Changing Yourself
Joe Gandelman has a pretty good essay on how weblogging changes you.
Not that everyone has to have a weblog to be so changed. But it's certainly true that the experience of crossing swords with others, of being held accountable for the things you say you believe, is both humbling and empowering.
I can't agree more.
When I first started, I thought my opinion was as valid as anyone else's. I also thought that I knew more than just about anybody on the subject of baseball (the subject on which I blog).
I found that my commentors backed-up their opinions with facts and actually expected me to do the same. Also, most of them know more than me.
I now verify almost everything I write with a round of fact checking. I sometimes find that it often nullifies the point I had originally intended to make and I end up scrapping the post entirely or I end up with something quite different than what I had planned.