Friday, December 22, 2006

Second Home In a War Zone

Anyone following this blog would know I’ve been torn on how and why to blog. I’ve given my reasons elsewhere (particularly here), and it seems I’m not alone in this question.

But I think a solution has been found.

That said, I’m taking over this blog. Everybody down, don’t panic, be cool, and no one will get hurt.

In short, this will become, within a month or two of transition, a more personal space, and the stuff like research, and history and, to a great extent, my activist tendencies (and whining ;-)) will be segregated into a new site, a collaborative and more thorough space. And never the two worlds shall meet again, and thus the issue is forever settled, and it will certainly not cause any problems like the last site I had ;-).

That is all; you can all get up now.

I just wanted it out there as to why I’ll not be posting as much here on the stuff that will be on the new site. I’m, for example, saving a review on some of the genetic papers. I also felt I should explain the change in frequency in my postings here and in comments. I’ll split my free time with contributing to the site, and until it’s up I may be occupied pinning down the layout and look (warming it up ;-)).

3 comments:

eleka nahmen said...

I think there needs to be many more activists around here - the other side is much more effective than we are, much more vocal than we are, and much more involved than we are. As long as that's the case, they will continue to win.

Best wishes in your blog transition :) But I for one hope to still hear activism updates.

Silus Grok said...

I can understand biforcating the posts... but why muddy your brand? Put the new, more personal posts on a new site... and keep all the "whining", here.

Think of the children, er... google bots!

Scot said...

Ah, no worries, Eleka. If anything, my activism is escalating :-). You’ll see; you’ll all see! [maniacal laughter].

My plan is definitely to have the site and this blog linked. Maybe new material there can be pointed to in posts here, but we plan on having a separate blog for the site as well. I’m just tweaking the brand ;-).

The reason for the separation and that the site gets activist scot and this blog gets more of the mild mannered alter ego is that:

1. I just feel uneasy about writing about my home, the problems we face (and don’t) and so on with politics so near but I still want to write about both. For such a reason, I’ve avoided some personal topics here, some that, as a father in my position, aren’t really out there for those curious about them. Still, I was being purposefully naive; there will be whining and activism here :-), but I just want a bit more of a restraining order. Rational or no, it just feels like the politics taint something very important to me, and that something makes me more apt to fly off the handle with the politics.

2. A traditional web site is just more amenable to, say, having an article with 20 references, and pumping up the traffic. After putting work into such an article a site also makes it less temporal than if it were in a blog, and better accessible by search engines. I can also constantly update, say, a be-all-end-all (;-)) article on the fraternal birth order effect each time new research comes out, keeping it all in one consistent and more prominent location. I’m thinking about those bots, you know. :-)

3. I’ve stuff left over from the good old days I want back up. Java programs and such that wouldn’t work on a blog, but do go along with such a site.

Eh, maybe you’re right though Silus… I could simply post a blog post here and the site version there… It’ll take a couple months to work it out. I trust I can count on you all to attend the grand opening :-).