On statistics and the state of the the blogosphere.

First let me start with a few statements:
The internet does not carry a tone of voice, so what appears as sarcasm or humor when I say it, reads like bitterness when written.
I truly and wholeheartedly want to congratulate everyone who appeared on the Lebanese Blogs 2014 statistics, we may disagree on many things among bloggers - and heck - sometimes we voice it out loudly by tweets interposed - but at the end of the of the day, "it takes every kind of people to make the blogosphere go round".
I also wish to thank Mustafa for giving us an aggregated voice, making us more than the sum of our parts.
Just to let you know, I myself appeared on the lists, as the 5th "Most Prolific Blogger" which basically sends me back to my 6th post written ever on this blog in January 2007 "c'est pas parce qu"on n'a rien a dire (qu'il faut fermer sa gueule)" which means "it's not we don't have anything to say that we ought to shut our mouths" and that is a point I had promised at the time not to reach (funnily, why do I think I am heading there?).
I know everyone who figured (and even did not figure) on that list of statistics, poured their hearts out into the content of their blog, and as the Diesel ad said "Smart critiques, stupid creates" - it is easy to call other bloggers trolls, or dismiss them as copycats, or has beens, or wannabes, but the fact remains even the "silliest" "least interesting" (insert less polite names here) took time and effort to write, research, link, share the content of their blogs thinking (even indirectly, or remotely in the back of their minds) of the validation that will come from readers (yes, we ALL look for validation) and so being on such lists as Lebanese Blogs "most (insert category)" makes one think it has been worthwhile.
With all these positive elements in mind, how come do I feel a bit sad that somehow, we failed ourselves. Worse, we failed a certain community. The so-called civil society. Maybe (also somewhere in the back of our minds) we had a lot of ambition, even if I wrote several words of caution about this (and Mustafa and myself agreed about it at the time):
"I think we credit ourselves too much for what we are doing, in the end for the average person on the street, blogging doesn’t exist, graffiti is “some guys scribbling on the wall”, Facebook and twitter are for “ta2 el 7anak”… So whereas I am not a defeatist – otherwise I would not be doing what I am doing – I also know that we have limited sphere of influence (including preaching the converts as they say – meaning the people who already subscribe to our opinions are the ones who gravitate towards our sites)."
But perhaps it was me who fell into the trap of expectation once more...
How fortunate is the man with none - as Bertolt Brecht did so rightly say.