Talk:List of family-and-homemaking blogs

"Mom blog," "dad blog"
Per a quote from the essay WP:NOTOR: "Identifying synonymous terms, and collecting related information under a common heading is also part of writing an encyclopedia. Reliable sources do not always use consistent terminology, and it is sometimes necessary to determine when two sources are calling the same thing by different names. This does not require a third source to state this explicitly, as long as the conclusion is obvious from the context of the sources. Articles should follow the naming conventions in selecting the heading under which the combined material is presented." -- I think it might be OK for us to group the terms "parenting blog"/"mom blog"/"dad blog" in the lede. The fact that especially the second and third expressions are short, neologistic nicknames that rely somewhat on idiomatic currency for their comprehension instead of being a bit longer and more nuanced descriptions in straightforward English (see the word "journalese" as looked up in Wikipedia: "Journalese is the artificial or hyperbolic, and sometimes over-abbreviated, language regarded as characteristic of the popular media.") can be implied or said by the phrase "appellations found in media reports." ↜Just  M &#8202;E &#8202; here&#8202;,&#8202;now   14:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * 1) " The New Family Album ," Pamela Paul, Apr. 12, 2004, Time magazine: " Blogging parents form a kind of secret society[...]. Michelle Brown, 28, a stay-at-home mother of three in Spartanburg, S.C., keeps a mommy blog, unbeknownst to friends and family."
 * 2) Shelbyville Times-Gazette: "part of a genre often referred to as 'mommy blogs .'"
 * 3) Toledo Free Press: "The Lovely Mrs. Davis is a Northwestern Ohio blogger. Her blog could be classified as a 'Mommy Blog ' yet no matter what genre you put it in? A very well done blog"
 * 4) "More women are entering the blogosphere -- satirizing, sharing and reaching a key demographic," October 31, 2007, Mackenzie Carpenter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "But slowly and steadily, women bloggers have been increasing in number, reflecting a national trend in female social networking that has ignited the interest of politicians, companies and the media who see chances to harness the buying and voting power of this well-educated and affluent demographic for profits and proselytizing.[...] One of the hottest categories is the "mommy blog " -- and the networks that list them, providing one-stop shopping for women looking for information or a shoulder to cry on or just to share laughs.
 * 5) "The drooling minutiae of childhood revealed for all to see as ' Mommy blogs' come of age ," Jonathan Brown, 5 February 2005, The Independent: "Aylet Waldman's badmother.blogspot.com describes her life with her four young children and husband. 'A blog like this is narcissism in its most obscene flowering,' she told The New York Times. 'But it is necessary. As a parent, your days are consumed by other people's needs. This is payback for driving back and forth to gymnastics all week long.'  § The newspaper's questioning coverage of the phenomenon this week sparked something close to anger in the 'mommy blog' community as web links to the story were attached to individual sites. Mimi Smartypants, whose book, a collection of blogs called The World According to Mimi Smartpants which was published in Britain last year, approaches exasperation. 'La da dee dee dee, would someone please tell me what I am supposed to write about in my DIARY if not my own personal LIFE? If I had more energy today I could get good and mad about the story.'"
 * 6) Omaha World-Herald: "Here's a quick primer:[...] Mommy blogs are Web sites that focus on the trials of being a 21st century woman raising children or dealing with family, or both. Mommy blog styles range from irreverent to sentimental ." ↜Just M &thinsp;E  here&#8202;,&#8202;now  05:32, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

"Parenting blog"
And, per WP:NEO: "[...T]here will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a made-up or non-notable neologism in such a case. Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English , even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title." -- perhaps "parenting blog" should be used in the article's title, as perhaps the most straightforward of the three (and is shorter than "mothering blog or fathering blog"!) ↜Just  M &#8202;E &#8202; here&#8202;,&#8202;now   14:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there any gender bias wrt the extent of the media's coverage of "mom" blogs?
Many of these participants (including most of the journalists) are themselves female. Nonetheless, it is hardly a coincidence that all of these practices reinscribe a public valuing of behaviors associated with educated adult (white) males, and render less visible behaviors associated with members of other demographic groups. This outcome is consistent with cultural associations between men and technology, on the one hand (Wajcman, 1991), and between what men do and what is valued by society (the “Androcentric Rule”; Coates, 1993). As Wajcman (p.11) notes, “qualities associated with manliness are almost everywhere more highly regarded than those thought of as womanly.” In this case, discourse practices that construct weblogs as externally-focused, substantive, intellectual, authoritative, and potent (in the sense of both “influential” and “socially transformative”) map readily on to Western cultural notions of white collar masculinity (Connell, 1995), in contrast to the personal, trivial, emotional, and ultimately less important communicative activities associated with women (cf. “gossip”). Such practices work to relegate the participation of women and other groups to a lower status in the technologically-mediated communication environment that is the blogosphere, and more generally, to reinforce the societal status quo." ↜Just M &thinsp;E  here&#8202;,&#8202;now  03:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Should the article make reference to this point of view? Note the slant within this NYT article.
 * 2) As for whether the genre of mom blogs should be treated in WP, IMO it should. Per WP:INTERNET, content wrt the Web is considered to be notable if it has been the "subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. This criterion includes reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations[...]except[...]media re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site[...or] trivial coverage[...].
 * 3) Interesting quotes wrt gender bias in media coverage of blogging, from the scholarly journal Indiana University at Bloomington's Rhetoric, Community and Culture of Weblogs: Into the Bloggosphere, "Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs":"Women and young people are key actors in the history and present use of weblogs, yet that reality is masked by public discourses about blogging that privilege the activities of a subset of adult male bloggers. In engaging in the practices described in this essay, participants in such discourses do not appear to be seeking consciously to marginalize females and youth. Rather, journalists are following “newsworthy” events, scholars are orienting to the practices of the communities under investigation, bloggers are linking to popular sites, and blog historians are recounting what they know from first-hand experience. At the same time, by privileging filter blogs, public discourses about blogs implicitly evaluate the activities of adult males as more interesting, important and/or newsworthy than those of other blog authors.

Commercial aspect

 * 1) Forbes: "Brett Bouttier, Warner Bros. TV's senior vice president for digital, said[...that d]espite the MomLogic brand, 'we're not just doing a mommy blog [...]. Meanwhile, women's blog network BlogHer said that its members had generated 6 million unique visitors and 26 million page views in October, up about 50% in both categories from September, citing figures from Nielsen NetRatings. Advertisers have been increasingly attracted to blogs because of their ability to reach specific demographic niches. According to a blog reader survey released Tuesday by BlogHer, 74% of those polled said they read the ads they saw on blogs, 57% said they interact with the ads and 62% said they make purchases based on the recommendation of bloggers. Another factoid of interest: according to comScore's Buying Power Index report, visitors to female-oriented Web sites spend 48% more online than the average Web surfer.
 * 2) "Feds Eying The Mommy Blogger-Brand Relationship ," Tameka Kee, 7 May 2009, Paidcontent.org(/Washington Post): "There’s a reason that brands love mommy bloggers. With more moms turning to the web for parenting advice, camaraderie and product recommendations—a favorable review from the likes of bloggers like Dooce, Melinda Roberts or even a less-known mom with a blog can translate directly to an uptick in sales. But with the FTC trying to tackle the issue of 'truth' in social media advertising, the relationship between brands and mommy bloggers is coming under scrutiny ." ↜Just M &thinsp;E  here&#8202;,&#8202;now  06:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Page move
Per WP:NEO and WP:NOTOR, I moved this page from being delineated by "parenting" to its being delineated by "family and homemaking" -- ie to a title that better encapsulates what blogs of the home-and-family type are about: stay-at-home/working newlywed brides/grooms, expectant mothers/fathers, actual mothers/fathers, other family member caregivers (or those blogging about receiving care from family members), and any other type of homemakers or often feature content that is especially about homemaking. ↜Just M &thinsp;E  here&#8202;,&#8202;now  09:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Too few opinions
There was a customized version of too few opinions on the mainspace page, stating in part that the list "may fail to include sufficient representation from the viewpoint of stay-at-home mothers (or other family members serving as caregivers)". I poked around in history, and it appears the page has been tagged that way since it was created. It's hard to tell, as there have been several moves and merges (history links: List of blogs about caregiving and homemaking, List of parenting blogs, Home and family blog, List of family-and-homemaking blogs). I've replaced the cutomomized template with the standard one, since the custom version was loosing functionlity. I have no opinion on the issue myself; this is just housekeeping. — DragonHawk (talk|hist) 21:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)