Links: Lonely blogging
This was going to go in my general link post a few days ago. But it got long. So it became its own link post.
I got into this via Looking beyond collaborative blogging by VH Belvadi.
Writing has always been a lonely endeavour and there is no changing that
Which is a response to The History of the Web's Do blogs need to be so lonely?.
Do blogs, like this one I’m writing in now, need to be so lonely? Not always, but sometimes, I feel like I’m shouting into the void.
Which is also responded to by Tracy Durnell, who gives some great examples of group blogs and the reasons they fell apart, as well as how they could work.
Manuel Moreale also responded, saying blogs don't need to be so lonely. Manuel of course runs People and Blogs, which whilst not necessarily communal is definitely doing big community things.
Belvadi also mentions Blogging collectively at This day's portion, which has some ideas about what it could look like with a collective, or syndication, for example.
The History of the Web has since followed up with Feeling less lonely, collating some of the responses.
On which subject I refer you of course to Bear's very own Grizzly Gazette. I also recently encountered pastagang and their blog. Communal blogging right there.
In response to Grizzly Gazette's technical challenges in setting up a multi-author blog on a platform which does not support such things (props to Kami) Imperfect looked at Pagecord's blog-by-email as an option too.
I hate to admit I've seen Substacks do this, because I hate to admit to reading Substacks, because I strongly disagree with Substack as a platform. But. Not as many as you would think considering it is technically very easy to have multiple authors and I'm sure I've seen people there bemoaning the lack of such collabs.
In terms of finding community, rather than communal blogging necessarily, Bear Blog's Discovery Feed is a great way of building and showcasing community. I use most recent, rather than trending. There are webrings, people sharing their feeds, blog carnivals, groups like 32-Bit Cafe.
Part of it comes down to, I suppose, what we all write our blogs for. How comfortable each of us is with shouting into the void. And what we will do about being part of a blogosphere, the ecosystem, a community.