Please come back and get it back on track

Over at one of my other blogs, A School to Call Home, someone left an off-topic comment. Well, off-topic for that blog, but on-topic for this blog:

What happened to your [smallest military service] blog. very negative for months in the comments. we miss you. please come back and get it back on track.

Well, it's difficult to explain... or as many Facebook relationship statuses say, it's complicated.

You are correct, however, the comments did get very negative. This is one of the reasons I left my baby and came here. The comments were getting out of hand. One of the issues with all this new media is how one describes it. Is it new media, or is it social media. If you go and read much of the current stuff about the form, including Ryan's recent post about the status of the service's place in the social media hierarchy, you'll see there are two camps: one that sees these and other media outlets as new and the other that places the emphasis on the social. And, part of the social is allowing people to socialize, to comment, to add, to reflect.

Frankly, there are plenty of d***sh**s out there... and they were all pseudonymously commenting on that unofficial blog. Me, personally, I'm all in favor of posting one's opinion (I do it all the time), but I ask that people do it in the clear... and it was clear to me that commenting in the clear was going to not gain traction... So, for a cup of coffee, which I have yet to collect, I sold the blog to Ryan.

I do believe that if the Service is going to make gains in this new media realm, the emphasis must be placed on posting and commenting in the clear, under one's own name. I believe that posting and commenting under one's own name raises the dialogue and professionalism of the media.

Perhaps it was wrong of me, or weak of me, to turn tail and turn that unofficial blog over to someone else. Perhaps. But, frankly, it was a fight I just wasn't willing to take on. I know; you'll say it was my blog, and I could do whatever I wanted. True. But, it is also one of the grand-daddies of unofficial service blog, and every time I raised the issue, those who came out to comment were adamantly opposed. At the same time, I was losing my edge with the blog, not posting what I'm really best at, which is insight into the absurd.

So, in short, I tossed in the towel.

And came here. Where, still, I'm running under the radar, albeit I know I'm starting to throw up some return and I'm showing on some screens.

Will I come back and get an unofficial blog on track? Nope. I'm here at another unofficial blog, and that's good enough for me.