Back in January on my own blog, I talked about an e-mail that my educational institution had sent round about potential problems with blogging. Employers can (and according to this e-mail do) find out about blogs, and this can harm employability.
To be honest, I wasn't overly convinced, and thought that there might be scaremongering:

[Blogging's] a way to express yourself. Whilst Asp Bites originally started off as a "This is what I'm doing" blog, it's developed, and now I explain my opinion on various matters constantly. Some which, it's fair to say, are controversial.
I imagine that finding a prospective employees blog can also help them get a job. A well written blog, well thought out, can show intelligence. And a hobby outside of work/study." (Asp Bites - Blogging v Employment)

What I never thought about though was the potential of criminal liability from a blog. OK, obviously if I posted the recipe to build a bomb, perhaps I would attract the attention of MI5. And yes, there's Civil Liability if I defame someone. But other than that?

Besides, most of us in the blogosphere occasionally use our blogs to let off steam. Have a rant about someone or something. We might not mention names, but whilst in full flow you might not think clearly. It appears that that now may be a problem:
This in many ways is baffling. How did the officer and his wife find the quote to take offence at? How is that sentence, on its own, menacing. Without the benefit of hearing it being said, it could even be a polite thought.

What was interesting though is that the court looked at his site as a whole in answered that latter point. They determined that "the blog was articulate, detailed, specific and critical of the police and the CPS." Therefore "any reasonable person would find the words about the baby to be menacing in the context of the overall blog." Which suggests that if we're always offensive, people are able to consider any comments directed as them as just part of the rest of tone of the blog. Dont b 'articulate' in ur posts then [sic].

When he was arrested, Brent is reported to have claimed "You can write on websites because it's freedom of speech." Which the court right decided was a load of old nonsense - there's always got to be limits. But, when directing tirades at public figures, have you considered the option that you might be able to rely on your opinion and "freedom of speech" as a defence.

It's only a decision by a magistrate's court - so there's no binding precedent. Next court could decide differently on exactly the same facts. But, it does make you think. And, perhaps, occasionally stop before hitting "submit post"...

~ Asp

Civil Service blogging is dead. The Civil Serf blog has closed down, presumably either because her identity was discovered and it was the choice of the blog or the job, or she thought that her was likely to be discovered. Maybe the guess that she worked in Department for Work and Pensions was too close for comfort. But now, in a blatant knee-jerk reaction:

And yet, apparently, this no "not a reaction" to Civil Serf. Yes, and I'm a one-legged, wheelchair-bound Lithuanian lesbian called George.

Despite the apparently benign reference to "guidance" and "guidelines", this almost certainly translates to "written in stone" and "don't you dare" behind closed doors. This "guidance" will almost certainly result in no other potential Civil Service blogger dare rear their head over the parapet and tell us, the people who pay their wages, exactly how the inner workings of government actually work - or rather, don't work.

There is a big difference between a private business doing this and the Civil Service/government doing so. A private business earns their own money. They have profits and losses and reputations - and whilst they, too, employ marketing to persuade us to back them rather than their competitors, we can withdraw our money and support from them whenever we like, rather than just every four or five years when they choose to let us.

Consider the evidence: first they publish Janet Street Porter's absurd diatribe against blogs, in which she asks us all to "Blog Off". And now they've redesigned their website - and cut all the links to articles. As Matt Wardman writes:

So why have they done this? It seems absurd to delete all the links to pages that have ever been made by anyone anywhere across the internet. Surely the whole point of having a web presence is so that people can link to you? Why else would anyone bother?! And, surely, any web developer worth his pay cheque would be able to maintain the original links as active? The only conclusions that can realistically be drawn is that either the Independent hates blogs or are idiots. Or both.

The thing is, the Indy's new website isn't even pretty. In fact it's down-right ugly. It is cluttered, confusing, and what the hell is with that mustard yellow colour scheme?!

The Independent: Blog haters.

XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

Well, there's definitely more than two results on google for "died in a blogging accident" now!

Hat-tip: Theo Spark at his new blog and Tom Paine

Soldiers who served during the First World War frequently wrote letters home, and it is through these documents that we can understand the true situation which they were in. The letters of one soldier, Private Harry Lamin, are being published as a blog, exactly 90 years after they were written, and are published entirely faithfully to the original, including spelling and grammar, and are also put in context by some historical explanations.

All in all, a very interesting blog and a very good idea to do, reproducing a snapshot of the past online. Read it here.

A fantastic video that explains blogs in very simple and understandable terms:

Hat-tip: Sally in Norfolk

It is easiest to blog from Opposition - everything the government does or says can be attacked, and results and statistics - whether or not they be directly the result of their policies. But, of course, it is perfectly possible to blog from government as demonstrated by the number of left-wing blogs. What I think Opposition really does is create the conditions in which blogs sprout, from anger or disgust at what the government is doing in their name.

Many of these bloggers quickly out-pour their feelings and die as quickly as they had begun. But plenty don't. They just keep on going, and tend to develop from simply oppositional blogs which does little more than attack the "other side" into those which also suggest ways in which it can be fixed, and turn their fire on their "own side" as well when they feel that they aren't doing or saying the things they want either. That certainly happened to me.

Bloggers tend to begin from a very partisan "them and us" viewpoint, but few remain that way for long, since the very medium of the blog leads to an expansion of political horizons and this weakens strict partisanship. Can you blog and be strictly partisan? Yes. Can you be strictly partisan and blog well? Not a chance. Blogging requires a will to criticise your own side when they do wrong.

It is far easiest the start blogging from Opposition, hence the lead of the centre-right in Britain and the centre-left in the US. But when the inevitable happens and the governments change, the" other side" will gain. There is no doubt that if the next US President is a Democrat that the American right will begin to encroach on the American left, and if/when the next British government is Conservative, the Left will increase online. Even so, I don't think that this will mean that the number of blogs now on the government's side will decrease by much [if at all], but just that the new opposition will increase.

Of course, it isn't possible to be unpartisan in blogging, but the media does at least ensure that bloggers aren't uncritical.

There is a good article on this issue in Media Guardian today by Matthew d'Ancona - which gave me the idea to write this blog post - looking at the way "Bloggers are transforming the way opposition politics works". He points out that the positions of the political ideologies in blogging are reversed in Britain and America - based upon who is in government. His conclusion is that:

I think that he is pretty much right. Blogging thrives in Opposition, but certainly is not - and cannot be - confined to it.

Indeed.

h/t Tom Paine

I just realised that this is to be my one thousandth post here on this blog.

It really doesn't seem all that long ago that I posted for the first time, and even less so when 100 posts was quite a number!

Since I started, this blog has been through a couple of template redesigns and a new domain name, and posts covering a wide number of political - and non-political - issues.

I have enjoyed writing the past thousand posts,and I hope you have enjoyed reading all of the ones which you have read - and I thank for doing so. I have enjoyed reading the comments which readers have posted, and long may it continue!

Hopefully you'll stick around for, and enjoy reading, my next thousand posts!

The Halloween Blogpower Round-up is up over at Westminster Wisdom. It is fantastically written, as you would expect from Gracchi. So go read it here!

The number of Britons going camping has fallen by a fifth.

But I'm not one of them. I'm off camping with my Scout troop, so there'll be no posts this weekend!

When it doesn't have any comments.

Nadine Dorries has turned off the comment facility on her blog, saying:

Well, she's utterly wrong to do so. A blog is a conversation. Without the comments, it's nothing more than a speech. That is makes her "uncomfortable" not to have seen the comments on her blog is no argument for turning them off. It is the very nature of the internet!

She ends the announcement with the comment:
Yet without comments, it's not a blog. Simple as that. Without comments it is not a blog and you are not a blogger. The ability to comment is the very lifeblood of a blog, without it it is nothing really. A recipe missing a vital ingredient, a perfume without any scent - pretty damn pointless.

Without comments, is it - can it be - a blog? Short answer: no.

Image: Nadine Dorries

Is there to be an end to anonymous online comments?

It is unlikely that this will really make much difference. The ways in which to hide and protect your identity online are legion, and this sort of story will just increase them. It will never be possible to identify who's who online, as every level of detection will be countered by several layers dedicated to preserving anonyminity.

What this does show, however, is that it is very much becoming less easy - or at least more troublesome - to be and remain anonymous online. Many bloggers write under pseudonyms, like I do - even though my real name is openly shown on this page, and easily findable by anyone who can be bothered - but this won't really make my difference to that. Certainly until they bring in thought crimes, anyway.

via A. Tory
Source: The Guardian

You can now access this blog through a brand new domain name - www.thethunderdragon.co.uk.

All old links will still work, however, and there is no need to change any links, since it should all be automatically forwarded to the new address.

I just thought it was about time, since neither the cost or effort are all that much!

As the Rugby World Cup moves into the knockout stages, DuSanne of Liberty's Requiem has made a fantasy blogging rugby team, which he himself acknowledges is a very strange fantasy team, especially since it represents a very wide angle of polticial spectrum within its ranks. I myself am featured:

If I knew anything about rugby, I might be able to comment on the suitability of the position in real life. But since I don't, I can't. I doubt I could play it anyway. I'm no good at most sports.

But anyway, go and read the post - it is very well and intelligently written - just like the rest of his posts!