In my previous entry, I made a throwaway reference to “blogging community standards.” I just want to make a clarification: I believe in no such thing.

First, “standards”. Some people believe that to “properly” blog, one must link copiously to other bloggers and provide permanent links to all your entries. For example, recently some blowhards decided to give Andrew Sullivan a hard time for violating these precepts. Sullivan had no time for such nonsense:

But can I say a word about the notion of a “blogging community” to which we allegedly owe obligations, deference and respect? Phooey. The reason I’m a blogger is because I’m a pesky individualist who simply wants to write what I think and have a great interaction with readers in real time. Every time I hear the word “community,” my bullshit detector goes off. And when I hear about “obligations to the community” blah blah blah, I wanna retch. I have nothing but respect for my fellow bloggers. I read them; I’ve encouraged others to blog; I link whenever I find something I find interesting; I believe in the genre; I’ve lost lucrative jobs for the medium. But please don’t start creating some sort of community of bloggers, and calling us on our dues. This is the Wild Web, buddy, not a condo association. Don’t tread on me.

Some blogs are totally link-happy, with just a few sentences of commentary. Some blogs are essay or journal-oriented, and have maybe one or two links at best. Some blogs, like this one, are somewhere in the middle. Is any one style better than any other? I think not.

Second, “community”. If there really is a “blogosphere” out there, its sole unifying characteristic is the compulsion to rip to shreds any article that dares criticize the blogging phenomenon even a little bit. Several months ago I was monitoring two groups of bloggers: a somewhat lefty group centered around Silicon Valley programmers such as Dave Winer, and a somewhat righty group, the “Warbloggers”, centered around people such as Glenn Reynolds. To my great amusement, neither group seemed to be aware of the other. In fact, at one point both groups were having simultaneous conversations on the question, “Where are all the [right-wing|left-wing] bloggers?” Each group even proposed its own theories on why their superior, cutting-edge ideology made them more hip to the whole blogging phenomenon.

Here’s the deal. At best, the “blogosphere” is fractured into thousands of subcommunities, because people don’t link randomly; they link to blogs that they like. There are political blogs, blogs about science fiction writing, blogs about the Macintosh, blogs that are entirely about personal sexual confessions (and God help you if you find yourself dating one of those people). All of these communities reinforce each other and tend to shunt away blogs that are not of interest. And you know what? That’s the way it should be. As for imposing your local community standards on everybody else… well, I believe there’s a Supreme Court case revolving around that very issue, but that’s another story.