Earlier in the week, Rona brought up something that I have had on my mind for quite some time.  While I was glad that someone else other than myself had noticed the same "effect", I disagree with Rona on the cause.  While Rona correlated the decline with the new web site, I feel that the quality of the blogs and the interest level shown goes back further than that.  I believe that the cause was the pressure applied by a vocal few towards the current "bloglet" format. 

When I first started blogging, this was a writing exercise.   I thought there were many examples of writings that I thought were meaningful, insightful and courageous.  It was both challenging and rewarding.  The writers inspired thought, contemplation and contribution.  Bloggers often lamented the challenge, the pressure to find something of interest to "write" about.  We don't hear about that much anymore because it really is quite simple to just "mail in" a bloglet to get through the day.  I do not absolve myself at all of responsibility for this decline.  Rather I think back at how many pieces I had written that I was extremely proud of and that generated compliments, particularly meaningful when coming from people who didn't normally comment publicly.  That hasn't happened in an awfully long time. neither the compliments nor the feeling of pride in having written something meaningful.  There were no official restrictions put on me, I just simply gave in.

If one looks back at the blogs in their entirety, I believe that the quality has diminished significantly across the bored.  I consider myself as guilty if not more than anyone.  The short-attention span theatre advocates won the battle and now the blog is different than it was.  To some, different is always better, not to me.