Blog Rules

We need to set down some ground rules for contributing to the blog. First, let me say what the blog is supposed to do, then we can consider what rules or procedures might be valuable for achieving those goals. Finally, this should not be an autocratic process, so I welcome your comments, suggestions and, even, objections.

The blog should serve as a venue for discussing material covered in class. Of course, raising a topic in class branches onto other topics and discussions, so we need not restrict ourselves to textual analysis of class readings, though that is perfectly allowable as well. I think the blog offers the possibility that we can deepen our understanding of class materials by expanding the range of issues we're considering. Among other things, this requires that we try to make the connection to class discussion explicit, even if only to alert readers to the fact that we aren't keeping things very tightly bound to class. As a general rule, we should focus on posting content that deals with the intersection between philosophy, nature and the environment. This description seems broad enough to cover everything we would like to discuss, while also allowing leeway for contributors to follow digressive paths within the shadow of this general topic.

So, our first rule is that we post only on issues relating to philosophy, nature and the environment. Further, we must remember to make the connections to these themes or class discussions as explicit as possible. Yet, a second set of considerations will complicate this activity. Namely, a blog is open to the public and we should write with the expectation that anyone could read what we contribute to the blog. At the same time that we want to make explicit references to readings or the significance of our writing for a specific topic, we also want to remember that the content of the blog is public. We want readers outside of class to understand what we are saying, so keep the public nature of the blog in mind whenever posting new content. A "post" should be written like a short essay beginning with a general thesis that expands by offering evidence supporting that thesis and concludes by explaining the significance of the evidence for the original thesis. "Replies" are less structured and should simply try to address the post in a constructive, direct fashion. In either case, we are addressing an audience that goes beyond the classroom whose members have interests other than our own.

Now that we're writing posts that attempt to lay out their significance to philosophy, nature and the environment as explicitly as possible without sacrificing public readability, we might want to discuss style. Style in writing differs from grammar to the extent that we shift our focus from what conforms to the rules of grammar to what contributes to successful communication. While many blogs dispense with style considerations, as an academic exercise, I can't allow this blog to do that. Consequently, posts and replies need to be slightly more formal than a regular blog because we need to understand what each other is saying. This means refraining from using shorthand, abbreviations, incomplete sentences and profanity. While there are perfectly good reasons to use these things in writing and literature, these linguistic tools are unwieldy in novice hands and could just as easily harm communication as facilitate it.

Above all the blog is a place to share ideas about how philosophy, nature and the environment relate to one another and how we might put those ideas to work in our everyday experience. While drawing upon class materials as well as news, art, literature, science, psychology and a host of other fields I can't think of now, we need to be aware that this is not a private activity, but that it also has public repercussions and significance. If we follow basic rules of grammar and style in our posts while trying to be respectful and constructive in our replies, we should be in pretty good shape.