Weblogs:

20,000 visits

Random Fate has finally passed the 20,000 visit milestone. This seems like as good a time as any to answer a question posed by a commenter when I posted that I was taking a break to think about some things. The question was in essence, "Why do you blog?"

The answer is not to be a "large mammal" in the blog ecosystem. The answer is not to get a lot of visits (although I would like them!!!), it's taken over a year to get to 20,000, a number that others met within a month or two of starting. If I wanted either a high ranking in the ecosystem or high visit rate I would need to actively promote my blog, which I do not do in any of the ways that have been publicized by more than a few bloggers.

I don't want to tell other people what to think. I work very hard when I post my opinions or commentaries to have people draw their own conclusions, which is why I end many posts with a question rather than a definitive statement.

I don't feel a compelling need to voice my opinion on every topic du jour. There are many things I have written little or nothing about that have generated huge volumes of posts in blogworld as a whole. I only write when I feel I can add a new insight, whether it is because it is in an area that I have some expertise, or if I have personal experience that relates, or if I have access to news sources that others do not have. If I have nothing special to add, I usually feel that unless it is something very important, it is better to not add to the imbroglios that tend to arise with every major event in the news.

I thought I had an answer to the question of why I write here, but that answer has escaped me at the moment. All I do have is what the answer is not. I'll have to ponder it for a while.