I can agree with most of your post, but the last part:

A painting or a sculpture must be consistent with the medium used to present it. The subject of a blog must be presented in a way that is appropriate and effective.

again prompted that gut feeling that, if you’ve never tried to write a blog piece, you don’t know how difficult it can be to construct something consistent with the medium and presented appropriately. If you have no experience doing it, then your credibility as ac ritic is diminished in my eyes.

Mostly, though, I was put off by generic and sweeping condemnations. Even saying “all” is work is “too long” is a weak excuse. The length, in my mind, is irrelevant if the content contained merits the length.

Critics may be trying to say his pieces don’t merit the length, but, if so, tell me why. Even better, write a post showing you can do it better. Just saying “it’s too long” is weak, IMHO.
View all comments by The Ghost

If it was not the trigger,then I apologize for assuming too much.

(a) 8-ball qualified it as an opinion (indirectly) by bringing up the idea of contributing to people we CONSIDER good bloggers.

(b) He made a very specific criticism — that BBKs blogs are too long.

He wasn’t personal in his criticism, addressing the blog, not the blogger.

It had the added benefit that, due to his presentation, it was a pretty funny comment in the context of the string.

Let me quote from one of pmmp’s recent comments (29 July 888, housecleaning, etc):

There are many ways to skin a cat on delivering information. Many forms are serious. Others involve humor. One could write “Isaan girls send money home to their families. Their families in turn use that money to buy land and in some cases farm animals”. Another way: “I tipped my short-time 1/8 of a buffalo last night”. You see? I would even argue that the silly statement is way more thoughtful.

I thought 8-ball’s comment was concise, pithy, amusing and objective, fitting neatly into pmmp’s description of a “thoughtful” statment.

As for lumping BBK’s 29 blogs together — I think its okay to do it. BBK certainly does. He footnotes and cross-references his blogs. He writes them all in the same style, and, in my opinion, offers them as one body of work. Even you seem to recognize that in describing “his types of primers / essays”.

BBK has a style, for sure. I don’t understand why it’s unacceptable to attack style. Style and content go together. Writing is art as much as anything. A painting or a sculpture must be consistent with the medium used to present it. The subject of a blog must be presented in a way that is appropriate and effective. At times a writer may succeed and at other times he may fail, but we will only ever judge success and failure one person at a time and we will never all agree.

Thank God for that.

I agree that criticism should be specific, focused on the subject and not the person. In my mind, 8-balls short comment met those criteria.
View all comments by Werewolf

I’m fine with people saying they didn’t like a particular post. But tell me why. Don’t just wave your hand and say, “that wsa bollox.”

And, most certainly, don’t lump 29 articles into the same category that “everything he writes is bollox.”

Also, personally attacking his style, rather than simply saying you don’t personally care for it, is not acceptable. Neither is denying that his types of primers / essays are indeed a style.

Critics are fine. I read book reviews. But critics cite the reasons why they beleive a piece of written work is good or not. You wouldn’t pick up the N.Y. Times Book review and see a 2-sentence review stating “That book sucked. The author can’t write at all.”
View all comments by The Ghost

I can’t buy into that.

Not everyone is a blog writer, but that doesn’t invalidate their opinions of others’ writing.

And being a blog writer doesn’t validate the opinions of others’ writing that you may choose to express.

There was a blog and a long string of comments on this site back around the beginning of June that I saw for the first time last night. It was a piece authored by BBK about the Library. He was heavily criticized by PMMP in the comments, and was under an attempted artillery barrage of comments from Bangkok Bad Boy. BBB in particular was direct, somewhat personal, and attacking.

These are two of the most prolific bloggers in Bangkok over the past three years. Now, if they go on the attack (pmmp was calling BBK “creepy”, and he was the one who was being polite!) then because they themselves have written we are allowed to accept the criticism as valid.

But under the rule proposed by Ghost, someone who hasn’t written a blog but expresses the same attacking opinions against the same blogger would be out of line.

Hmmmm…..

I don’t buy it.

If you post a blog on the internet, and at the bottom there is a COMMENTS box, then I figure you have to be ready to not only take what comes your way, but welcome it.

If you can’t, then I figure your only choices are to stop blogging or turn off the comments box. It’s part of what comes of expressing yourself in a public forum.

And me? I sometimes criticize other people’s writing, especially if I don’t know them, but more often if I find that I usually don’t like someone’s ideas, opinions or style I just stop reading them when I see their name on something.
View all comments by Werewolf

Aren’t you happy to hear praise from non-writers?

Why not criticism?
View all comments by Werewolf