Why I Like It Here

I find myself posting much more of then to WtS than I had been. Before Wts, the outlets for my writing were, in roughly ascending order of preference:

• Yelling at the TV
  
• Letters to the Editor of the local paper.
  
• The Fray
  
• Comment boxes of other blogs
  
• My personal blog
  

I have to confess I now prefer WtS to all of these outlets.

There's some issues right now, particularly Amendment 2 here is Missouri, that have piqued my interest, but I think that the outlet of WtS has been a large factor in my increased output.

In reflecting on why that is, I think it's because I know that what I post on WtS will find a respectful, intelligent audience. The only indicator of what kind of readership we get for Fray posts is a replies, but it's imperfect. Does a low reply count mean that my post was unassailable so nobody bothered to try, or so uninteresting nobody bothered to read the whole thing, let alone reply?

Since we are such a small group, we are not as anonymous, which to my mind is a good thing. The reason is that it makes it difficult for us to caricature each other into strawmen. If I post something against abortion, I don't have to deal with a bunch of, "So, what's "pro-life" about invalding Iraq? Huh? Huh? Huh? How many babies have you adopted? Huh? Huh?" responses. We know each other well enough that just because someone has a liberal or conservative position, or even leans liberal or conservative, that doesn't mean we've signed off on the entire agenda. I don't have to waste time saying that I was not a fan of the Iraw invasion. We tend to address the content of each other's posts, rather than the most extreme beliefs of the most extreme people who share the sentiments expressed in the post.

Maybe one day our hit counts will do a hockey stick climb; maybe they won't. But I'm enjoying myself here; it's good, respectful conversation.

That's worth something.