ps – your link to No Right Turn is broken.

Your comment about the .net domain name is also peculular. .net is the appropriate TLD for Public Address. It’s not a company (com or co), non-profit organisation (org), government (gov or govt), military (mil), or educational organisation (edu).

I certainly agree about the munted RSS feed and the fact that you have to set the site to maximum text size to even make it readable.

But then again you only have to look at RB’s reply to you here.

“And if you want to spend your whole day in your RSS reader rather than becoming part of a reader community, fine.”

PA isn’t a normal blog. It’s Russell’s platform for “people like us”. If you’re not a person like Russell then you don’t much more than the munted RSS feed to see if there is anything of interest.

And frankly beyond Emma Hart’s stirling posts and the odd time that Damien Christie remembers he’s just a boy from Upper Hutt the major problem with the site isn’t the design but the level of hubris. A long time ago Russell was a decent journalist; blogging seems to have been his downfall.

If that’s your standard, then 95% of the blogs in New Zealand should be .gen.nz or (perhaps these days) .geek.nz.

Although ham-strung by my seeming old-fashionedness (see above), even I know that there’s no template for blogs to adhere to. Why can’t they be “an email newsletter” if that’s what the author and readers want? Surely bloggers do what they do and it’s up to site visitors to either keep coming back or stay away.

I don’t share Russell’s taste in music so I just skip those bits and read the parts that interest me. Outrageous, isn’t it?

And I thought the whole point of blogs was exactly that they weren’t newspapers! You can’t have it all ways, Lance.

It’s too hard? That one I can agree with – you do have to actually think when you go there, and abuse is not tolerated. I’ve stopped posting, but only because I actually feel I’m not worthy, that it’s a place for people who take discussion seriously, and these days I don’t have the patience.

I’m one of Russell’s female readers of a certain age … who prints out the blogs I’m interested in! So old-fashioned I know, but it means I can print a swag at once and then sit next to my husband and pass the pages across as I finish (I’m the faster reader).
Yep, I still like newspapers too, partly because I can fold them into the shape I want and carry them round with me, or easily flick back and forward to find an article or to compare articles/pictures.
The debate about the brave new world of a blog like this or a blog like that forgets about people like me, who are kind of into new technology (love email, have no Facebook site; participate in a discussion group, but wonder why people blog about themselves), yet still enjoy good writing – and that’s what Public Address offers. Good writing, that’s generally properly spelled and correctly punctuated.
Oh dear, even more old fashioned …

Agree with Paul “the value of PAS is that biffo is uncommon and when it does occur it very polite and/or excruciatingly funny.”

I think one person’s biffo is another’s trolls.

Public Address has a higher female readership for a reason.

There has been discussion elsewhere (Scienceblogs – maybe Sciencwomen or Isis) about women in the blogosphere attracting trolls. I think a study found that people with usernames that are sterotypically female get more abuse than those who are male or neutral.

Russell has created a site where we can have debates and discussions without being pointlessly argumentative (or where abuse stands in for wit). I for one, appreciate the community feel, the humour, and general all round levels of respect – due to Russell telling people to play nice when needed, and the fact we’re encouraged to use our real names.

@Russell: fair enough. I was probably being a little naughty when I said it. That is however the rough and tumble of blogging: in fact a bit of blog biffo is good for business.

Familiar with the concept of incommensurability Bryan? You just perfectly demonstrated it.

You appear to understand PAS only in terms of what you aspire too. Can I suggest you not assume everyone shares your view. Actually, I’ll elaborate. I love a bit of biffo, it’s why I’ll visit blogs where that’s expected. However, the value of PAS is that biffo is uncommon and when it does occur it very polite and/or excruciatingly funny. Moreover, it’s not necessarily intended to change minds, rather clarify the difference of views.