Category Archives: Blogging

Blogging the SBL Annual Meeting – Proposals & Prospects

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The editor of the SBL Forum, Leonard Greenspoon, has asked for my input in how best to blog the coming annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature to be held in Boston, Massachusetts, in November 2008. I have a number of ideas, though I thought it would be good to propose some ideas and then open up discussion from other bibliobloggers. Here are my ideas:

  • First, the goal shouldn’t be to blog the entire meeting. That, obviously, would be a bit too much. I would think that all of the major presentations should be covered (e.g., the presidential address) as well as some of the more controversial papers. In addition, some editorial pieces may be worthwhile, especially since this will be the first SBL without the AAR.
  • Second, in addition to the type of posts noted in the first point, the SBL Meeting Blog should also serve as an ongoing “carnival-like” repository of links to SBL-related discussions going on in the blogosphere. Thus, someone could keep and eye out and put together a daily round-up of links. Even better, bloggers could be asked to email a trackback url to the editor of the SBL Meeting Blog when a relevant post is uploaded.
  • Third, perhaps a regular podcast from the SBL meeting could be arranged and distributed via the SBL Meeting Blog. This could include interviews with some SBL bigwigs, discussion of controversial papers, or just general impressions of the meeting.

If these are the sort of things the SBL Meeting Blog would cover, then the blog would need to be a team blog with different disciplines represented and perhaps an overal editor/organizer. Then we could assign certain bloggers to cover certain papers and topics, etc. Of course there would have to be some technical details worked out; first and foremost the question of where the blog would be located and what blogging platform would be used (WordPress is my vote). Leonard wants this as part of the SBL Forum, though I am not sure if their server has blogging software capability (I assume it probably does, though I am not sure if it is a unix based server or not).

At any rate, those are some of my ideas. I now open up the comments for a discussion on how best to blog the SBL annual meeting. What say you?


Busy Marking…

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OK, that’s irritating. I am in the middle of marking and decided to write a quick post to update everyone on some posts I am working on connected with the exile workshop at the University of Alberta last week, the book of Job, and the state of evangelical biblical scholarship (e.g., the Enns controversy and Kenton Sparks’ new book). I go to publish the post and there is a database error of some sort and I loose it. Blah!

At any rate, my original post was far more polished than this one! Now, back to marking papers…


The Death of Blogs?

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The Christianity Today blog uploaded a post yesterday entitled “The Death of Blogs” where Ted Olson muses on the demise of blogging in general and “God-blogging” in particular. He points to some recent research showing evidence of widespread “blog burnout.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Tech researcher Gartner Inc. reported earlier this year that 200 million people have given up blogging, more than twice as many as are active.

“A lot of people have been in and out of this thing,” Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer told reporters. “Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they’re put on stage and asked to say it.” Given the average lifespan of a blogger and the current growth rate of blogs, Gartner says blogging has probably peaked.

Which isn’t to say that blogging is dead. Quite the opposite. Blog aggregator Technorati estimates that 3 million new blogs are launched every month. The site’s tongue-in-cheek slogan: “Zillions of photos, videos, blogs, and more. Some of them have to be good.”

As someone who has struggled with blogging the last couple months (and no, I don’t plan on giving up on blogging), I can relate to those who throw in the towel. I think that Olson hits the nail on the proverbial head when he notes, “What tired bloggers are increasingly discovering, however, is that it’s not necessarily the quality of their blog posts that matter. It’s matching their quality with frequency.”  Once my blog took off (and I thank all of my readers past and present), I felt this pressure to blog regularly so as not to disappoint my readers — and it was this perception of needing to blog that made it a chore rather than an enjoyable creative outlet and part of my teaching ministry.

I encourage you to read Olson’s whole post.