Tech Tuesday: some people say

This week's Tech Tuesday question is less of technical help and more of how we use technology, specifically, about blogging. Should bloggers at a team blog add a signature at the bottom of their post?

It seems to me that the verdict is "split" on whether or not to have a signature within a blog post, particular for a team blog like this one. Very popular blogs like BoingBoing, Engadget, TechCrunch are also team blogs (with blog posts written by a team of contributors), but they do not add a signature to each post. Now, if a email-subscribed reader wants to know who wrote a post, they can go to the blog and see it in the byline.

This question surfaced from a conversation I recently had with someone, who says that "people want to know who is saying what." How can some people read Wikipedia entries, blog posts, movie & book reviews, without knowing who wrote it and whose opinion is being presented? That person remarked that "Wikipedia is worthless" because we don't really know who wrote those entries.

I know for me, I can read stuff like this without knowing who said it, because I think the content speaks for itself. When some part of the content is obviously opinion, I can filter that out, even without knowing who the author is.

So here's the question, do you read information from the Web (or newspapers) without paying attention to who the author(s) is/are? Why or why not?

-- DJ Chuang, Director of Digital Initiatives & more, Leadership Network

p.s. We have a blog, you've got questions. To get your question featured on Tech Tuesday, please email me. (And, the title of this post is an allusion to a progressive documentary, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, in which the narrator noticed the unsourced opinions being introduced by that phrase)

Comments

[Cynthia]

"Wikipedia is worthless" because we don't really know who wrote it's entries doesn't make all that much sense to me.

Obviously, the wisdom of crowds has it's vulnerabilities, namely, bias, error, spin, etc. But Wikipedia is not used as the gospel on any topic. It's simply a starting point often containing a sweep of related links for further investigation and research. And it's greatest asset may be it's update-ability. (You won't find the word twitter in the dictionary - at least not with the meaning we attribute to it these days.)

We read encyclopedias, maps, dictionaries, newsletters, etc. without knowing who wrote their entries. All we know is that a team of editors went through the material.

Sometimes the author (ie TechCrunch's Michael Arrington) makes a huge difference due to their expertise and so their opinion weighs in heavily. When I read TC's posts they're always signed. Other times, though, truth rings true from the most unlikely sources of profundity (ie - children) and "who said it" is almost irrelevant.

[Aaron]

I'm of the current mindset that when I want something digitally, I want it not just in every form I'll use it, but as many forms as possible. I may not use a digg link button... but I like knowing that the site is savvy enough to at least provide it. (Though the options Kyte.tv includes for posting videos is a little overwhelming...)

On the same idea, I like the actual data to be constructed in as many ways as possible. For example, at LifeWay we're working through some changes in how we do digital downloads. We're making some higher quality ones available, with an expanded license so that the download can be show to a group. So I'm tasked with answering the question: how do we inform the user of what version this is?

So... what we've chosen to do is actually list it in three places: the title of the product, the description of the product, and in the actual metadata of the file (we're in discussions about whether or not to put a notification in the actual video, as well). Basically, we chose to put it everywhere.

If you go to an expert's blog or a personal blog, you know who is writing the post. If you go to a news blog (like Engadget), it's not as important to see who is reporting the news, just that it's there. On a blog like this, however, where each of the authors have their own expertise and their own sites outside of the blog, I think signatures are important. If you like, or dislike, what the author said, you should be able to go back to their "home" blog and see the perspective better.

So yes, I'm all for signatures in the posts.