I think we all agree that there’s really now ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to write a discussion post, so what’s up with that title? It has more to do with what we identify as a discussion.
Have we started calling everything not reviews or memes a discussion post?
Personally, I have *raises hand*. As you may know, the gals at It Starts at Midnight and Feed your Fiction Addiction have this amazing discussion challenge going on, and in this last year and some more it’s been how I’ve discovered new blogs and taken part in some really cool discussions, but I’ve noticed that some of the posts I’ve listed, maybe shouldn’t be there. And recently, I’ve witheld from linking up some things because if I thought enough about it, I realized they weren’t discussions at all.
Umm… and who cares?
Well, it’s not a sin or anything. It’s just that realizing this has actually made me think harder about coming up with a discussion post that looks more like a discussion. And maybe that’s a good thing. For me it’s just about not being so lazy and not link up just for the sake of linking up. True, that means less of my posts getting featured, but I’ll still do it.
Some posts of mine that I’ve labeled discussions but maybe aren’t:
- 3 Things I’d Like to Write About Some Day
- Life with a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
- 3 Things You Can Do to Feel More Productive
All these are some posts I’ve loved writing, the force is strong with those ones, but still, they aren’t exactly discussions.
I’m just gonna leave this post about writing discussion posts by the amazing Ashley, because at the end of the day, you can probably post your grocery list and call it a discussion, because if it makes you happy, then chances are you’re going to rock the shit out of that.
Me, since I’m too lazy to sort out which of my posts are more suitable to be called discussions, I rearranged my menu and instead of just going with discussions, I divided my not memes or reviews posts into a bit more specific categories.
So, do you label as a discussion everything not reviews or memes? I’d love to know your opinion and just your overall thoughts on discussions 🙂
Read this post made me go back and look at some of the tags on my own blog. I love the It Starts at Midnight discussion challenge; even though I don’t link up, it’s helped me to discover new blogs, and I like what it’s doing for our book blogger community. However, I noticed that earlier in the year, I used “discussion” as kind of a catch all tag for blog posts that wasn’t a review. I don’t think ever did it to try to entice people to read a discussion post (because we all love a good discussion post). I think I just got lazy when it came to organization. I kind of feel compelled to go through my blog and create better tags and categories…
That was my reaction tol when I realized it! It isn’t so much as being sneaky as just being kinda lazy ‘:) It made me go back a fix a few things as well!
Oh no, now I want to go erase the link I JUST put up.
Because I totally get what you are saying. And I really thought about the post I linked up, because it was mostly me just talking about something I’m excited about. However, I DO want to know other people’s experiences and ideas as well, so I did end the post with some questions to elicit that.
Maybe the proof of the pudding is in this–do your discussion links actually get comments? Because if nobody has anything to say about it, maybe it’s not much of a discussion. I also notice that a lot of times, it’s not so much a discussion that gets going, as a chain of people responding to the original post, often with the exact same points. It can be a bit awkward to read a great post, have an immediate response, scroll through the comments, and have to settle on, “Yep, me too, what they all said.” as your comment.
Ironically (maybe–I’m always nervous about using that term), this post is a GREAT discussion topic! Maybe because there is more than one way reasonable people could answer it, which is the standard I hold my middle schoolers to for persuasive writing. (Once I was teaching 10th grade writing, and was sick so my filter was down, and I told a group, “You can’t have ‘Child abuse is bad’ as your argument, because only an asshole would disagree with that.”) So, “Books are awesome!” isn’t much of a discussion post, but “This trope needs to staaaaahp” is.
I haven’t really thought about this, but I definitely see what you mean. With some things, like tags or “Best Books of 2015” kind of posts, I leave as just that. I think that as long as a discussion is thought-provoking or free for opinions, then it’s a discussion. There’s a pretty fine line, I’ll admit, but I think we do a pretty good job on walking on it.
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I’ve actually been thinking about this because I’ve seen a few dubious discussions. For me, the label depends on the goal of the post. If I’m trying to encourage people to think about a topic and share their opinions, then I call it a discussion. If I’m just sharing tips, information, or recommendations, then I don’t call it a discussion. In a discussion, there has to be something to discuss.
Aj @ Read All The Things! recently posted this awesome thing…Discussion: Has Reading Helped Shape Your Worldview?
I let the definition of “discussion” for the challenge stay pretty loose because I’d rather encourage more conversations than have people second-guessing themselves on whether or not their post “fits.” But I have to confess that there have been a few posts that I’ve thought, “Um, okay, I guess that could be a discussion.” I definitely wouldn’t worry about posting things that could be construed as blogging tips in the challenge, though. All of the topics you mentioned seem fine to me, since we sometimes like to talk about the tools we use and the way we use them.
In the end I’d say I’m of the opinion that there isn’t much you can do that’s “wrong” – as long as the post has to do with books or blogging, I’m okay . (There have been a couple of posts up that had nothing to do with either – if that started happening more I’d have to step in, I think. But so far, those have been few and far between.)
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Lol, alright, because I had a mini freak out when I started checking each of my posts for discussion-ess, but Amanda and you’re right. There are no rules because mostly anything can be turned into a discussion, and like I said to her, maybe it’s up to the people who comment 🙂
I’m with Nicole on this one! It doesn’t take much for me to start second-guessing myself 🙂
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I feel quite the same if I’m honest. I think there’s a big difference between a discussions, something that actively encourages people to discuss their feelings, their experiences and their thoughts on the subject, and other types of posts, like tutorials, or insights into things, or lists and advice, they’re all very different things, but there’s a fine line, and sometimes an insight can become a discussion.
If somebody said to you ‘why do you like *insert blogging resource here*?’ you’d go into detail on the features you like, why it’s awesome and /discuss/ with them the details, so I do feel the same as you that some discussions are not quite all discussions, but they can easily be perceived as being in the end 🙂
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That’s right, because really, like we all know, there’re no rules, and sometimes it all depends on how much the people have to say about it. Even if they’re talking about the weather, if a lot of people have opinions, it is a discussion.
Hm, this is a really good question. I don’t think I use the discussion label too freely, I actually have quite a lot of discussions on my blog (at least proportionally, I don’t usually post more than twice a week). I aim to have one review post and then one “other” post each week for variety, and these “other” posts are either discussions, monthly recaps, movie talk or posts about recent trips. I only label “discussions” as such. But I agree, a lot of the posts that appear in the Discussion Challenge linkup aren’t discussions in the strictest sense. I usually skip commenting on those, I have to admit. :/
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I usually don’t comment on those because it’s really hard to! Though if I do find something that inspires some thoughts in that blog, I’ll go that post and then comment.
Pretty much I only sort my posts into “meme” and “not meme,” but I’m not a book blogger. Though I (just started) usually try to include questions at the end of my posts…
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Including questions is a VERY good idea. I didn’t use to do it, and I don’t know how much it helps me, but I do know that sometimes with other people’s blogs it’s a ton easier to respond if there’s some kind of prompt 🙂
I think I’m pretty good about what I label as a discussion. I try to stick to posts in which I’m actually asking a question, going through my thoughts, then asking people for their input, but I suppose there’s no strict definition. I feel like the posts you mentioned that you aren’t sure about actually sound acceptable. But I have seen some posts in the link-up that aren’t even remotely discussions. So I completely get what you’re saying about calling everything that’s not a review or a meme a discussion. But discussion posts are great! So I guess I’d rather everyone just broadly define them and call their posts whatever they want rather than fret over it and not post less of them 🙂
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