A Blogging Manifesto?

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Cinema has Dogme 95, painting has the Stuckists, literature now has the 'New Puritans' (as discussed on Blue Lines) - isn't it about time weblogging had a manifesto to call its own? Time to write one, I think. Suggestions for rules and precepts please, for this mostly frivolous project!

― Tom, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, I think precept 1 of Blogme 2000 should be about design. Since the New Puritans and Dogme is all about (pointlessly in my opinion) suggestions of artifice. So

1: All weblogs must be on Blogspot. or All weblogs must have the basic blogger design.

2: All entries must be Link + commentary.

This would take it back to a content based purity. Probably be a bit duller though.

― Pete, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah yes, but other rules can be designed to keep the weblog interesting.

The cause of integrity and purity could also be advanced by requiring weblogs to be a) complete and b) honest. In other words, if you visit a site, you link to it (even if it's a porn site) and your comment on that site should be concisely critical. If you checked out somewhere and thought it was tedious, it's your duty to say so.

― Tom, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I quite like the suggestion of linking every site - though of course no-one is going to be 100% honest about that. Nevertheless anyone attempting to at least simulate this would produce an interesting list merely on the vagaries of searching.

I think the honesty side might destroy the weblogging community once and for all. There are after all a lot of shit weblogs out there.

― Pete, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, ultimately, sod the blogging community ;) He says hypocritically. I think the centre of the manifesto has to be a conception of a weblog as reader-serving rather than self-serving, though, and the weblog community is a basically self-serving construct.

― Tom, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1. In the interest of completion, shouldn't there be some requirement to update twice an hour, or at least minimum of 18 times a day?

2. Verdana and Arial are the only acceptable fonts for blogs, preferably in the smallest size compatible with legibility.

― Nick Mark, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In the spirit of puritanism, I'd advocate a return to primitive HTML. No frames, fancy fonts, Javascript or CGI. Just good old logical mark- up, with maybe the occasional GIF and tables.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Tuesday, 26 September 2000 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two months pass...

1. must read like an alan bennett monlogue 2. maximum number of graphics allowed: two 3. font must be verdana 10px or smaller

― Phil, Thursday, 7 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No blogging manifesto. None. If we start having manifestoes for blogging, then the whole thing's doomed. Manifestoes and mission statements are for every other area of life. But not for weblogs. Gosh, I'm feeling irked tonight.

― Vaughan Simons, Monday, 18 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The whole point of Dogme was to react to the über-Hollywood system, budgeting, etc... Blogging is still too lo-fi and, quite frankly, cult-ish to deserve a stone-cast commandment list.

― J.M., Wednesday, 20 December 2000 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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