Five years ago today I posted my first entry on this blog, "The Land Ethic." I wrote at the time that
I'd like to have a foundation for biodiversity conservation firmer than a sand bank along a Wisconsin stream. That's one of the purposes for this weblog -- to provide a place where I can try to work through these ideas and, I hope, to provoke discussion and commentary that will help us all to refine them.Well, I'd still like to have a firmer foundation for biodiversity conservation than we do, but I've wandered off into a lot of other topics. I post on endangered species and biodiversity, but I post on many other topics related to conservation and the environment, academics, biology, and even politics -- a hodgepodge of topics whose only common thread is that they happen to interest me. Of Farhad Najoo's , six tips for blogging, I've only mastered one (and you can probably guess which one it is):1
- Set a schedule. Blog often.2
- Don't worry if your posts suck a little.
- Write casually, but clearly.
- Add something new.
- Join the bloggy conversation and link!3
- Don't expect instant fame.
1I've got the last one down cold. Given the quality of the writing here you could be forgiven for thinking that I don't care if my posts suck, but I do. That's part of the reason I post so infrequently.
1It's worth noting that Manjoo suggests a posting frequency of six posts a week. That's something I could imagine doing, although I haven't managed it yet. At least posting 6 times a week is a lot easier to imagine than 20.
3Come to think of it, maybe I have 2 out of 6 down pretty well. I link to other bloggers pretty frequently (even though they never seem to notice).
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