The value of informality

Ross Mayfield writes in his blog about the value of informality in writing for weblogs.  Weblogs may be a form of micropublishing, but they are not journalism.  Weblogs most frequently provide a navigation guide to a diverse set of content.  Authors acquire authority by providing good navigational advice to a community, pointing out the most important postings and sites.   At their best, weblogs can provide a forum for a thoughtful discourse about a subject and it is the richness of this unedited conversation that makes weblogs endlessly interesting.  I find weblogs most engaging when people are courageous enough to assert a position and provide a logical argument for that position.   I can follow the thread and see how the argument has developed.   I find the conversation in weblogs much more accessible then the disjointed conversations in newsgroups.  So, I am all for the informality, for thinking while writing, for the sequential presentation of ideas in weblogs.   It is the accretion of postings, the spontaneity, and the diversity of thinking that creates understanding.