Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Mid-week review

I am pleased with how my new blog has progressed. Traffic has surged - I am not quite sure why it has been so sudden. And while most people do not make comments, I have enjoyed, and been informed by, the excellent comments that have been made.

Blogging takes a lot of time but the response to this, as a complaint, is 'If you don't enjoy don't do it'. This is something I don't have a simple answer to. It is a lot of work and I enjoy it.

As usual I welcome comments on any issue but, in particular, how I might improve the blog.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Harry,

People posting to a blog need to be assured that the blog is archived and the posts that they comment on will not be deleted or changed in a substantial way.

I know that this is hard. Sometimes you regret posting a story to your blog (e.g., the picture of the shiny sliver keg of beer in a yellow room and an attractive person in the background.)

Blogging by an academic is being a public intellectual. Which is very scary. People who have very little to loose if motivated in the right way can ruin your reputation based on misinformation about what you write. For example, a minor writer at the Wall Street Journal is presently engaged in destroying the academic career of Professor Juan Cole.

Nevertheless, anything that you write ought to be archived.

hc said...

Hi Rabee

Its a good point and taken seriously.

The nude (which I liked) I deleted when a well-reasoned complaint arrived. I left the written post intact.

I don't alter a written post of mine once made, apart from changing grammar and spelling. This is so even if I regret posting it. Yes there have been a couple. I think I do stick to the dictum suggested in your first sentence - please remind me if I don't.

If I do have a change of thought that represents something substantial I try to include it as an 'Update' at end of the post. This was the case with the Mother Terera post where, after a while, I thought I had presented an unbalanced account. I changed the account at the end with an update which indicated there was another side to the story. But I left the original post intact.

I cannot permanently archive my posts as far as I know. I think I could only periodically save the pages with an external guarantor which seems a hassle. Suggestions?

I certainly don't have the power to edit my or other's comments - I can only delete completely. I have never once deleted a non-spam comment.

Nor can I - as far as I know - use a strikethrough to indicate a change in text. This would be very useful. Other software such as WordPress offers this option.

I am interested in the example you cite and will chase it up.

Anonymous said...

Harry,

I was looking for the keg picture/post. And I couldn't find the post.

hc said...

Rabee, the post is still there. Use the search function and look for 'norks'.

Anonymous said...

I stumbled on your blog through http://economy-chat.com/planet/index.html . Several economic blogs have now linked to the economy-chat site.

hc said...

Yes I got that - its very useful and on my updated blogroll as 'blogs on economics'.