Today is my 15th 'blogiversary.' I look forward to tomorrow and the start of Year 16. Operations commenced on 4 May 2004.
Can you say cacoethes scribendi?
I've missed only a few days in these fifteen years so it's a good bet I'll be blogging 'for the duration.' Blogging for me is like reading and thinking and meditating and running and hiking and playing chess and breathing and eating and playing the guitar and drinking coffee. It is not something one gives up until forced to. Some of us are just natural-born scribblers. We were always scribbling, on loose leaf, in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes, in journals daily maintained. Maintaining a weblog is just an electronic extension of all of that.
Except that now I conduct my education in public. This has some disadvantages, but they are vastly outweighed by the advantages. I have met a lot of interesting and stimulating characters via this blog, some in the flesh. You bait your hook and cast it into the vasty deeps of cyberspace and damned if you don't call forth spirits or at least snag some interesting fish. The occasional scum sucker and bottom feeder are no counterargument.
I thank you all for your patronage, sincerely, and I hope my writings are of use not just to me. I have a big fat file of treasured fan mail that more than compensates me for my efforts.
I am proud to have inspired a number of you Internet quill-drivers. Some of you saw my offerings and thought to yourself, "I can do this too, and I can do it better!" And some of you have. I salute you.
And now some thoughts on this thing we call blogging.
In the early days of the blogosphere, over 18 years ago now, weblogs were mainly just 'filters' that sorted through the WWW's embarrassment of riches and provided links to sites the proprietor of the filter thought interesting and of reasonable quality. So in the early days one could garner traffic by being a linker as opposed to a thinker. Glenn Reynold's Instapundit, begun in August 2001, is a wildly successful blog that consists mainly of links. But there are plenty of linkage blogs now and no need for more, unless you carve out a special niche for yourself.
What I find interesting, and what I aim to provide, is a blend of original content and linkage delivered on a daily basis. As the old Latin saying has it, Nulla dies sine linea, "No day without a line." Adapted to this newfangled medium: "No day without a post." Weblogs are by definition frequently updated. So if you are not posting, say, at least once a week, you are not blogging. Actually, I find I need to restrain myself by limiting myself to two or three posts per day: otherwise good content scrolls into archival oblivion too quickly. Self-restraint, here as elsewhere, is difficult.
Here is my definition of 'weblog': A weblog is a frequently updated website consisting of posts or entries, usually short and succinct, arranged in reverse-chronological order, containing internal and off-site hyperlinks, and a utility allowing readers to comment on some if not all posts.
'Blog' is a contraction of 'weblog.' Therefore, to refer to a blog post as a blog is a mindless misuse of the term on a par with referring to an inning of a baseball game as a game, a chapter of a book as a book, an entry in a ledger as a ledger, etc. And while I'm on my terminological high horse: a comment on a post is not a post but a comment, and one who makes a comment is a commenter, not a commentator. A blogger is (typically) a commentator; his commenters are — commenters.
There are group blogs and individual blogs. Group blogs typically don't last long and for obvious reasons, an example being Left2Right. (Of interest: The Curious Demise of Left2Right.) Please don't refer to an individual blog as a 'personal' blog. Individual blogs can be as impersonal as you like.
I am surprised at how much traffic I get given the idiosyncratic blend I serve. This, the Typepad version of MavPhil, commenced on Halloween 2008. Since then the Typepad site has garnered over five million page views (5, 192, 776 to be exact as of 14:06 hours) which averages to 1,353.4 page views per day. Spikes sometimes reach as high as 20, 000 page views in a day. Total posts: 9, 216. Two years ago: 7,486. Total comments: 11, 394.
How did I get my site noticed? By being patient and providing fairly good content on a regular basis. I don't pander: I write what interests me whether or not it interests anyone else. Even so, patience pays off in the long run. I don't solicit links or do much to promote the site. I have turned down a few offers to run advertising. This is a labor of love. I don't do it for money. "Not that there is anything wrong with that." (Seinfeld)
Blogging is like physical exercise. If you are serious about it, it becomes a daily commitment and after a while it becomes unthinkable that one should stop until one is stopped by some form of physical or mental debilitation.
Would allowing comments on all posts increase readership? Probably, but having tried every option, I have decided the best set-up is the present one: allow comments on only some posts, and don't allow comments to appear until they have been moderated.
MY PLEDGE
You will never see advertising on this site. You will never see anything that jumps around in your visual field. You will not be assaulted with unwanted sounds. I will not beg for money with a 'tip jar.' This is a labor of love and I prize my independence.
I also pledge to continue the fight, day by day, month by month, year by year, against the hate-America, race-baiting, religion-bashing, liberty-destroying, Constitution-trashing, gun-grabbing, lying fascists of the Left. As long as health and eyesight hold out.
I will not pander to anyone, least of all the politically correct.
And I won't back down. Are you with me? Then show a little civil courage. Speak out. Exercise your constitutional rights. We are engaged in a battle for the soul of America and indeed for the soul of the West.
