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Pink and Blue, Blog Me, Blog You…

Manda wrote a fantastic post the other day about the perceived MT clique, but it was during my busy weekend and I forgot about it when I wrote the post last night. Is that it? Do non-MT users just see MT users as a clique?

Shelley wrote about the male/female ratio idea also, and she makes some really good points. She also gets a cookie for having TrackBack enabled and for pinging me.

So – what’s the boy to girl ratio of MT users out there? N/A/S/L … and Blog software? It’s the personal ads for the new era! Christine, female, Houston, MT…

By Christine

Christine is an Avenger of Sexiness. Her Superpower is helping Hot Mamas grow their Confidence by rediscovering their Beauty. She lives in the Heights in Houston, Texas, works as a boudoir photographer, and writes about running a Business of Awesome. In her spare time, she loves to knit, especially when she travels. She & her husband Mike have a food blog at Spoon & Knife.

19 replies on “Pink and Blue, Blog Me, Blog You…”

What I’ve noticed for serious bloggers is a progression in software. A lot of people start out on LiveJournal and Blogger then move up to MT when they want more power or are tired of not being able to post because the service’s servers are down. Which basically is all the damn time in the case of Live Journal and more frequently the case on blogger. I’m a 31 year old male living in Chicago using MT and Blogger Pro. I use MT for all my personal sites but use Blogger pro for my business sites that require the headlines to be included into a larger set of pages because it’s easier to customize for that and I’m not going to bust a vein if the service is down for a while. As far as the personals of the blog world I still have plans for BlogMatch.com so look out for that one 🙂

Ignoring the shred of dignity bit. Na,na,nana, didn’t hear it. Not going to comment.

Turned on trackback to ping you, though you knew about my post as soon as I wrote it so I don’t really understand the whole “Christine just picked up on Ciscley’s post” bit that Shelley was writing about.

I don’t like that clique is used for MT fans because clique means a group that is exclusive and to some degree full of their own superiority. The MT support forums and add-on sites like ScriptyGoddess are some of the *most* helpful, *most* inclusive blog resources out there.

I also don’t like the euphemismistic “cult” title since I think it suggest an equal amount of brainless following as the “herd” wrapped up in a moderately cooler package. (Hey, I’m in a cult! I’m so cool! What, you want me to drink the Kool-aid? Ok, sure!)

I should probably stay out of this whole debate, but I feel I must add something 🙂

I find this whole “herd” and “cult” talk to be very insulting to our users. If you take a look at the donor list, you’ll see some of the most innovative uses for weblogs and light content management. I’m not going to say that a positive word of mouth doesn’t help get us more users — and some may see this as “cult-like” behavior. But, at the same time, people are choosing to use MT because they see that their friends *like using* the software.

MT isn’t a god or a religion — it’s a piece of software. People use it because it works for them. Believe me, if it wasn’t good software, you couldn’t brainwash people into using it.

And regarding MT users being snobbish? Well, we’ve seen examples of people not even wanting to take a look at MT because too many people are using it.

I’m just saying.

It’s been interesting reading all the comments across posts this morning. I’m amazed that weblogging tools can generate so much discussion — negative and positive.

I agree with you 100%, Mena. I threw a HUGE fit the day I was told that some people won’t use MT because “they don’t want to follow a herd”. I said that a herd implies “dumb” or “stupid” and just following because they can – when that isn’t the case with MT at all. You can use it for a basic blog, or you can tweak it out all you want. I responded just like you did – “Look at the donor list! Look at the spotlight blogs!” In order to use MT you need hosting and you need to dedicate yourself to it financially (hosting, and either skills to install it or pay someone to do it.)

Now I sit in meetings with clients, listening to what they want their site to do and I can’t help but laugh and think “Wow! You can do all of that with MT!” (Too bad I work for a Cold Fusion shop and they would freak if I ever suggested it out loud.)

People that use MT are not a herd, a cult, a clique, or anything else. I still don’t get why people can get so hot about it. However, I should note that the one person that started the discussion with me is now in the process of moving to MT…

Okay, let me try and throw some water on this one as well.

First off, when Christine says “a HUGE fit”, she’s not kidding at all. I stepped in it big time with that one.

Secondly, I don’t think that the point I intended to make has come across cleanly. So, let me try and clarify.

First off, my own position. I’ve been running MT since 2.11 on two machines to get a feel for it. I am impressed at what it is capable of, and had very little trouble with it. (It helps that I work with web applications for a living.) However, what I want to do on coffeecorner.org is fairly basic, and is well-served by pretty much any content management tool.

Secondly, about the “herd” comment. I never said, nor meant to imply, that ALL users of MT were part of a herd. And I certainly did not mean for that to imply a level of stupidity in any way, shape, or form. What I have seen is people switch for no good reason. You want to move because a remote service like Blogger or LJ is failing you? Fine. That’s great. You want to move because, out of the box, MT offers more functionality? Fine. That’s great. You want to move “well, because somebody told me I should”? Bull. Think for yourself.

The entire issue for me started when three friends, in a short span of time, became very perplexed (I took it as an attack, and possibly overreacted) that I was capable of running my own servers and still using Blogger (Pro). THAT is what I took great issue with. Why is using Blogger, or Blogger Pro, not perfectly valid in itself? If I came across as defensive, I was, because nobody has been able to back up that stance.

Yes, MT users are some of the most innovative out there, and the community that exists has impressed me. However, there are also very capable Blogger (or Blogger Pro) users out there who are brilliant writers or have done technically adept things with their blog. I’m not detracting from the MT user base, and for all I know the concentration of skilled authors out there is higher with MT, but I don’t agree with the converse of the argument – that users of other software are not innovative.

Finally, there is snobbishness, herd mentality, great writing, and great technical skill to be found in all camps. I never meant to imply that all MT or Blogger (or LJ or GM or pMachine or b2 or…) users fall into one of those categories.

It has been interesting to watch. I never expected the discussions to be this polar. And, as Christine pointed out, I’ll be on MT by the end of the week. That’s mainly driven by 1) need for functioning comments and 2) her input and help. We’ll see what happens from there.

(The “dignity” thing above referred to me having taken a very pro-Blogger stance and now switching to MT. Take it as humor. Hiya, Cis!)

You tell em, Mena.You tell em, Christine. Now, ‘scuse me, I have some cud to chew…

Seriously, though, I’m in the process of moving _all_ of my web sites to Movable Type, using it as a content management tool not as a weblogging tool.

I’ve had web sites since 1995 and this is the first time I’ve wanted to use a tool to work with them. I’m doing so not because MT is ‘cool’, or everyone else is using it — I’ve seen cool come and go way too much — but because it’s the first tool I’ve found that has a good mix of freedom of extensibility and ease of maintenance with the templates.

Having said that, I will still have to say that MT isn’t trivial to install the first time if you’re not a Perl/CGI person. However, there are plenty of folks willing to help, so that makes up for that one initial challenge.

long live pMachine, long live pMachine! 🙂

(i know you love me Christine!)

i might have no right to generalize here, but i’m going to say it anyway… all you MT users LOVELOVELOVE MT thru and thru. talk about pure devotion!

You’re right Kathy – we generally do (except the people that can’t figure it out and toss it before they learn to love it.) We love it for the same reason that all pMachine users love pMachine – it’s flexible. I said before that I want to play with pMachine some day – but I don’t have time, and why fix it if it’s not broke? MT does everything I need and want, and the number of people out there to help me when I can’t do something with it is great – and increasing by at least 1 this week!

i have a few people i can turn to for pMachine as well… but honestly, i’m a chicken and use the software out of the box. i’m not much of a hacker or a coder-geek so i don’t venture out much. but i know who to turn to for help. and MT obviously has such a great support system (as exhibited from all these articulate posts and by how passionate everyone is).

and you’re absolutely correct… why fix it if it ain’t broke? that’s something i face every single day when my clients call me and ask me why is it when they do this it this way it doesn’t work when it always worked the other way? well, duh!

I’m a dedicated MT user, but I have been swayed by pMachine… I’ll be the broken record here and say “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Although I think pMachine looks great, I am really happy with MT and don’t want to switch. Maybe I’ll start another separate blog of sorts with pM to try it out. (Courtney, female, San Francisco, MT)

Hahaha … you forgot to mention your age. 😉 But that’s okay – we all know you’re 29. 😀

First, I guess I’ll go through the rigamarole: Ste/22/Male/Richmond,VA/MT

Second, I’d be more interested in knowing the male/female ratio of blogging in general. It seems to me like a great deal more women blog than men, but maybe that’s because most of the blogs I prefer reading are from the feminine perspective. As to why MT is clique-ish, I submit the following: MT allows you to “remember” info for comments, many other tools don’t or didn’t until MT came along; it allows for much greater levels of customization; the user must install it remotely, it is not a hosted service; and there are other reasons, but I’m just too tired to think of them and enumerate them. 😉 In any case, I don’t think it’s entirely a clique – the main reason I visit mostly MT-powered sites is because when I was first getting into the world of blogging, I found my links through the MT homepage. 🙂

I feel so behind in the times. Poor old greymatter users like me. 😛

Seriously though, I’ve stretched the poor thing to it’s limit and it’s time to changes to something else. I’d be glad to hear anyone’s advice on the topic. I’m afraid that up until now I too was afraid of “following the herd: and avoided MT. I really want to know which software will suit my needs.

Thanks to Christine for starting such a great topic. 🙂

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