I was reading someone else’s blog when I got dose of my own blogging medicine.
And it was sour.
All blogs have reverse chronological order. This means that to be fully informed about a topic, the latest post about it shouldn’t be read. The reader has to find the first post and then read in forward chronological order. Otherwise no damn thing makes sense. It’s like starting a book with a random chapter.
I’ve tried to get around this limitation by providing, when possible, a list of past posts under the Previously here at the end of a post or a link to the Category that (ideally) encompasses all posts published for that topic.
But that’s really just a poor bandage.
And there’s really no good solution for this.
Imagine a book that added information as you’re reading it. By the time you’re up to chapter three, chapter one has been revised into something else and the reference in chapter three isn’t something you recall when you started — because it ties into the new chapter one.
The blog format is actually like that.
I’ve seen some blogs that get constant revisions for posts. It’s a nightmare. No one can keep up. It’s an endlessly-rewritten book. It’s a mess.
A kinda/sorta “chapter one” for this blog is: The Future For NYC: Portable Electric Scooters. People keep coming to that post and it no longer reflects my thinking as time has progressed and I’ve learned more. So what do I do? Revise it? Strikethrough the parts that are no longer relevant? What? I see no solution.
Even when I’ve told people a post is no longer relevant, the clickthroughs to the new post are few! Even when I try, the blog format fails.
All of that has made me question why I’m even doing this.
All I can do is again point people to their best way to use this blog: How To Use This Blog.
And I doubt that will help. And I’m not even sure it’s adequate. But it’s better than nothing.
Maybe.
Mike Cane's Atomic Supermen 