Possumblog

Speaking of visitors...

Thanks again to Dr. Reynolds for the traffic yesterday, and to all you new folks who came by. Dave Helton had a big spike in traffic as well, and wondered if Glenn was slumming or something down here around and amongst us microbloganisms, but I told Dave it was probably that Instaman decided to read some quality work rather than the same old crap from that Sullivan guy. (Whose full name I will not, and have not ever, mentioned herein.) But, in any case, whatever the reason, it's nice to see some more folks.

I thought it was a bit odd when I checked the Sitemeter, though, because although there was a noticeable upturn, the total wasn't much higher than some other days this month. Part of the problem was an outage yesterday in Munuville, and then I figured out that the other cause of the less-than-wild numbers were because the Sitemeter is connected only to the main page, not to individual posts. The uptick I saw was from people clicking from the post over to the main page, and when I looked at my OTHER set of stats provided by mu.nu, I saw that the total coming over from the various URLs of Instapundit totalled up to around 3200 or so (that's pageviews--overall hits for yesterday was around 12,000). Now that IS a lot. At least for silly old Possumblog.

BUT, despite my gratitude for everyone coming by, the general interest in the number is really secondary. I'd be just as happy with one as with a million.

[And thus starts a semiregular drift into introspection--bail out if you wish]

I don't sell anything on here, so more traffic doesn't make me money. (Although, heaven knows I need the money.) I'm not trying to make it onto the newspundit circles so I can get a radio gig and hammer Al Franken into a runny fallacious paste. (Although, heaven knows it would make me warm and smiley all over.) It's a hobby--a deeply addictive one, to be sure--but it is nothing more than it is. I like having someone to talk to, and there's not a lot of folks around where I work with whom I share a lot in common. All the folks I could talk to have run away to more hospitable jobs, and so I could sit and be glumly silent, or I could go make some other friends.

Computery-virtual-type friends, yes; but they seem to go well with all the voices in my head and my cast of imaginary friends. It does make me feel good when I'm able to write something other people like, but I don't think to myself, "I'm going to try to write something other people will like." I just write what I want, put it out there, and see what happens.

Some days, not a lot. Some days more than a lot.

I don't get depressed when no one reads, and although it is vastly satisfying when someone does, and responds. But, it's not something I crave so much that I would dump money into doing this hobby the way I might with, oh, say, a twenty year old Volvo.

The thing I like best about this? I like it when someone comes by, and likes what they read, and thinks to themselves, "you know what, I can do that, too." And they start their own blogs, and get their own readers, and manage to influence the shape of their days, and give them some life and humor and information. That first time you ever read a comment or an email that says, "I read your blog every morning," well, it's neat, and I'm glad I've been able to inspire others to say what's on their minds by what I say on here.

The second thing I like best about this? For close to four years now, I have managed to do this with only the smallest amount of trolls coming by to make trouble. I never have understood that mindset of trying to run around all over the Internet to set people straight, or worse, to just be inflammatory for the sake of being inflammatory. Haven't folks got anything better to do? Well, obviously some don't, but I'm thankful only a handful have found their way here. I don't mind folks who disagree, but I've always believed you can disagree all day long and still be friendly and respectful about it.

The third thing I like best about this? The decision to add comments, back when I was on Blogspot. I was VERY leery about doing that, because it does require monitoring for spam and trolls and potential misunderstandings to be smoothed over, and all that does take away from writing time. But, as I think most regular commentors will agree, the comments are usually MUCH more fun than the original post. That may be because I don't see them as a way for people to use just to offer affirmation or denial of the point of the post, but as a continuation and expansion of the original post. So be sure and read the comments, or you might miss something. Oh, and I still like getting e-mail, too.

Anyway, that's enough soulful introspection for the morning. My head's gonna start hurting in a minute.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 20, 2005 10:24 AM