Thanks to my tech man, Steven Sgroi, I have a crisp new theme which I like much better. I hope my readers enjoy the new look.
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Tag: blogging
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Fighting spam
Fighting spam is part of blogging today, I guess, unless one does away with comments. Askimet at least relegates most to the spam file. But why do I have to see it at all? Why do I have to take time nearly every day to delete spam? So I am changing my anti-spam strategy and adding a captcha to the comments. my hope is that this will keep machines away. I am sorry for the inconvenience to commenters.
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Paragraphing restored
Today I say many thanks to my tech man, Steven Sgroi, for figuring out why WordPress was stripping the paragraphing out of my posts and pages. The pages I have written recently read so much more easily with the paragraphing restored. He said it had to do with the “editor.” Thank you Steven
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On the nature of blogging today
100th comment from Germany
I received my 100th comment on my blog today. It was a TrackBack. I left it up because of its significance. It was from an advertisement site, but the interesting part was that the site was in German. That is quite significant. My count statistics plug-in tells me that the number of visitors to my blog from Germany is equal to about one third of the number of visitors from the United States. Visitor count from the third-highest country, the Ukraine, falls off quickly to one third of that from Germany. The third-highest number of reads comes from Hong Kong. I am amazed to discover that the total reads outside the United States is approximately equal to the number of reads in the United States. So my 100th comment reminds me that I blog in a very international setting.
100th comment a precisely targeted ad
Secondly, the advertisement is for a Kindle reader and it is attached to the article I wrote about whether physical libraries are already becoming obsolete. Much of the spam I delete from my blog is attached almost randomly to any article that the spammer thinks may attract attention. But this trackback ad was different. It was targeted very specifically to the relevant article on the topic addressing the exact issue that fitted the item being sold. This shows the true power of targeted Internet connectivity. I predict more advertising money diverted from the scatter-guns of mass mail and broadcast media to the focused targeting potential of the Internet.
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On Joining Facebook
Well, I finally did it.
I’ve been talking about it for months.
Thursday, Steven Sgroi helped me take the leap. My friend list is building fast—up to 70
already. What has impressed me most is
how much people are on Facebook. Seems
like anytime I am on, there are several friends I could chat with. I notice already that most people are
checking Facebook more than their email, I think.
Some may wonder why I decided to join Facebook. I think there were three reasons, listed in
rough order of importance. First, I felt
that without it, I was missing an excellent opportunity to connect with lots of
people. As a pastor, connecting with
people is the heart of what I do.
Second, it was recommended by many, including my DS, Kim O. and Eva.
B. Third, to be honest, I was hoping to
draw more attention to my blog. I love
blogging. It seems to suit my
personality and my purposes very well. So
I am interested in building up readership.
Besides all this, I’m discovering, Facebook just might be plain
fun!
400 Entries
I’ve been blogging for almost 20 months now and today the totals on my blog dashboard went over 400 entries. Half of them are posts and the rest are fairly equally divided between pages and comments. I really enjoy blogging, though sometimes it takes more time that I thought it would. Though it has proven more difficult than I thought to keep counting software that works well, I have learned from watching reader counts what blog articles are read the most.
Popular articles
My most popular articles have been some in my series on seeking God. My sermon series outlines are always popular, especially holiday series; and a few of my articles on difficult passages have proven to have ongoing appeal. On the other hand, sermon visuals and news commentary have received little traffic.
However, I believe that I blog best when I write about things that I’m genuinely interested in rather than when I write about things that I think my readers will be interested in. So my blog is most successful when both conditions are true.
On the comments
I have also been surprised at the paucity of comments. I delete many times more spam comments than I receive in genuine replies. Readers seem to be interested in reading the articles, but not really interested in discussing them. I have received some feedback by email as well. In fact, it has become nearly as popular a method of contact as leaving comments.
My purposes
In my very first blog post I set forth three purposes for my blog:
1. To help me connect with church family and other friends
2. To provide a forum for written contemplation of a kind that might be useful to others
3. To disseminate information, especially the kind of tidbits that are interesting but don’t seem to have a forum at the time.
Reflecting on the purpose of blogging
I believe those three purposes are still very valid though I might reword them a little. However I think there is a fourth one that has been active all along that I have become increasingly conscious of. Blogging is a very personal journaling. One purpose, not always conscious, is to chronicle life as I see it, to record experiences and perspectives with words and often pictures. This recording is not just for others, but very much a healthy and deliberate self-expression.
Current Purposes
So here’s how I would write my purposes today.
1. To help me connect with family, church family and friends.
2. To provide a forum for written contemplation of a kind that might be useful to others.
3. To disseminate information, especially the kind of tidbits that are interesting, useful or helpful and that fit this forum.
4. To create a personal journal, chronicling life from my perspective.
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Is the New Menu Working?
I am experimenting with the ability of my Word Press Theme to include a custom menu. For the spring I have created a menu for the Winds of Refreshing emphasis. I will keep adding to it and probably leave it up for awhile after the emphasis is finished at church. I’m wondering if my readers are finding the custom menu feature helpful. Any feedback?
A big thank you today goes out to our church webmaster, Steven Sgroi, for giving me a new look. I’ve been blogging for a year and I thoroughly enjoy it, so we are marking my year anniversary with a new theme. Don’t you love it? The theme called Mystique comes in black, but Steven knows I don’t like black so he achieved some continuity with the old color scheme by changing the black to the textured blue. I hope you enjoy the new functionality on the right side too. I was looking for an archives feature and now I have it. I will learn to manage some of the right side features better as time goes along, I am sure. The new theme also allows for “read more” so you will see that feature being used in future long posts.