Here is the first part of my comments on creating community. This is a slightly revised/shortened version of something that I wrote on my trouble blog last summer. Is that cheating?

How can we establish community through authenticity and accountability?

Writing in a public forum like a blog can help us to be more accountable to others for what we write. When you write something and post it on your blog, you are responsible for the claims you make, the critiques that you offer, and the stories that you tell. In other words, you are accountable to others. Being more accountable for the claims that we make helps us to be more careful and thoughtful about making them.

Of course there are many bloggers who do not act as if they are accountable to others; they write whatever they want. Rebecca Post argues on her blog that the ability to abuse the blog process by not being accountable for our claims is built into the system when she writes: “Let me propose a radical notion: The weblog’s greatest strength — its uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice — is also its greatest weakness.”  This is one of the dangers of blogging. But, we can use the uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled nature of the blog to produce insightful, creative, critical and authentic prose that moves (and provokes) others to think about the world differently and enables us to create deep connections that foster community.

KCF, what do you think? I worry that it’s a little too generic and not connected enough to feminist pedagogy and being diablogical? At the very least, I want to add in some more footnotes.