Updating the Archives
by patndoris on Dec.24, 2008,under Musings, My Philosophy
I don’t really see the point in having old blog posts hanging around for years upon years…collecting virtual dust, entombed in the sarcophagus of my sidebar archives. Mummified entries are just Yankee Doodle Dandy, but only if tomb raiders haven’t stolen the gems of wit and insight (uh…that means they need to be of value). Sure, sure, they provide a history of one’s own personal growth and evolution in blogging - a snapshot in time of oddball thoughts and weird things found interesting. But it’s not sufficient reason for me (and that’s just me…my opinion…not to be construed as a dig at anyone else and their personal preferences so don’t send me any hate mail) to keep years worth of old posts hanging around.
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Now to be fair, I don’t think old entries should just be blindly deleted. After all, there was some gleam of inspiration (no matter how small a glimmer it may have been at the time) behind each and every post. Each entry was crafted and composed to provide some tiny morsel of useful information or entertainment to readers, or perhaps to spark some controversial debate. In many respects, every composition becomes a labor of literary love (…perhaps a slight exaggeration but it sounds so eloquent and you get the point). Even if no one else reads them, they have intrinsic value, if to no one but the blogger.
But in a blog such as mine, not so much personal but the ramblings of my (often convoluted) mind in an attempt to provide information I believe to be useful (or at a minimum amusing) the value of posts depreciate as time passes. Information becomes dated. Links break. Technology marches forward (never straight - always forward). My inner ramblings progress from simple convolution into full fledged psychotic delusions. (No, it’s not really quite that bad, but I do admit my mind can be a strange and frightening place at times.) They do however still let me blog from home (as wireless reception in the padded cell is a bit spotty and they can’t hardwire in there since I might use the Ethernet cable to injure myself (joking…just joking…)
Personally, I feel reviewing and updating posts is a worthwhile endeavor. Not to mention, it can thwart the necessity (and self-imposed perception of pressure) for the constant flow of new and marvelously brilliant ideas or non-existent disorders (thus requiring the three-legged hamster to run on the little wire wheel for countless untold hours with quivering legs and his itty bitty pink tongue dangling from his wee little mouth full of pointy blood-drawing fangs, about to collapse from sheer exhaustion while powering my brain cells and several “humor edits” by me to concoct).
With just a few days shy of two-years blogging experience behind me, and now that my medication levels have been regulated (joking again…Really! Just joking!) now is a splendiferous time to reconsider my oldest posts. By applying some very complicated mathematical blogging calculations (so top secret so I can’t tell you what they are or I’d have to kill you) to determine post viability, I believe I’ll be able to non-scientifically ascertain posts with reanimation potential, and those to be expunged. It occurs to me this process is kind of like caring for leather shoes. You put on some polish, buff them up with a little spit shine - and they’re just about good as new. (Whew! I had that spit shine idea and wondered how in the world I’d figure a way to get that in there!) But when they’ve been resoled (yes…I looked it up on a real live shoe repair web site to be sure my terminology was correct - but for some reason I really thought it was re-shod…) too many times, or they can’t simply can’t be repaired, they need go in the proverbial trash bin.
I could have just said I’d be reworking some old posts in the coming months and I hope you’ll find them enjoyable the second time around. But I bet you wouldn’t have really cared to read on would you? That wouldn’t have been nearly as amusing as the visual of the hamster and not nearly so clever as the shoe analogy (which, if I do say so myself, is a reasonably good one). My daily allotment of inquiries on the Merriam-Webster thesaural (yes, I checked the spelling on that even if my spell checker doesn’t believe me) site has been exhausted (more humor - they don’t impose any limits on me…yet) so I must bid you adieu for today.
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5 comments
I was jus\t thinking myself in recent days - partly inspired by your mention of ridding your site of some 'old' / 'useless' stuff - that while it takes effort, time, and resolve to create/add items to a blog/website - it's actually even harder to REMOVE such things at a later time. So most/many sites (yours and mine most definitely included!) just grow and grow, and eventually contain such absurd info overload that noone can be bothered even starting on them.
Yes, I too still plan to remove a lot more stuff than I'll add over the next few weeks, to refashion toward a shorter sharper 'simple'!??! site.
And maybe I should/could purge some old blog entries too - even though that feels like expunging part of my very self (as YOU so clearly understand!)
And Eagle_Kiwi, thank you for your comments on the colors. I do like this skin (for now). Though the font was WAY too small so I increased it the post itself. I'm afraid my poor old eyes can't deal with the tiny font sizes the skinners use to cram endless posts on one page. (I am getting the old eyes checked tomorrow but there's only so much glasses can do.)
I plan on doing purging slowly from the oldest on (so I know where I left off - OCD). I rethink my site pages often - adding/deleting without a lot of thought. But blog posts feel far more personal. But if I read one and it still grabs me - useless or not - it will stay. Some posts are just the essence of oneself, or hold memories/photos/chronicles (such as Eagle_Kiwi world travels) one should keep regardless.
I'm going to try to balance on the high wire of purge, re-write and new content. A blog does not evolve in a day - nor should it be demolished in one. Consider carefully as you look at removing your older posts if they can be adapted to new usefulness - sometimes even one phrase or idea can be the start of something brilliant (even if the rest of the old content must go).
And WHAT was my one glaring error? I read and re-read that post for what seemed like an eternity! My WLW does a decent spell check but sometimes puts odd characters in when I upload to b2evolution. So I try to do a final glance-over before I publish. I like to try and make sure my posts are grammatically correct - so give me a hint please.....
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