Is a bad post of a good blog considered a good post?

Thursday
25th October 2007
Is a bad post of a good blog considered a good post?

For the general public who reads my blog occasionally, I apologise for the senseless rambling and swearing that I have been posting up ever so regularly. Life really gets to me sometimes. But there are the other times where I decide to hang back a little and do a bit of random thinking. Here's something that has been sticking around the insides of my head for a bit.

Is a bad post of a good blogger considered a good post? And vice versa, is a good post of a bad blogger considered a bad post?

Well, most of the time, people classify the people they know into good and bad. We have been taught to do things this way since young. Similarly, things that we come into contact with are also split into black or white, tall or short, fat or thin, good or bad, nice or awful, beneficial or harmful.

One day, you stumble upon a blog that is owned by a blogger who uses powerful english, writes with a distinct personal style and writes about interesting content. Instinctively, you give him a big G. (G for GOOD.) And you decide to stick his blog in your favourites tab. Each week you check back his blog and reads about interesting stuff such as politics, ironic comments, life philosophies, dumb relationships, short stories, etc. But one fateful day, you click on his link, and you find this latest post a load of crap. His grammar is all wrong, his sentence structures are worse than a 4-year-old kid (3-years-old is too common already), and worst of all, even a technical paper on how the propulsion system of a V2-Rocket works is more interesting than the content of his post.

You spend 27 minutes reading through this piece of junk which comprises of 576 randomly placed words and wonder why do you even bother reading his blog. Then you notice his link in your favourites tab. And you remind yourself that this person is a good writer with interesting comments. And so you battle with yourself whether this is considered a good post, or is it just a jumble of crap.

Interestingly, while you were trying to grade his latest post, you read an acquaintance's blog who is reknowned for being totally mundane and crappy. You notice that his latest post is one that catches your attention immediately and keeps you attached to the screen for 13 minutes. In this 13 minutes, you are ready to slap another G-grade on this post. But you suddenly remember that this post belongs to a B-grade blog (B for BAD). And so you question yourself whether this is considered a good post, or is it just a lucky break for a B-grade writer.


What is it that makes you decide whether a post is G-grade or B-grade? Is it the place where it is posted at? Or is it the individual post that counts? Can a writer who has been plaguing his blog with junk suddenly come up with a wonderful post? Is it possible that someone who has been a straight A's student suddenly produce a post that manages to bore 99.52% of his audience half to tears?


Hmm. And after all these, I wonder if this post is a bad post of a good blog or a good post of a bad blog. (Btw most of this post is written in a second person narrative style.)

"Why is it always Black or White, and not Black and White?"
-Han Yong