Blogspot v. WordPress.com, Blogger v. WordPress

Blogspot Does Not Scale With My Life at A Fool’s Wisdom

My comments:

Blogspot isn’t perfect and WordPress is quite good. But Blogger beta does have some redeeming qualities, including category-like labels. The advantage these labels have over WP categories is that labels can be sorted by frequency instead of being listed alphabetically. Also, you can simply type a comma-separated list of keywords and these will be added as labels. The full list of labels is available but it’s hidden by default. With WordPress.com, adding categories can be an issue. It actually takes time to do on my decent DSL connection. In terms of basic reasoning, WP categories are really categories (you classify posts). Blogger’s labels are more like labels, tags, or keywords: you specify what your post connects with.
While it’s true that Blogger beta doesn’t have an export feature yet, other blogging systems should be able to import Blogger entries, once the new APIs are released. In fact, the cool way to do it, IMHO, is to use a standalone editor like ecto to repurpose your posts. Since the new APIs for Blogger haven’t been released, ecto can’t download Blogspot entries, but it’s certainly going to be a possibility quite soon.
Since Blogger accounts are quite common, commenting on somebody else’s blog can bring more comments to your own blog. WP.com tries to do the same thing and the tag surfer is quite cool, but so far comment traffic on my blog has been very low.
The other thing that is nice about Blogger is that, contrary to WordPress.com, it’s not a simplified version of a full package. WordPress makes a visible effort to add functionalities to WP.com (WP MU) but it’s still meant as a way to push people into WP. Installing WordPress is very easy and anyone with server space should use it on their own server. (That’s what we do for our <a href=”http://blog.criticalworld.net/”>academic blog</a>.) But for those who don’t have server space, WP.com can be slightly frustrating as the documentation, forums, community, plugins, and neater features are really meant for your own WP installation.
Now, don’t get me wrong. WP.com has been quite nice to me in the past few months. In fact, my main reason to move from WP.com to Blogger would be if my Blogger/Blogspot blog got more comments than my WP.com one. Otherwise, unless Blogger comes with very compelling features (like integration with Google Measure Map, Calendar, Spreadsheet, Writely, Gmail, etc.), my WP.com blog will remain my active blog.

Thanks for your comment on my blog!!

McGill and UofT Ranked

Speaking of university rankings, McGill University describes its presence in the Princeton Review as praise. Their actual rankings in distinct categories are [drumroll, please...]:

• 3rd in “Class Discussions Rare“
• 15th in “Lots of Race/Class Interaction“
• 7th in “Great College Town“

The first category (rare class discussions) is surprising to me because, in my experience (taught at two universities in Quebec, two in Indiana, two in Massachusetts, and one in New Brunswick), university students in Quebec tend to discuss quite openly in class, much more so than U.S. students. But these rankings are based on perception, not analysis of classroom behaviour, AFAIK. And McGill has a high proportion of students from the United States.

In my mind, Concordia University would be likely to rank higher in “race/class interaction” as it’s a well-known part of people’s experience there (faculty, students, and administrators frequently discuss diversity issues). And since Concordia’s campus is quite close to McGill’s, it’s quite possible that Concordia would rank close to McGill for the “college town” category. Although, McGill students tend to live close to campus (including in the so-called McGill Ghetto) while Concordia students are scattered across town. Still, Montreal is considered a cool “college town” by people who attend all of its four universities.

The other Canadian university in the Princeton Review rankings is University of Toronto, which is similarly “praised“:

• 5th in “Class Discussions Rare“
• 17th in “Professors Get Low Marks“
• 2nd (!) in “Professors Make Themselves Scarce“

Hmmm… Where’s the UofT press release about its consecration by The Princeton Review? Can’t wait to see how they spin it. “At UofT, we pride ourselves for our groundbreaking approach to teaching. Students are encouraged to work by themselves, without the hassles of communicating with their professors or with their fellow students.”

Of course, those rankings aren’t based on stereotypes or frivolous factors. After all, which serious ranking wouldn’t have a category for “Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians?” Maybe rankings made by “Dr. Martens-Wearing, Tree-Cutting, Non-Smoking Omnivores.”
It’s quite difficult to compare Canadian universities with those in the U.S. because the systems are quite different from one another. For instance, tuition fees at (publicly-funded but private university) McGill are quite low ($1,668 for “Out-of-State Tuition”) and a full bachelor’s degree in one of Quebec’s universities is typically three years (because Quebec has a separate program between high school and university). So a full degree at McGill can cost less than $6,000. The “Best Value College” according to The Princeton Review is the University of Central Florida which charges $17,017 a year for Out-of-State students. Other expenses seem fairly similar between these two universities. UCF’s ranking is 16th for “Their Students (Almost) Never Study,” which is obviously a very important factor in selecting an institution of higher learning. We wouldn’t want these kind souls to be wasting their time studying! So, “best value” in the U.S. is quite different from “best value” in Canada. (AFAIK, no Canadian university charges as much as $17,000 a year in tuition fees.)

Ah, well…