Are bloggers just "bores in bars"?

A rather odd row is taking place involving, among others, Oliver Kamm, Harry's Place, Iain Dale and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown concerning blogging.

On Sunday, Mr Dale and Ms Alibhai-Brown engaged in a television debate in which he said that blogging enhances democracy and she compared bloggers to "bores in bars". Extraordinarily, Oliver Kamm appears to side with her.

I, emphatically, don't.

I believe in the wisdom of Oliver Kamm. But even more, I believe in the wisdom of crowds. The best way to get at the truth is for a large number of independent voices to be heard with truth emerging out of their free exchange.

But we haven't had this in Britain. Instead we've had, in fact still have, a small tight media and a rigid party system. Everyone rushes to agree a line to take and then reinforce each others errors.

Blogging provides an opportunity to break this up and it has begun to do precisely this.

Are a lot of bloggers simply "bores in bars"? Yes. But:

1. Most of the time these people have more useful things to say than Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

2. If a blogger is boring no one reads them so it doesn't matter anyway.

3. The wisdom of crowds depends on allowing people to contribute their idea to the debate even when their contributions are fatuous.

I am astonished when people argue that blogging doesn't aid the debate, and advance in support of their proposition the fact that many blogs aren't very good. This is, naturally, entirely irrelevant.

Comments

[nick humfrey]

I agree with Daniel hugely about the wisdom of crowds however I'm not entirely convinced blogs truely provide the crowds that James Surowiecki refer to. Political blogs are by political geeks and read and commented on by political geeks (like me). The blogging world is not a sufficiently wide pool to have the effect that Surowiecki calls for. Most blogs that have any exposure are from people within the political class anyway. It's better than the only debate being in the broadsheets and in Westminister but it's not a lot better.
More significantly blogs can potentially have the opposite effect because people end up reading blogs by people they agree with and end up suffering from the groupthink that Surowiecki warns against.
I've got nothing against blogs, in fact I enjoy reading them immensely, but I think bloggers have a tendency to overemphasise their significance to the debate.

[Alex R]

Top 5/10 blogs in Britain will have a much greater readership that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown does.

[dizzy]

I am quite proud of being boring.

[Juvenal]

The best bloggers show that you don't need to be a newspaper columnist to come up with thoughtful and intelligent reflections on events and politics. Yasmin and others are simply trying to protect their position by rubbishing the (free and often better) competition.

[Tim Worstall]

I've always assumed that blogs are indeed exactly like people chatting in pubs. Just divorced from the geographic constraints (although perhaps not from the alcohol inspired stupidities).
There are indeed bores out there although little quite as yawn inducing as a Yazzmonster column.
However, from that cacophony does come the occasional interesting shout from the corner bar stool. I seem to recall that one Times columnist hared off after the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, that leading to a significant dilution of the original proposal, after his blog reading had alerted him to the existence of the proposal.

[Chris Lake]

I'm afraid I don't fully buy into this wisdom of crowds thing. Most of the time it seems to be more a case of dumbing down and sheep mentality. If not outright bullying, in some cases.

The UK jury system is one example of how 'crowds' can get things wrong. Give me experts any day of the week for that sort of thing.

Online, it is easy to see that crowds do not equal 'wisdom', certainly not on user driven sites like Digg.com. Pitched battles erupt all the time. People can be ludicrous. But hey, that's what it is like in the real world too... right? The internet is just a mirror, after all.

Despite this lack of belief in crowds and their infinite wisdom, I'd sooner take a healthy pinch of salt and 'trust' 100 reviews on TripAdvisor (even if 10 are fakes) than a handful of travel agents 'with my interests at heart'. Sometimes experts aren't really what you need, and anybody on performance-related pay isn't to be trusted either.

So who can we trust? Bloggers? Well, bloggers are just people. Who happen to write about 'stuff'. Some of them are wankers, others racists, and some are very insightful. But they're just people. Who might or might not bore you half to death in the pub.

Should we trust journalists? Politicians? Authors? Experts? Neighbours? This trust thing is getting out of hand. Trust nobody dammit! Trust in your common sense to figure out the saints from the sharks...

[Barry Bethel]

Most of the time these people have more useful things to say than Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

Ouch!