Real data on this blog only go back a bit over two years ago, but nonetheless, they show an interesting picture of readership. Blog posts that have actual content can build up a considerable readership with time, although it remains a bit of a puzzle that the most popular Phytophactor blog of all time, read more than 7 times more than the 2nd most popular post, was a brief discussion of whether an artichoke is a fruit or a vegetable. Apparently a lot of people lost sleep over this question before Phactor helped settle the matter. Now this does bring up an interesting housekeeping issue, and that is what blogs to prune from the archives? Clearly those with real content of a botanical nature must be keepers. But then some rants, although spurred by current events, remain recurring themes in that after periods of quiescence they will suddenly attract considerable attention for a few days, for example, a riff about measuring learning, which suggests that this issue keeps recurring, erupting on campuses here and there like an administrative cold sore on the lip of higher education. Even a few oldies, a couple of posts with some wry observations that were ignored at the time have small eruptions of activity, for example the very epitome of campus fashion. So for now, the litter will remain until such time as hard decisions must be made. And until then this blog remains the undisputed king of artichokes.
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2 weeks ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
2 comments:
In your Artichoke post, after you ask the question "Now wasn't that exciting?" I nearly audibly answered "yes." So I guess that makes me a botanical nerd, even though I don't have a degree in the field. Thank you for answering the question in such an interesting way! I think you should keep all your posts, because they are always fascinating.
Surely any blog that contains the phrase "like an administrative cold sore on the lip of higher education" deserves to be saved.
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