Forums vs. Blogging
Submitted by RickW on Tue, 04/15/2008 - 9:10am.
I just reviewed the Blogs section of door64, and it appears there is as much conversation taking place on Blogs as on the forums.
I don't Blog, but thought I would use this site to get started. But, what's the diff?
The difference would be that it is my understanding that there is some expectation that blogging here be at least somewhat on-topic to Austin High-Tech. A personal blog you could blog about what your cat did this morning that was funny... If you did that here it would sort of seem out of place. Correct me if I'm wrong Matt...
Well, maybe I didn't ask the right questions. But something you've said kind of makes me think I'm on the right track.
We have forums for duscussions are various Austin/Central TX hi-tech topics, right? As well as general topics for techies, correct? So if a blog on door64 is to be on-topic to Austin High-Tech, what's the diff?
There just as much back and forth on the blog as in the disccusion forums. Granted, I don't blog, but why is it that anyone can post a response to you writings in blog, and carry on a conversation, in your blog; and is that a desirable thing?
Confused!!!
Well, I guess some of the things that people have posted on their blogs here are things that could have been posted on forums. The UI is basically the same. I generally put stuff on my blog entries here that are of personal interest to me, or that don't directly relate to a specific forum topic. In my case most of them have been related to the Austin IT job market. I don't always feel comfortable posting new topics in the recruiting forum because IANAR.
Anyway, I guess to me it doesn't matter so much whether discussion is in a blog or a forum, although I can see trying to keep the forum postings on-topic, where blogs are more free-form. Again, I leave it up to Matt to clarify or set direction or correct me if he disagrees...
Yes, I can understand the confusion. It's one of those things that I didn't do a good job of clarifying early on.
The idea was that your blog was your own virtual soap box for talking about what's important to you, whereas the discussion forums were geared towards community Q&A & discussion. However, the distinction is admittedly blurry, and I didn't push the issue because it is difficult to get across. So I figured I'll let the community gravitate towards using them how they see fit. *shrug*