Previous to blogging for PITC, Cinpinski had kept her own blog for a short time for the sake of writing and getting her own opinions out on the Web. However, she was disappointed because there “wasn’t any interaction [with readers] on that site.” She was hoping to meet new people, receive comments on her posts, and generate dialogue with her readers. But she felt that blogs such as her own—personal and journal-like—too often are lost in the millions of blogs on the Web. As Lampa notes, filtering—through the small-scale work of individual bloggers with specific interests and large-scale work of news aggregation blogs—seems to separate active blog communities from more dormant, “diarist bloggers.” However, these diarist blogs are still published, and are available to the rest of blogging community. Although Cinpinski did not receive the kind of dialogue she wanted on her own blog, her comments and visits to other blogs became published interactions, a part of those communities. Thus, Lampa states that “an alternative explanation for the persistence of community is needed” to describe blogging communities.
This alternative can be seen in the ways Cinpinski approached the content of PITC. She was excited to find ways to include bloggers with a “lesser voice” in the blogosphere and wanted to provide “well-rounded” content that would attract a variety of visitors and keep them participating in the communities surrounding PITC. For example, she began noticing that readers who were interested in music events would come back every month to read and comment on her concert previews, echoing Halavais’ notion of blogs as a “popular and accessible form of public discourse,” as well as a “source of public opinion and deliberation.” On the other hand, some readers would make a single visit or comment, and then would never be heard from again. However, Lampa points out that even brief contacts “should not be marginalized,” because including them as active members will “strengthen the image of community” and will encourage them to return and participate.
Different blogging practices—such as making a single comment or interacting on a daily basis—contribute, according to Schmidt, to “social networks of varying density.” Thus, blogging communities can be seen as dynamic because “members” constantly have varying roles of participation and interaction, much like a citizen who casts a single vote at election time compared to a citizen who is politically active year-round. Because a single comment can be viewed indefinitely, it holds the potential for future interactions and discussions.
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