Every Writer is a Publisher

I have woken up to the fact that the internet changes everything, and that the people who want the change to be for good are going to win. All it takes to make that a self-fulfilling prediction is to believe it, and participate.

For example, now every writer can be a publisher, by blogging. The writer is responsible for writing something that gets a discussion started, by expressing his or her views. The publisher decides what views get published. In other words, the blogger has the ability to delete the comments of the people whose ideas he doesn't like. But this is not censorship, because the only place he can delete other people's comments, is on his own blog. A man's blog is his castle. It makes a blog an effective tool for expressing your own point of view. You can't be hounded or brow-beaten out of it. Rarely will a good blogger ever WANT to delete a comment by another writer, unless it is abusive, vulgar, or ad hominem. Responding effectively to honest critics is one of the best things that can ever happen.

You get the credit you deserve for well-thought-out ideas (and bad ideas), if you blog them. There was a big problem with the newsgroups of the past, and in any unmoderated discussion. Those using abusive tactics can put a stop to any discussion, by forcing it into responses to the abusive tactics. Those willing to use the same tactics, can silence any particular point of view by vigilantly attacking whenever it starts to be discussed. Thus you had the Godwin's Law which states, "If an internet thread goes on long enough someone will eventually bring up Hitler."

Whether one person's blog is fair to anyone else in the universe can easily be up for question. But that it is fair to the one who publishes it, is certain. So, you get your voice. And whoever doesn't like it, doesn't have to read it. But it is out there, and hopefully can be found by the people who are going to like it.