Annual Report/2

My Blogosophy, such as it is.

When I first started writing, I did so because I wanted to write about issues that were not being addressed in the science blogosphere and/or that were not being addressed from the perspective of a (somewhat angry) senior female science professor. I knew little of blog culture except what I had picked up by reading other blogs, and had no idea whether anyone would read what I wrote. And if anyone did read what I wrote, I had no idea whether what I wrote would resonate with anyone, be helpful, be infuriating, be entertaining, be reviled, or be met with a loud thud of indifference.

I am pleased and surprised by the number of daily readers of this blog. In fact, I am blown away at how many people read this, not because the numbers are so huge but because the number is > 2 or 3.

Not surprisingly then, given that more than 2 people read this blog, the response is mixed, especially when I use the s-word (sexism).

So, my philosophy at the moment:

- I accept all comments except the obscene, the irrelevant advertisements, and the random attempts to guess who I am in real life.

- I try to respond to comments that have questions or requests in them, but I don't always succeed, mostly because I don't have a lot of time for that, but also because I sometimes forget. I apologize for this, but am unlikely to become significantly more diligent at responding to comments/questions.

- There is no obvious email address attached to this blog because I can't think of a reason why I would want to get off-blog email. I am willing to listen to suggestions/reasons, though. Since I moderate comments, some people who want to write to me privately send a comment and include the statement "Please don't post this", and in some cases this has led to further correspondence. This system seems to work pretty well.

- I don't do memes, don't respond if tagged, and generally have not participated in the reindeer games of the blogosphere. Perhaps I am too old, curmudgeonly, and anti-social for such things.

- Blog roll: Mine is relatively short, and I know I should increase it out of courtesy and because there are other blogs that I read intermittently. I have resolved to work on this sometime this summer.

- Comments.. how do I feel about comments..? I have mixed feelings, of course, though not because some comments are positive and some are negative. The mixed feelings relate more to the fact that past comments or the anticipation of future comments affect how and what I write.

In some ways, this is good. Anticipating comments helps me to write more clearly and to think carefully about what details are necessary to include so as to avoid misinterpretation of what I write. Anticipating comments can also affect what and how I write in negative ways; e.g., for some topics I struggle with an urge to include proactive defensive statements. I try not to do that (too much), as I prefer that my anecdotes and musings speak for themselves, and not end up all twisted around by what I think people are going to think.

Although this blog can at times be 'preachy', the comments I dislike the most are the ones that give forceful but useless or irrelevant advice about what I should do about a particular situation. But then some other comments contain useful and thoughtful advice and/or interesting perspectives I had not previously considered, so it all balances out.

How long will I keep writing this blog? Will I always post 5 days/week? Should I write so much or try a more limited writing schedule? Will I run out of things to say about being an FSP? Will I always be anonymous? I don't know the answers to any of these questions, so at least for now, I will keep writing as I have.