Categories: on-blogging
Date: 13 November 2008 10:56:46
First off thanks for the advice on doing links.
Today the aspect of blogging I want to focus on is the community / social networking aspect. I know this is something I and others have spoken about before but it's something I want to revisit it again, because for me it's something important and something that is continuing to develop.
Firstly, in specific relation to the Wibsite - When I found the Wibsite four years ago I didn't know anybody on here, now there are a bunch of people I would be happy to describe as acquaintences and a bunch that I would go further with and call friends. Those relationships have grown through reading each others blogs and commenting on them, primarily; they have often also developed through face to face contact and through networking on other sites.
The Wibsite has been a place where like minded people have come together and shared the good, the bad and sometimes the downright ugly in their lives, as far is responsible to do so on a public site which anybody can access. It's a site where we have experienced people around us being born and dying, both as individuals and as a community. It's a site where we have shared in the joys of marriage; the struggles of depression; the lonliness and freeing independance of singleness; the highs and lows of parenting - either as lone parents or as a couple; it's a site where people have come out; it's a site where people have shared their spiritual and physical pain and a site where people have discussed their callings. It's been a place where we have shared in everyday life. This sharing of both the ordinary and extraordinary bits of our lives has helped develop relationship between people in a way which, at times, is quite wonderful.
Through our sharing, and sometimes through the hard work of some organised people, we have been able to identify times when face to face contact has been possible / appropriate. As such, Greenbelt has provided the opportunity for many of the English and Welsh contingent to meet up once a year, and develop friendships further by being able to put a name to a face. This has, in turn, sometimes led to deeper friendships starting to develop and people keeping in touch from time to time in ways which are not so public. In my life the practical aspects of this have included: having a bunch of people there for me, who I knew I could turn to, the night my mum died, having places to stay on the odd occassion I've needed it, having amongst my supporters on the great adventure a number of people from this site, having had the confidence to take my daughter on a short break with a bunch of people off the internet, giving me people to hook up with on activist actions and having a whole new bunch of people to do coffee with at Greenbelt.
Beyond the immediate contacts I have made through blogging on this site it has also enable me to build relationships with people I have met in person and then kept in contact with via the comments on this site and through other social networking sites.
Finally it has enabled me to continue in relationship, more easily, with people who I no longer physically see that often. I know I have a few friends, who I am geographically seperate from, who use this site to keep up with me.
So, whilst I know that blogging can become an excuse for the worst kind of navel gazing and egoitism if it's done in the right spaces and the right ways I believe it's a powerful tool for making / developing friendships and social networking.
In my life and, I think, in the lives of several others, the Wibsite - (together with other social networking sites we contribute to) -and the friendships which have developed on here have made a significant, positive difference. So, Dave, Chris, Maddie and all the others who make it work - thank you!