Do you remember the first time you commented on a blog? What made you do it? Most likely, your first comment was accompanied by a strong emotion. Maybe you were furious. Maybe you were touched. Maybe you were thankful. Maybe you were relieved. Maybe you were ecstatic. The reason most people’s first comments are accompanied by emotion is because it takes strong feelings to move you from being a passive reader to an active participant. It wasn’t the first time you had these feelings, but it might be the first time it was so simple to respond and be heard.

Most people believe their opinions are worth hearing, but unfortunately there aren’t many places where they are listened to. Yelling at your TV set, talking to your radio, and calling your newspapers names is obviously pointless because nobody is listening. Participation in the blogosphere is monumentally different from previous models for transmitting information. When you read a book or watch television, the information is only going in one direction. It’s the difference between a dialogue and a monologue. When information starts passing back and forth, the average person gains power and so does the community. When a reader finds the courage to make their voice heard, whether in a blog of their own or by leaving a comment, this event is extremely empowering. A community forms and people realize that they aren’t alone. That may seem trivial, but don’t take it for granted. Eventually, what was once the voiceless masses transforms into a mobilized population.

While blogs are wonderful for the individual, they can be a threat to people and institutions that have profited from a model where the public is relatively silent. The people who want to ignore the cultural impact of blogs are the people who have the most to lose from its rise in power. Whether you recognize it or not, opposition to blogging is growing. One of the first places blog opponents try to strike is to claim that blogs lack the credibility of an established institution. Of course a blog will never have credibility in the same way that network television does, but that doesn’t mean that blogs aren’t credible. Actually, the whole framework of credibility has really changed because of blogs. Look at CBS. Until they were exposed by bloggers, CBS would be considered one of the most credible institutions that existed. The credibility of a blog comes from the combined weight of a networked community. When something is explored by blogs, the result is credible because the result is achieved by the collaboration of minds with varying motives.

The credibility of blogs is attacked for one reason: Credibility equals power. The power of blogs is increasing, and it is starting to make a big impact in modern society. The impact is felt by corporations that can no longer mislead their customers for fear of being exposed. The impact is seen when bloggers expose corrupt news organizations trying to influence elections. It is felt by consumers who actually expect customer service people to listen to them. Blogs are a threat to corporations that don’t want to have a relationship with their customers. It is a threat to a celebrity that doesn’t want to be seen as a human. It is a threat to churches whose congregation expects something in return for their time and money. It is a threat to a writer whose income is tied to the monologue of traditional publishing. As the internet continues to shape modern culture we will see fundamental changes in some of the most influential areas of modern life: publishing, news, advertising, politics, religion, and entertainment.

Don’t fall for the line of thinking that says making your voice heard is arrogant, self-serving, or trivial. Just because you aren’t a celebrity doesn’t mean that you don’t have the right to voice your thoughts. Additionally, don’t participate expecting to be rewarded with fame, friends, or fortune. That’s not the way a community works.

Several years ago I was filling out a question on an employment profile for a job I was applying for. There was one question that stands out in my memory. It asked to complete this statement:

“The last time I changed one of my basic beliefs was…”

People who know me, know that I have a tendency to be extremely stubborn when it comes to convincing me to change my mind about anything let alone one of my basic beliefs. I have always considered this to be a strength of my personality, so to complete the sentence I wrote,

“The last time I changed one of my basic beliefs was when I knew that I was going to be a father. I made a conscious decision to take a firm stand on beliefs that I would otherwise have been passive or timid about. I want my son to see his father as a man with a strong set of beliefs.”

Looking back at my answer now, it seems kind of funny that I said that the last time one of my beliefs changed was when my beliefs became stronger. It is kind of like the trick interview question where they ask you to name one of your weaknesses. You always feel like you are dodging the question when you answer, “I am too much of a perfectionist.” The truth is our weaknesses are all too real, and our beliefs aren’t as firm as we like to tell ourselves.

The reason I have been thinking about this lately has to do with blogging. The audience for my other two blogs has really exploded and that comes with the exhausting side effect of having to be willing to backup everything you say. I say “exhausting” because knowing there will be opposition to your statement makes you think twice before you publish something. You have to ask yourself if it is worth the effort? I think that is part of the reason there are so many blogs that would rather just give you a link rather than commit to making a personal statement about it. That is where conviction comes in.

It really doesn’t matter what you say, somebody will disagree with you. This came as a surprise to me, because I came into blogging with the naive belief that a well written essay could change the minds of people who would disagree. Sadly, this is rarely the case. I think most people are as unwilling to change a basic belief as I am. People rarely change and that can be seen in most blog comments. Usually only one of two things happen. Either an argument arises that can’t be settled, or a compromise is made and both people half-heartedly accept a watered down middle ground. It might seem like the second scenario is preferred, but I would argue that this is the more dangerous scenario because it involves someone changing a basic belief. That person’s belief is now closer to what they recently strongly opposed. “Peacemaker” commenters see that as a victory, but the reality is that they have helped to create a place where there isn’t anything left to believe in. To be honest, I find the “peacemaker” commenters more annoying than the person I am disagreeing with. I can respect a person who believes strongly enough to disagree with me. The people that want to find a middle ground where everyone can “just get along” are unwittingly creating an atmosphere of complacency, antipathy, relativity, and mediocrity. In other words, a place where the only people who aren’t welcome are the people with conviction. That is extremely dangerous especially when you consider that one of the common traits of great people in history is conviction. Jesus, Marin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, the list is endless.

So here is my request of the blogosphere:
If you disagree with me, don’t be afraid to say so. Let’s be respectful, but don’t think less of me when you don’t change my mind. If you are the “peacemaker” type, be considerate of the conviction of the people on both sides of the argument. Don’t be afraid to pick a side in a disagreement and stand behind your decision. Blog with conviction and never compromise your beliefs!

If you have a blog, you probably require that commenters enter their email address before they can leave a comment. This is obviously a good way to control comment spam, but it also a good way to gather email addresses and create a database of email addresses from your blog readers. If you use Movable Type, there isn’t a built-in way to gather all the email addresses of your commenters, but it is possible. All you have to do is create new template. Go to the template section in your Movable Type interface and click on “Create New Index Template.” Give your new template a name like “email-Addresses” and name the output file something like “blogemailaddresses.html.” Uncheck the box that says “Rebuild this template automatically when rebuilding index templates.” Since you will only be using this template periodically to gather email addresses, it is better to rebuild this template manually so you aren’t putting unnecessary stress on your server. Next paste the following code in the “Template Body.”

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body>
<table width="750" border="0" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
<MTEntries lastn="300"> <MTComments>
<tr>
<td width="250"><MTCommentDate format="%B %e, %Y"$></td>
<td width="250"><MTCommentAuthor default="Anonymous"></td>
<td width="250"><$MTCommentEmail$></td>
</tr>
</MTComments> </MTEntries>
</table>

</body>
</html>

Next click “save” and then rebuild the template. Type the address of the file you created in your browser, and you will see a page with a table containing email addresses of everyone who has commented on your site! You can save this page and open it in Excel, or Word, or whatever program you use. To change the template to gather email addresses from more or less entries, change “300″ in <MTEntries lastn="300"> to a larger or smaller number.

Now you are ready to send a mass email with your new database of email addresses. It is probably a good idea to delete the page when you are finished just in case it gets found by a search engine or spammer. When you send out mass emails be polite, and be sure go give them a chance “opt-out” so that your email isn’t perceived as spam. Also make sure you BCC (blind carbon copy) your email recipients to further protect your list. If you do use this template to gather email addresses, protect your reader’s email addresses at all costs. Remember that your reputation with your readers is on the line!