don't print this post

Walt Crawford has raised the issue of blog printability again. It seems that he is irritated that no improvements have been made since the last time he raised this issue 18 months ago. I think that my position has also changed in the intervening time. Back then I felt slightly apologetic about the problem. Now I just feel defiant.

Here’s what I have to say about printability on this blog.

1. This blog is designed to be read on a screen. If a post looks bad or unreadable in a particular browser or news aggregator, I want to know about it and will try to remedy the problem when feasible. Although people may use the blog in other ways, I do not feel obliged to support these other uses from my end.
2. I never print my own blog and I would prefer that other people did not either. This is an online, not a printed publication, and for environmental reasons, I want it to stay that way. Although I would never forbid printing or actively place measures to make this blog difficult to print, I am not going to lose sleep about TypePad’s printing defect. I respectfully disagree with Walt Crawford's premise that words must be printed on paper to be fully appreciated.
3. This is a self-published blog which I write for my own purposes. Much of the time there seems to be an intersection between what I’m offering here and what readers might be looking for, but when there isn’t such an intersection, that’s ok because that’s not what this blog is about. If you’re a reader and you don’t like this attitude or me or my posts or anything else, it’s your right not to continue reading this blog. But nobody has the right to demand changes or feel entitled to lay down the mores or rules for other bloggers.

Comments

[walt crawford]

"Walt Crawford's premise that words must be printed on paper to be fully appreciated" does not exist. Walt Crawford's premise is that longer posts that deserve to be part of a larger discussion, returned to after a lag, can more easily become part of that discussion if it's easy to print them out to peruse at leisure. (I do believe that comprehension from the page is better than from the screen, but I could be wrong.)

"nobody has the right to demand changes or feel entitled to lay down the mores or rules for other bloggers." I'm not demanding changes. Who am I to demand changes? You're up front about not wanting your stuff printed. That's your choice.

Actually, lots of people feel entitled to "lay down the mores or rules for other bloggers," thus all the blogging ethics and rules for good blogging posts in various places. I try not to be one of them. I'm just saying that, if you write long posts that might be worth referencing in larger discussions down the line, you're working at a disadvantage by making it hard to print things out.

I won't print this post. Promise. I might copy-and-paste other posts, though: You have interesting things to say and say them well.

[Fiona]

I tend to agree with you, Morgan. If I write something that's more considered, that I would like to think people will return to, it's usually for a newsletter or my wiki (both of which are more easily printable).

As time goes on, I try to print less and less from the web, firstly because of the waste issue, but secondly because many times I print pages with a 'print friendly' assurance that doesn't turn out to be any better at printing a legible page.

[morgan]

Walt: I wondered if I might be inviting trouble by attempting to paraphrase your position, but you’ve set the record straight and that’s good.

It’s a concern to me when anybody sets down rules about how the blogosphere should operate. It is my view that the only legitimate rules in the blogosphere are self-chosen ones. I hope that most of the time when people express their preferences or write various Dos & Don’ts of Blogging and share opinions about best practices, that they are not really meaning to be setting rules/standards which everyone else is expected obey. But if it seems that people are trying to enforce their preferences, that’s when I get a little worried.

Fiona: Thanks, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks this way.