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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (78389)	2/28/2003 9:21:25 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

How do you distinguish between virtual communities and blogging? Is it the quality of the writing? A virtual community allows the reader to respond on an equal basis. The contestants may both be controlled by a moderator, but the moderator is not generally one of the contestants. Those who post here have to be prepared to back up their words in a forum they do not control. That's just not true of blogs. I should mention that I think part of the secret to the quality of moderation on this thread, which is the best I've ever seen on SI, is that the moderator does not generally take part in the discussion, especially when the discussion gets heated. One of my favorite bloggers is a Ph.D. economist who is a full professor at UC Berkeley, Brad DeLong. I challenge you to find any lack of intellectual power in his blogging. I'm sure there are some good ones out there, and I'll look at that one. It must be a lot of work, though, to wade through the mass to find them. It's also true that even quality thinkers do better work when they know they are submitting their work in a peer-reviewed format. I have only so many hours to spend on reading, and I prefer to spend them reading work that's been professionally screened.