni&#8217;. My website will break the chain.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>They&#8217;re probably right here. I don&#8217;t think I fall into this trap too often, though &#8212; I don&#8217;t think I have any Star Wars or Monty Python quotes, this page will be the first time the word &#8220;Ni&#8221; has appeared on my site, and the last time (only time?) I quoted Douglas Adams, it wasn&#8217;t notable for its <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2001\/12\/interesting_and.html\" title=\"Eclecticism: Interesting and disturbing\">humor quotient<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  If you don&#8217;t know me or my friends already, then photos of us drunk will mean nothing to you.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Agreed. However, most of the (few) people I have coming by <em>are<\/em> my friends.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Smileys are nothing more than confused punctuation.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, sure, but they&#8217;re fun to use, if they&#8217;re not overused. And besides, I managed to break the smiley function on here and haven&#8217;t resurrected it yet. So there. Bleah. :P<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  I will never take on online test. I do not resemble any of the characters from Buffy. I do not have a Jedi name, a prison bitch name or a Klingon name. If I don&#8217;t already have a real, non-computer generated nickname, it is because I have no friends.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Okay, so I&#8217;ve occasionally taken an online test. It&#8217;s a mildly amusing way to kill time for a few minutes, and if it amused me, then it may amuse others. That&#8217;s the point of linking, right?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  I will never tell you fond stories of my childhood or say that television\/computer games\/the streets at night are not how they used to be. Nostalgia is just another way of saying &#8216;I&#8217;m unhappy&#8217;.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2002\/06\/back_in_the_day.html\" title=\"Eclecticism: Back in the day...\">guilty<\/a>. I think my biggest issue here is nostalgia equating to unhappiness &#8212; I think the trip down memory lane is a fun one to take from time to time, but in my case, it generally makes me both happier with where I am now, and more excited about what&#8217;s yet to come. If nostalgia&#8217;s too depressing for some, maybe they need to find other things to be nostalgiac about.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  If something cool\/weird\/hilarious happens to me, the first people I will tell are my friends and my family. If they do not ask at least five questions within two minutes, then it is not as interesting as I thought and I will never refer to it on the internet.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I can go for that &#8212; the trick being, this blog is how I tell my friends and family. Of course, if I were to judge from the number of comments I get on some of my posts, things aren&#8217;t as cool\/wierd\/hilarious as I think they are &#8212; but that&#8217;s a point of view I&#8217;m fairly used to, given my slightly skewed take on much of life.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  If I link to an amusing sex aid, I am telling the world that I am not getting any.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hrm &#8212; and here I thought that by linking to an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.divine-interventions.com\/\" title=\"Divine Interventions\">amusing sex aid<\/a>, I was telling the world that I thought it was amusing. Glad we&#8217;ve cleared that up!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Irony is not humour. Sarcasm is not clever. The word &#8216;blog&#8217; is not a verb that is used by any normal human being.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Add the word &#8216;necessarily&#8217; to the first one, I&#8217;d agree. The second I could agree to &#8212; sarcasm&#8217;s just too easy sometimes. The last, however &#8212; according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oed.com\/public\/news\/0206.htm#naeu\" title=\"Oxford English Dictionary\">Oxford English Dictionary<\/a>, &#8216;blog&#8217; has been drafted to be added to the OED &#8212; will the verb-ing of the noun be too far behind?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  l33t is a language invented solely by and for illiterate 15 year olds with broken caps locks.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I heartily agree with this one.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  If I&#8217;m angry about something, I will post my rant in ZapfDingbats 1pt, in white on a white background. If anyone genuinely gives a shit then they will take the trouble to translate it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The majority of the time, if I&#8217;m angry about something, I&#8217;m not going to post about it &#8212; at least if it&#8217;s something personal &#8212; this site isn&#8217;t meant to be a public bitch forum. The few times I do, I may be looking for outside input, or even just trolling for sympathy. I can admit that.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Fake mastercard adverts involving genitals are not &#8220;priceless&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>  Nobody cares who all your base belongs to.<\/p>\n<p>  Acronyms are not a way to communicate. The internet has no 160 character limit and bad spelling is bad spelling no matter what it stands for.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, agreed (incidentally, if you don&#8217;t know what these are referencing &#8212; at least the first two &#8212; you&#8217;re probably better off).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Anything I receive in email is not new and has already gone around the world four times.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Most definitely &#8212; and the subject of an <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2001\/01\/things_to_remem.html\" title=\"Eclecticism: Things to remember when e-mailing\">earlier rant<\/a> quite some time ago.<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m not subscribing to the manifesto. I appreciate it and the frustrations behind it &#8212; however&#8230;I&#8217;ve got my own agenda (confused as it may be) for my site. Hopefully a few people find this place worth visiting from time to time? If not &#8212; well, there are plenty of other sites to hit. Enjoy them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As one of the many people across the &#8216;net who are blogging, it&#8217;s both interesting and amusing &#8212; however, for various reasons, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll be adopting it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2040,2043],"tags":[599],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-personal","tag-weblogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}