clustr
April 10th, 2007
Thanks to everyone who’s been pointing out the malfunctioning Clustrmap. I finally figured out the problem. When you reach a certain number of hits, like 583,875 or so, you have to start paying for it. I’ll get on that soon, and hopefully all our globe-spanning red dots will be restored. The map was one of many things Katie and I discussed with our web guy Gahlord at a meeting last week. We’ll be inflicting various other updates to the site soon, now that I have some time and brain cells to spare on it.
One thing I’m giving some thought to is the way the blog has turned into a de facto messageboard. A poster named Cyan pointed this out recently, and I have to say it’s a good point. I’m worried that the familiar, in-group atmosphere here might start to have an inhibiting effect on new visitors, and I’m trying to figure out ways to avoid that. Also, I can’t always keep up with everyone’s comments. And that feels problematic since I’m personally responsible for the blog in the way I wouldn’t be responsible for a messageboard.
My first thought was to actually move the discussion to a messageboard, but that seemed a bit extreme. I like the conversations that go on here—I just don’t want them to become too closed or exclusive. So Gahlord had the idea of creating “open thread” posts at regular intervals, like Daily Kos does. This would be a way of leaving a forum in place for comments and conversations that may not be strictly germane to my posts.
I know this means sacrificing some of the our lovely discursiveness. But hopefully the digressions would continue to some extent on the Open Threads. In the interest of a more focused and accessible blog, I’m going to try this. Uh…heck, let’s just start now and see what you think. It might not work at all.
PS A very belated thanks to Anna for finding the typo in episode 507.
- April 10th, 2007
- 93 Comments
- Permalink: clustr