In the heydays of the Linux User Groups, the communities served as more than Linux advocacy and assistance forums. Each LUG was also a travel advisory forum. It used to be such that when visiting a new city, you could look up the local LUG and ask if anyone was interested in meeting up, or if they could help you with accommodation, and usually be granted both. The LUGs were a great way to meet like-minded people in unfamiliar places.

The LUGs were of course just the latest in a long tradition of such mutual assistance communities, and as newer forms of getting together emerge online, it is inevitable that there will be newer attempts at helping get familiar.

Thus we have Metroblogging (Metblogs for short), an umbrella site that hosts a blog each for cities around the world. Metblogs is interesting because it makes the geographic region itself the focus, instead of having it incidental to another activity. LUGs, in contrast, formed around cities for no other reason than that cities facilitate easy gathering. Metblogs also limits posting access to those who were invited in (or in case of a new city blog, those who specifically applied and were vetted by an unidentified approver), and requires posters to maintain a minimum frequency of over three posts a week.

While these procedures undoubtedly are meant to ensure quality and vitality, they also suggest that Metblogs is not the organic outgrowth of another activity (presumably blogging), but one forced to fit a specific role. From a cursory examination of some metblogs and critical examination of one over a few weeks, and the resulting disappointment at the quality, it appears the role itself may not be well defined. Exactly what purpose does Metblogs hope to serve?

At this point, it is worth examining the structure of the operation and its visible shortcomings. This is not so much to criticise the operation as to suggest improvements.

The term “Metroblogging” embodies a brand, and the brand promises consistency in delivering on expectations. Metblogs is also an umbrella, granting authority to each team via the distinct cityname.metblogs.com domain and visual style, but not guaranteeing quality since posts are unedited, and denying authority to anyone else. The team’s composition is essentially by undefined criteria.

With small teams such as at BoingBoing, the individual personas collectively make the brand identity, but Metblogs is too large for that to work. When providing an umbrella and limiting access, Metblogs is also expected to define consistency via a style guide, just like any traditional print publication. Since there are no editors, compliance must be at the level of the individual poster and must be mandatory.

In the absence of a style guide, the result is akin to putting the team in a glass cage, where they make an exhibit of themselves along with their words. That it rained in your favourite city may be welcome news, but that your poster lost his umbrella in the process of arriving home to file the report is unwanted clutter. It may serve to strengthen the poster’s identity, but that identity is swamped by the overall bulk of Metblogs, and as such, is only accessible to dedicated readers, the kind who regularly visit the comments section.

Comments are critical to the blogging process, for they provide the feedback that dictates direction and builds the dialogue that puts the poster at ease talking to readers, but herein lies a trap. Because comments lie one level deep, they are hidden from the reader who browses only the front page or reads via a feed, or even to one who clicked through before the comments arrived. The poster, however, sees all. Should the poster choose to continue conversing via the next post, most readers now see only one side of the conversation. This creates the unintended effect of being talked at, instead of talked to.

This is why being informed that your poster lost his umbrella is irritating. It is of little consequence to the supposed topic at hand, the city itself. Such detail belongs in the poster’s personal journal, where readers gather more for who the poster is than for what is being said.

It may perhaps help if more readers tracked the commentary, but this is hindered by the fact that comments are hidden from top level view, that the technology and tools for feed syndication focus on posts, ignoring comments, that the user interface for comments stunts the commentator’s identity, and that there’s no intuitive way to engage in conversation in the comments instead of just responding to the post. A commentator with something significant to say would rather say it in place where their words will receive greater prominence, leaving the comment space for general murmur of agreement, thereby furthering the cult of the poster.

One workaround is to structure posts in a manner that encourages commentary. When a post rounds off its statement, there’s little space for anyone else to speak, but an open-ended post provides the necessary gap. Tacks such as “what do people think?” don’t work as well as infusing an element of self-doubt into the very post.

This form of reader engagement becomes critical when there is no editorial control. If a poster reiterates a popular but fallacious opinion, where is the space for dissent? If the dissenter is not also an authorised poster, the opinion is lost in the comments, where the poster may choose to not bring it to the top level for fear of embarrassment, personal disagreement, or otherwise, as a result of which, Metblogs itself appears to be propagating the fallacious opinion. Even if another poster chooses to refute it, the question remains, does Metblogs want to be a space for such debate, or was that an unnecessary distraction from the main course?

Such a cult of the poster is unfortunately antithetical to the promise of the umbrella Metblogs brand. The choices appear to be to (a) adopt a posting style that brings commentary to the fore, (b) ease access to top level posting, or (c) loosen the association between city teams so that their reputations are not hindered or undeservedly boosted by others. The latter may be achieved by allowing more than one blog per city, so that any given team is no longer automatically authoritative for that city but must work for their reputation.

Having multiple blogs will also help teams focus on particular audiences. The current target audience is ambiguous beyond the generic definition of anyone interested in a particular city. Is the target the long term resident, who may be interested in civic issues and on how the city is changing, or perhaps the recent immigrant, looking for unexplored avenues, or is it the short-term visitor, expecting to be informed of highlights and activities for a spare evening? Maybe there is another way to partition the demography?

The observed team appears uncertain too. Their current strategy is to post as often as possible about anything at all, perhaps in the expectation that there will be enough for everyone, but with the result being a flood of inanity with an occasional interesting post drifting by.

To summarise, the issues are that the current system of one blog per city grants undeserved authority to teams while preventing them from focusing on specific audiences, that the system of deciding who is allowed to post coupled with the interface for commentary brings more attention to the poster than is appropriate, while stymying discussion, and that the minimum frequency requirement introduces too much noise in the signal.

None of these are hard to solve, given willing site administration and city teams, on the assumption that this analysis is valid. Despite the teething troubles, Metroblogging is an interesting initiative; its growth is worth watching.

Update (Aug 23): Metroblogging’s publisher Bode Media responds. Comments on that later.

Posted by sean bonner at 2006-08-15 23:45

Hi Jace- Thanks for putting us under the microscope. A lot of these are issues we talk about a lot internally but it's useful to get an outside opinion as well. I'm going to pass this on to our authors to check out.

Posted by Urgewyrm at 2006-08-16 00:07

There was a nice entry on MetBlogs Minnesota that was giving everyone an outside opinion and allowing a dialogue to develope between the readers and the posters.

It was summarily deleted.

Good article, touched on a lot of good points that should be taken to heart by the current admins/authors.

Posted by Sean Bonner at 2006-08-16 00:36

Urgewyrm, Actually the post you are referring to wasn't "giving everyone an outside opinion and allowing a dialogue to develope between the readers and the posters" as you suggest, it was an author questioning our one editorial policy that posts be related to the city directly after other authors in Minnesota questioned some of the posts he had made recently. This was a topic that didn't relate to anyone other than the authors, and after discussing it with the other authors on MetBlogs Minnesota, the author pulled the post himself. Just wanted to make sure you had all the facts.

Posted by Nate at 2006-08-16 03:15

Truth be told, it was pulled from view before I decided to erase it. And yes, it was a post trying to get an outside opinion about what the readers wanted. It DID stem from a questioning on the editorial policy. I only deleted the post because i realized it sounded bitchy, which never my intent. And it wasn't other "authors" as you mentioned it, it was an AUTHOR. Almost everyone else backed me up. Just so you have all of the facts :)

Posted by Sean Bonner at 2006-08-16 05:40

Nate - No one should be deleting posts on blogs, I saw the discussion on the mailing list where *several* authors were pointing out that the post was basically airing dirty laundry that should have been brought up internally and then I saw that you deleted the post. You have my e-mail, if you are upsset or there is something going on you want to talk about that's a better way to talk to me about it.

Posted by Nate at 2006-08-16 19:56

We are talking about different things, Sean. And it doesn't matter anyways. It was a silly situation that got way out of control. Can we just move on?

Posted by Urgewyrm at 2006-08-16 03:24

I made it a point of emailing and speaking with many of the authors on MetBlogs regarding Nate's post ( and read up on how it went down on Nate's blog ) before making any sort of judgement. I feel fairly confident in having a good grasp of all the facts.

If you had read the comments that were being posted to that entry, it was becoming a dialogue between the readers and the authors before it was pulled from view and subsequently deleted. Regardless of how it was started ( and I disagree with Nate's thinking that it was a 'bitchy' or your assessment of it being off topic ), it was actually turning into a decent conversation.
That is, if you're willing to listen to your readers.

Posted by Sean Bonner at 2006-08-16 05:51

We listen to readers all the time, hundreds of e-mails from them in fact. That's why we have almost 50 cities and have been around for almost 3 years. Our readers have been an active part of that the entire time. Metblogs are about cities and our one rule that everyone knows it that posts have to relate to a city. That is what we do, and it's not up to the authors or readers of any city to change that. There are plenty of other blogs out there that do other things. If readers are looking for non-city specific content there is no shortage of blogs offering it but metblogs are all about writing about cities. I never said the post that Nate deleted was off topic, I said it wasn't something that should be up for discussion on the site. With over 700 contributors world wide, pointing to one post by one author, which was made after an internal dispute, is hardly a convincing arguement that we're turning a deaf ear to our readers. The fact that this post is full of comments by metrobloggers seems to say just the opposite.

Posted by Nate at 2006-08-16 19:59

I agree with you Sean. We DO get lots of response from emails. I am happy with the way Metblogs does there thing. And yes, Urgewyrm, it most certainly could have been seen as a bitchy post. I really appreciate you backing me up, man, but I think this subject should be put to rest. It was a big missunderstanding. I thought the rule was one way, it turned out it wasn't. I have moved on. Let's all do the same now.

Posted by Kiran Jonnalagadda at 2006-08-16 11:06

Sean, thanks for taking this well. I was somewhat worried it would be taken as offensive and spent a good few hours yesterday deciding whether to post or not. I'm glad you have a policy on posts being related to each city. Having spent a night mulling over it now, I can also see that having multiple blogs per city also has potential for causing more confusion than good, so that goes out of the list of quick fix solutions.

Since others have expressed doubts on what I mean with certain observations, I'll respond to them individually.

Posted by Inspirex at 2006-08-16 00:04

Hi jace...
great review...
I think the most critical part is the factor that the absence of a style guide creates a whole multidimensional area of writing for us bloggers to explore.

That, in effect might be a scary proposition, but ultimately leads to a whole new world of experimentation and critque.

Well done Jace.

All the best...
Inspirex - Karachi

Posted by Kiran Jonnalagadda at 2006-08-16 11:15

Inspirex, thanks.

If the absence of a global style guide means that individual teams have to develop their own, that can only be a good thing for that particular team's unique voice -- as long as they do indeed make one.

Posted by Tom Bridge at 2006-08-16 00:06

Hi Jace, thanks for writing about Metroblogging today. I do have one comment regarding the end of your essay where you said "the current system of one blog per city grants undeserved authority to teams while preventing them from focusing on specific audiences." I'm not sure that there is really an "authority" to begin with, I think we're writers and we write about the city we live in, any authority given to us is given by our readers and audience. There's no innate authority that we have to cover everything, or even cover any specific event. You get an interesting cross-section, and that's the value of the Metblogs setup.

Posted by Kiran Jonnalagadda at 2006-08-16 11:29

Tom, I've tried to explain this in a response to Ravages further down. To put it in another way though:

In a typical group blog, the initial readership gathers around the initial posters. The readers are here for what the posters write. It's a simple equation. When a new poster joins the group though, he didn't "earn" the readership. They were given to him, ie, the group bestowed its own authority with the readers on this new poster. How then must he behave so that his writing is consistent with what the readers expect, given that the readers are being forced to see his words? Or put another way, so that he's not abusing his privilege?

On a bigger scale, it becomes the same with Metblogs and a city's team. How does this team live up to what a typical reader will expect when they see the Metroblogging name? This expectation need only be a baseline -- anything beyond it is what the team built for itself, and such diversity between teams/cities is indeed good.

Posted by Tom Bridge at 2006-08-16 19:07

I'm not sure it's the wisest choice to lump Metroblogging in with other group blogs. I think there are a lot of differences surrounding Metblogs as opposed to, say, group political blogs. The aim of a group blog is more important the authors writing it as the aim will bring the traffic, not necessarily just the cult of personality surrounding the bloggers.

Yes, new authors come into a premade audience, but they come with their own voice, their own readership, their own individual knowledge. If someone is dedicated enough to post 3 times a week on my city blog, even though I know them not from Adam, they are welcome to tell their city story on our blog. Stories need to be about that city, beyond that, it's up to the community of authors.

Posted by cybele at 2006-08-16 00:09

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the comments not creating a dialogue... I'm a member of the los angeles metblog and subscribe to the feed that includes comments, as I know many readers do. I haven't subscribed to EVERY metblog with the comment feed, but as far as I know, they exist. I see a lot of spirited discussion in the comments area and do not find them buried as you seem to indicate (no moreso than this blog).

Are there examples of original posters ignoring comments that legitimately refute their post?

Did you read all of the metblogs or were there ones in particular you focused on?

As for the target audience, does there need to be anything more narrow than "the city" in question? It's zeitgeist.

Posted by Kiran Jonnalagadda at 2006-08-16 11:57

Cybele,

Thanks, but: subscribing to comment feeds is not an option for everyone. I, for one, can't handle the volumes, particularly when most feed readers behave like mail clients, where every item is marked "unread" until explicitly clicked on. Posts and comments form a T-junction kind of reading order, and frankly, I'm yet to see a feed reading user experience that makes it comfortable.

So, pending technology catching up, I think it's safe to assume that regardless of how spirited a discussion can get within any particular post, several readers will miss it entirely, with the only workaround being a human editor deciding what's top level and what's not.

I focused on one city and occasionally browsed several. I haven't seen all, particularly not LA, so my apologies if these observations do not apply there. They do, however, for most that I've seen.

I do think there can be focus at a lower level than the city though. A city generates enough news to fill a newspaper. Even if the city's metblogs team wants to cover only a part, it'll be across a wide range of categories that don't appeal to all readers.

As for posters ignoring comments, I haven't seen a case on Metblogs, but was speaking from general blogging experience. I was more interested in the conditions that cause such disagreement more than the outcome of it.

For example, if a poster says that a prominent social worker has moved on from his cause and this is sad because he was doing such significant work, there are two parts here. The first is a fact. The second is the poster's personal opinion. Should someone dispute that opinion pointing out that said social worker was more after the publicity than the cause, where does it happen? In the comments? Then it's entirely lost on someone who doesn't subscribe to the comment feed and either (a) looked at the comments before the dissenter spoke up, or (b) doesn't know enough about said social worker to be curious about whether the opinion has merit or not, and hence doesn't bother looking at the comments. To this reader now, the impression is that Metblogs endorsed said social worker's work. Second, does Metblogs even want to be hosting this debate? If a poster was going to conflate fact with personal opinion, shouldn't he at least provide further facts to justify his opinion? Or shouldn't he be clear this is his opinion, not that of Metblogs?

This is what I referred to when asking for a style guide -- it's more about the appropriate way to present information than about writing style.