May 21st, 2007
Okay, I kind of hate to bring this up again, but it’s been hanging over my head for a long time and I just want to be done with it. Remember my “open thread” suggestion of April 10 which peeved many readers? I quickly put the kibosh on it, but your comments, pro and con, went on for some time, and I promised that I’d post my own “formal response” after I’d mulled over everyone’s ideas.
“What is the purpose of this blog?” I asked myself. “To whom does it belong? What constitutes ‘off-topic’ when my own posts are often quite frivolous?” And after protracted and deliberate consideration, I replied to myself, “I have no fuckin’ idea.”
I’d sort of like to leave it at that. But before I do, here are a few stray thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »
April 25th, 2007
Man. I don’t even know where to start. I’ve been working on a post about the blog for days, and it’s about 12 pages long and completely disjointed. But before I get to that, I have to make an announcement. I’ve made the very difficult decision to temporarily cut back to one new Dykes to Watch Out For episode every four weeks, instead of every two weeks. I’ll be interspersing these new Read the rest of this entry »
April 16th, 2007
Here I am shoveling through a wall of wet snow at an ugodly hour this morning so I could drive to the airport and NOT fly to Pittsburgh. My flight from Burlington was delayed so long that I wasn’t going to get there in time to speak tonight, if at all. So I came home.
We’re going to reschedule my visit to Carnegie Mellon for some time in the next month–I’ll keep you posted.
I haven’t been ignoring the recent flap here about my Open Thread idea. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m still working on a coherent response, and will post it soon. In one way, there’s not a lot to say. It was a flawed solution to an ill-defined problem. Many commenters had a strong reaction against it. It’s gone.
But reading your ensuing discussion about the nature of blogs and online communities, I realized that I’ve never had a very clear idea about the purpose of this one, or what my relationship is to it. That’s what I’m trying to formulate.
