Our class has talked a lot about Wikipedia this past week. We also reviewed and discussed it's style guide. A huge take away I got from those discussions was how while it's important to have creative freedom it is also important to have consistency throughout your blog or website. Consistency applies to writing style, formatting, layout, and organization. I believe that one of the essential ingredients to having a successful blog is having consistency. Wikipedia is dangerous for me, I can seriously get lost on it all day and read article after article, it's crazy how much time I can easily spend on that site. One of the reasons why I believe this is so is because I know behind each link there is going to be another wealth of knowledge laid out almost as exactly as I expect it to be. At first this thought this seems obvious, of course you have to have consistency. But the question is, what rules or boundaries am I going to set in order to maintain consistency? I haven't thought deeply about that and I am now, more and more. My group had to discuss and figure out our "style guide" in class a few days ago. After everyone had contributed blogs just once, we immediately noticed that each person had a different understanding or perspective on what our blogs should look like. That discussion was really productive and it helped us iron out some of our kinks and get on the same page. I think in one way it's easier to define limits like that within a group than for yourself. It's hard to set limits on yourself but in reality it's necessary. Also, when you make your own rules it's easier to break them because you aren't accountable to anyone. This is something I'm definitely going be deeply considering from now on when I write blog entries.
