Reviewing the "Reviewer"

You may have missed a mild slam of mine I snuck into the middle of this post yesterday (as well as an earlier one), at a guy who thinks he can dictate to a blogger how to blog and what to blog about. He is reviewing all Seed Sciencebloggers without, apparently, digging through anyone's archives to see their formidable output over the months and years of blogging, and without a thought that his notions of what a blog should be about are irrelevant to the blogger, the readers of the blog or the popularity of any particular blog.

Well, I would not review a book without reading the whole thing, or review a movie without watching the whole thing, so why does he think he can review a blog (or 55 blogs) without spending many hours reading through the archives of each, plus other blogs' posts that link to an "talk back" to the blog, etc. And while a book or a movie are static, 2-hour things that stand alone, blogs are dynamic and embedded in teh context of conversation. It is imperative to follow a blog for a few months on a daily basis before getting a really good feel for it. Everyone goes through phases, everyone slows down during busy times (e.g., grading) and everyone goofs off during holidays (the time this guy picked up for his reviews).

Carl, Orac and PZ (so far) and their commenters take him to task and explain a thing or two about blogging in general and science blogging in particular.

As one of the things that comes up in this discussion is his ignorance of blog carnivals, and I am sure he is watching his sitemeter in awe right now, here is a little educational link - Blog Carnivals and the links embedded in there.