A Professor Discusses How and Why to Blog.

Dr. Stephen Taylor at Poliblog has an excellent resource on the purpose of blogs, how to blog, how to measure blog traffic, and how to use blogs. Professor Taylor's website is the host-site for the Web-based "The Academy" community of bloggers and a Professor of Political Science at Troy University in Alabama.

His column is a cornucopia of links covering the subject and a great introduction for all of us.

One of the featured quotes in his outline is:

Mostly that, like “media,” “blogging” is not just one thing. A weblog is merely one medium for conveying information to readers. InstaPundit, Wonkette, Captains Quarters, Daily Kos, and Boing Boing all do very different things in different ways. To simply lump them all together as “blogs” borders on meaningless.

I think the distinction of "types" of blogs highlighted in the above quote is a good one, but what about a site like ours where we talk about RPGs, comic books, movies, tv shows, and the obligatory politics (not to mention forays into the athletic world)? Are we too broad? Too unfocused? To wierd?

All I know is that we have been linking to the good Professor for sometime and are still not a feature in his blogroll. In my opinion, this is because Professor Taylor, like all professors, is a tyrant and we all know that a tyrant's (thank you Xenophon and Plato) primary motivation is to "be loved and respected." Nevermind quoting Machiavelli on whether it is better to be feared or loved, Xenophon already pre-empted that argument in Heiro. It is the very nature of the tyrant to desire not merely power, but respect and love as well.