BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?

Subject: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: Cruiser
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 03:28 PM

I prefer to watch CBS News, although I also watch ABC, NBC, and CNN. However, since the huge misstep by "60 Minutes", my trust in the accuracy of that station's reporting has me looking elsewhere for objective news. CBS may now be just as bad as Fox. The fact that a major news service would not follow the journalistic credo of thoroughly checking the alternative evidence that a story may be fraudulent is reprehensible.

In any decision, a clear thinking human should give as much weight to opposing views, even contrary to one's own cherished view, until those alternative views are not supported by current evidence. You must consider the contrary evidence against your position as strongly as supporting evidence; critical thinking requires such consideration.

Maybe Blogs will help in the "checks-and-balances" of information available for citizens. Of course, we all know about the inaccuracies of information on the Internet. We must still do the extra fact-finding required before taking a position or posting something as fact when it is just an opinion.

Cruiser

Subject: BS: Blogs...
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 03:32 PM

It used to be said that an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of keyboards could eventually crank out the collected works of Shakespeare (paraphrased)

The internet is proof that this is NOT the case...

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 03:35 PM

There must be some Mudcatters running their own blogs. Let's be having you!

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: Cruiser
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 04:01 PM

There are many talented folks here with journalistic (Mr. McGrath), philosophical (Bill D and Little Hawk) and diverse political/ideological backgrounds that would make excellent Web Loggers.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 04:56 PM

Bill D is too disorganized and WAY too bad a typist to make it a regular thing....Mudcat suits me JUST fine for my soapbox whims.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 05:05 PM

I think what Bill said there is pretty accurate. With the Mudcat there's a sense of writing to people who are actually there, and who are gooing to respond, rather than talking to the wall. A two way process rather than a monologue.

However I'd be very surprised if there aren't Mudcatters who have set up web logs, and it'd be interesting to visit some. There are definitely Mudcatters whose blogs would be much more likely to be interesting than the general run seem to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 05:12 PM

There are a very few excellent, and interesting, blogs; but there are far more lunatic/boring/crackpot ... (extend list to suit yourself) ones. A problem that occurs is that without a "theme" many blogs degenerate into useless drivel, and with a theme they tend to degenerate in advancing some political/religious/mystic etc. preconceptions.

i.e. the generalist ones that survive, especially those related to "news" or "politics" tend to become less balanced as they develop a "party line." With a healthy BS-detector, it's pretty easy to spot some of them, but it's just as easy to apply the same detector to conventional sources and extract useful info - just by assuming that "if what they say is all lies, the truth must be ... ."

There is also a been trend for blog "sponsors" to begin looking for ways to make some money off of their sites, so some see a limited future for casual blogging. A few decent blogs have already been "killed" by this process.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Sep 04 - 05:36 PM

What I had in mind was that folk music does supply an excellent theme for a blog.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 02:13 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 04 - 05:15 PM

Still no one owning up?

Hunting around, I've found a few blogs with a folk orientation, but so far none that amount to much. Or with any link to the Mudcat, which implies to me that the people running them aren't too knowledgeable about folk music.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 08:48 AM

A few months ago a survey showed (Sorry, can't remember the numbers) that the great majority of bloggers were teen-age girls and that few blogs lasted longer than a year. ie. Anything worthwhile would be very hard to find.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:24 AM

I'm going to start keeping a log, or journal, at work but that's to help me remember what's happened. And it won't be online.

They're a fad that will fade. Frankly, I don't give a tinker's damn about what someone thinks about marmalade or Bush, or about Kerry or their boyfriend. Sturgeon's Law applies to most things, but with blogs it approaches 1.0 faster and more closely than anything else in recent memory.

As to evidence -- evidence of what? A low grade of mental masturbation?

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 11:02 AM

There are plenty of good blogs - outnumbered by rubbish, but what do you expect? Putting a good blog together, and keeping it good, is clearly a very demanding thing to do.

Here is a newspaper article with a bunch of award-winning British blogs, and you can see why they got the awards, especially some of them.

So once again, has anyone come across any blogs centred on folkmusic-or-around which are up to scratch?

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 01:03 PM

mathematics will tell you that given 10s of millions of private web sites, some will always be devoted to blogs or the equivilent...and that a small % will be by thoughtful, incisive writers. With care, Google and places like the link above will help you find more good ones than you can possibly read.

The internet/WWW has already changed much of life, and barring disaster, will do so much more in the next few decades that it is hard to comprehend.

Subject: RE: BS: Blogs: A Boon To Knowledge and Evidence?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 01:49 PM

Nice bit in one of those blogs, the one from BBC journalist Stu Hughes, who lost a leg to a landmine in Iraq. Called BEYOND NORTHERN IRAQ it's largely about Iraq, but has other stuff too, such as stuff about the Paralympic Games. But I really liked this comment for September 7th:

"Press freedom groups have been meeting in Geneva to look at ways of making journalism safer for media workers in hostile environments.

"One suggestion is the adoption of an international emblem for journalists similar to the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols used by humanitarian aid workers.

"Hmmm....I wonder what the symbol might look like. This perhaps? "- followed by a picture of a full pint glass of beer...