[acangiano]

> there are all sorts of benefits to blogging besides making original contributions to exposition of a topic. And even though I realize this, I still get stuck a lot on the non-originality thing.

Part of the problem is that many people see blogging as a teaching tool alone. More often than not, it's a conversation starter too, and the blogger ends up learning a great deal of new information in the process.

And even if you wish to be only a teacher with your blog, there is also a bit of Dunning–Kruger effect at play here. You think, what's the point of me explaining X? Everyone knows about X, probably better than me. Others wrote about X.

In truth, you'll find that more often than not plenty of people don't know about X. The way you'd describe and explain X may actually lead people to acquire a new prospective on the subject.

[edibrac]

I personally don't dare comment on the Dunning–Kruger because it's possible I'm not skilled enough to understand it.

[susam]

A very good point. I share a lot of puzzles and tech-notes on my blog. It might appear as a teaching tool to some but for me it is a great learning tool. An idea, a problem or a solution to a problem might exist in our mind in a confused form. But once we have to put it down in words for a larger audience, one has to re-think of the whole idea, problem or solution in a manner that can be expressed to a larger audience. This usually involves re-learning the idea in a simpler way.

In other words, I end up learning a lot in order to maintain a blog. The D-K effect won't bother one if one accepts the fact that a good blog helps you learn as much as it helps your readers learn. It's more about learning together rather than one person trying to teach other.

[mol2103]

Really like the insight you made about conversation starting. The problem is that most people won't believe they can actually attract the audience needed to create a fertile conversation on their blog.

[edibrac]

Philosophically speaking, doesn't this boil down to having something meaningful to discuss? Otherwise you're just generating web noise but we're all guilty of that.