Perhaps this won’t seem especially ironic to you since my politics generally remain unremarked upon (though easily extrapolated from other details), but recently i’ve been getting a steady trickle of hits from this conservative political blog and i couldn’t figure out why. Occasionally sitemeter attributes referrals to sites that have no linkage to mine whatsoever, but every few hours i would see a hit from this self proclaimed “Big & Loud” politico and the regularity invited a more thorough investigation. Upon a more lengthy perusal of the site (including a bitter but fair appraisal of Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont) i discovered a link to “webloggers.” I’ve had a link to this blogging webring sitting on my sidebar for months now and i’ve honestly never clicked it, and never received more than a handful of hits per week from it (as is evidenced by the fact that i wasn’t expecting to see the link on this random log). Yet, by some magnificent irony-loving all-knowing god of blogging, the one site that actually delivers hits to me through the ring happens to be precisely the site that i’d least expect.
Well, for those of you just surfing in from B&L&F&R let me just say: Take that, poopyheads! We’ve got the Senate! Oh, yeah, and welcome to the neighborhood.
topics
For a while there was a flicker of light reflected on my change jar that seemed just the right red and gold to be the reflection of a fire, but after a thorough examination of the room to ascertain that there was an absence of flame i realized it was sunlight flitting through the trees outside my bedroom window. Today i feel like a flicker of something; hoping that i’m not outrightly extinguished yet sometimes blooming full and hot. I was too distracted to sing during my lesson today, but then i focused for half a minute to produce two notes that Becky thinks were my best ever. Inconsistent. I don’t think i did much at work today, but no one seems to mind. Tonight the sky is turning from blue to blue with the tiniest band of green on the horizon, and my neighbors yellowed kitchen light is peering around my crimsony sheet draped across the window. Everything is colors, but the fire in this room has gone away and left it black and white and gray.
I have some links to blog. Run for the hills.
Track4 is a solidly constructed music review site run by SpaceKitten on her Uprush domain, and i don’t even think i knew it was there (smooth one, huh?). I Am Generic is a really nicely designed site without too much flash-bang, which is my favourite kind of design (via MuffBlog). And, speaking of people with patience and rock solid design skills (of which i possess neither), Zannah still has the same basic layout as she did when i first saw her page nearly a year ago. Maybe there were some inbetween steps that i missed, but colour me impressed. With a shade less patience, but with tons of primary color design skillz, perennial favourite Wockerjabby just got a massive redesign that you should lay your eyes on. And, finally, i dragged my lazy self over to Ahx this morning after a nearly week-long lapse in my reading to find him doing some damned great writing (compliments of me nonwithstanding, of course). More people should be hearing what he has to say.
Well, there you go. That’s enough excuses not to read me for a couple of hours, right? Good. Off you go.
Of all the beloved sites i’ve ever seen shut down, it’s always been the decision of the site administrator(s). Regular readers can leave and staff members can be bitchy and unhappy, but ultimately the admin makes the decision to pull the plug on the main page leaving everyone scrambling to talk to each other on the message boards before those too fade away or become completely irrelevant.
What is it about being the admin of a site that makes it so easy to shut everything down rather than just make a change? Is it that you’re tied to what the site was and not what it will be? Or, is it that you just get tired of making little fixes to what seems to you a large overall problem. Pulling the plug on a site, whether it be a treasured monument to e/n or the best Ani DiFranco site on the internet, seems like a hopelessly selfish choice. However, i suppose if you take on all the weight of maintaining a page yourself then you’re entitled to be selfish about it’s dissolution.
Bearing that in mind, is the solution to distribute both the joys of being a successful administrator as well as the sorrows? Does having a solid support staff make the difference between giving up on a page or just taking a much needed breather? Of course, having support staff presents nearly the same problem, as their collective vision sometimes strays from yours, leaving you either useless or annoyed. So, what’s the best formula for keeping a site going long enough that it becomes a mainstay in a community and not just a blip?
It seems to me that the easy answer is staying involved in the flow of your site, which is why so many solo blog-projects have become so consistent and venerable. It’s also why so many of them burn out and fail. If you don’t stay involved emotionally or scientifically or anything with your own writing, eventually what you’re creating means nothing and your page is just like the impression your head leaves on a pillow rather than a pillow with a real head on it. The same holds true for a group site … if you let yourself stray slowly from being an active poster to being a distanced administrator, your idea of fun is only based on reading the page as opposed to the real fun of writing it. This is not to say every administrator should be the center of attention – primadonna in their own specially constructed showcase. Instead, the point is that you have to occupy all of the positions at once: admin, staff, writer, and most importantly, fan.
Remind me about this post if i ever start bitching about any of this, if you would be so kind..
So, this morning Shafted.org finally gave up the ghost. You can go to read the final message of apathy and disinterest if you’d like, but i’ll spare you the link.
Sometimes bands break up because their overall creative urge started to diverge, and sometimes the various members of those bands go on to do beautiful things. Rather than use the obvious example of the Beatles, take a look at Ben Folds Five: they recently broke up because as a band they weren’t functioning properly, but Ben Folds has a new solo album coming out in a matter of months picking up where his creativity left off. I hope Robert and Darren have similar projects up their sleeves…
Anyhow, my point is that despite the old administration of Shafted losing interest in the interactions therein, those of us doing the majority of the interacting remain engrossed. As a result, today i uploaded the very basics of Repulsed using Noah Grey‘s spectacular GreyMatter as the backend. Only time will tell if we still have anything interesting to say, but at least now we have somewhere to say it.