Saturday 13 September 2014

You only have yourself to blame

wordprocessor
I have always been an advocate for using software for what it was built for. Do you want to write a letter? Use a word processor. Do you have some calculations to make? Spreadsheets are built to that purpose. Would you like to catalogue your books? A database program is an excellent tool for that! I always frowned on those creating lists in Word or Excel, or cataloguing data in Excel (one hardly sees anybody making calculations in Access!).
One should not try to be more Catholic than the Pope, hence using blog software only to write blogs is a bit over the top.


Spreadsheet
One does not create a new website every time one wants to publish something on the internet? Or does one? Talking of opportunism or hypocrisy!
The funny thing is that blogs are more or less outlawed. When I see a blog that I find interesting, I link to it from my own blog pages without blinking an eye. In the same way I sometimes find a link to my own blogs (like this one); no offence taken!
However, I have also used blog software to write “blogs” (I call them “descriptive” blogs) which do not really have a general character, but are more meant as an extension of our own website. Little stories about restaurants, tourist attractions around here, descriptions of the touristic infrastructure in the area would make our website even heavier than it already is.
Database
And blog software is a very handy tool for writing and updating articles for those who have hardly any knowledge of html codes, Java script, etc.
Still, linking through to one of those “descriptive” blogs without batting an eyelid comes across as different to linking to a “normal” blog. That is no doubt caused by the fact that I did quite some research for the“descriptive” blogs, as opposed to the “narrative” blogs, which have a far more informal character.
To give an example: I spent a lot of energy on my “descriptive” blog about tourism around Cormatin; everything I wrote about I have seen and/or investigated with my own eyes. The same goes for descriptions of restaurants, and cycle and walking tracks around here.

link 3, 6 (no source) & 7
When I accidentally found links to 2 of those chapters on somebody else’s “website” (built with blog software!), even without mentioning the source, and one link to the proper tourist page of our own website, was my first thought :”Are they too bloody lazy to do some investigation by themselves?”. But again, blogs are more or less outlawed, hence complaining is not really an option.
Having said that, just asking for permission beforehand, or at least mentioning where the information came from afterwards is obviously not something that comes naturally with some people.
A blog I can link to without batting an eyelid is this one (click here).

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