Good Day, Gord!
I was busy creating cute quotes for OUR blog (with your name on it) and I noticed, especially for the 'women are green' entry, a missing link. Where's the link to the story? I wanted to read it. Then it occurred to me, like a flash of lightning, this is the only blog in the entire world where no links are provided by the author and no links are permitted by the readers. Even my occasional TinyURL links don't show up as clickable links, they show up as plain text. Lots of people don't know how to cut and paste.
This is the Internet, Gord, mon ami! Everything is supposed to be linked to everything else. In fact, on other blogs there's a saying: if there's no link, it never happened. That's a common complaint and kind of the ultimate argument and insult on a blog. No links implies you're cherry picking the facts you happen to like and purposely leaving out 'inconvenient facts' that are contrary to your point of view. It's like a billboard saying: don't believe anything you read here because you're not allowed to independently check the facts.
On many other blogs with Moderators (and you DO moderate your blog more closely than anyone else I've ever come across by not allowing any posts until you've approved them) links, graphics, emoticons, photographs and a whole slew of creative user content is encouraged, not just grudgingly allowed.
I realize the Internet is a nasty and unruly place with zillions of spammers but your blog kind of runs counter to the spirit of the 'Net. In fact, in philosophy it's sort of like big government or big media --- although at least big media are finally figuring out the Internet and starting to get into the spirit of the thing.
Just some thoughts for a windy, warmer December day with lots and lots of snow...
Curry left me an email this morning, threatening to come over and drink my last two beers. That means I need to shower, shave, get dressed, etcetera. Maybe I'll go down and throw out my garbage and/or clean off and start his truck, which he's left parked in the empty spot I'm still paying to rent. It's been there over a week and I haven't had the energy to go and drive it anyplace. Oh well, maybe I'll get on that horse this morning and go to get some groceries and more beer. After all, he's using his old crappy truck and I have the shiny new truck. The least I can do is start it once in awhile.
2 comments:
Pretty pathetic when you gotta reply to your own postings. Huh.
Anyhow. There will be links when I deem it necessary. From the article about our green little friends, there is sufficient information and citation to prove where it is about, what it is about, and where it would be.
When I check an article, or yours I don't normally follow any particular link. I figure one would naturally give a link that would support an argument therefore anyone who takes a statement and reference at face value is stupid, lazy, and lacking manhood.
Indeed, I have used links in the past. Even then a person who is handed the links wouldn't necessarily agree with the argument in any event. Why give a debating moron any more gas to light their fire?
I've used the internet for almost two full decades. Links are not necessary to function. I wouldn't trust them in the first place. I've seen a couple of places where authors intentionally use a link to plant malware. So regardless of the link I got a process where I search the internet for cross references. I go to any link last, if necessary.
Anyone who uses links in the first place to support an argument also often lacks originality, scope and writing ability. I look at it this way if you will. Why should I link to other sites, they should link to me.
How pathetic is it when you have to reply to a reply to your own posting, neh? Help! Help! I'm starting to get confused!
Anyhow, I've been around long enough to realize links do make the Internet.
Long ago and far away, there existed a purer form of the DARPA problem child and while it didn't have 'links' as we now know them because there was no graphical interface available, it did have uucp, gopher and ftp connections to all sorts of new, exciting and interesting information.
In other words, mon ami, links...
No matter how it started, the Internet has evolved into the most giant ball of tangled and knotted Ethernet cables anyone ever imagined and no matter how much effort you put into untangling it, I kinda doubt you're gonna experience a stunning success.
As a sort of unstoppable overflow from the scientific and academic worlds, almost by magic, references (read: links) have become necessary to seperate the wheat from the chaff on the Internet. There's one hell of a lot of chaff out there and links are provided so your erudite readers can check the places from which you acquire information, just to make sure they aren't questionable left wing Communist paranoid ramblings or questionable right wing, Faux News paranoid ramblings.
As for links leading to malware, I agree that's a problem but then again, that's why you "moderate" the blyg, n'est pas? One quick trip by you to get infected by a bad malware link and all the rest of us who need saving, all get saved, please and thank you. You also get to weed out all the damned spammers.
By the way, links in and of themselves don't support any argument and they have nothing to do with originality, scope and writing ability. Links simply open a door into your mind (yes, I mean yours, Gord!), so your loyal bloogers can explore it more completely. What else did you think we were doing here?
[I would place a cute, mobile WooHoo emoticon here but I'm not allowed.]
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