Blog Pruning
August 17th, 2007 by MarkFor the first time in a few weeks, I have a little bit of free-time, and I don’t feel like going outside, either. Typhoons have that effect on me.
I’ve been thinking about pruning my blog. This blog is a mish-mash of personal entries, ideas I’ve been thinking about, news, and other things. Some posts are more transient than others. Posts such as NY Teacher of the Year Against School or Geeky, but Efficient: Firefox Tweaks are just as relevant now as they were when I wrote them. Others, such as iDrone isn’t dead, are completely useless (especially considering that iDrone is dead).
A part of me resists the idea of deleting anything, but a louder voice tells me that sometimes more is less. I’m not sure how extensive it will be, but the pruning begins soon!
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August 17th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I’d recommend not pruning. Ten years from now, or twenty or thirty, you might regret it. Sometimes it’s the trivia of yesteryear that’s the best stuff when you look back (or your kids look back - think about that!). Perhaps you could stuff all the prunings on their own separate page? Don’t delete - don’t do it!
August 18th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I agree. I would never delete any posts. Maybe organizing them differently, but never deletion.
August 19th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I’ll agree with the above. Don’t delete. I would also agree that arranging the posts differently or adding the posts you want to delete to a new category would be OK… but I’d encourage you not to delete them.
August 19th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
I third that. First of all, why risk deleting something you’ll regret not having later? Second of all, it is time consuming to go through your stuff and agonize over what to delete, or not delete.
I don’t even delete any pictures I take any more. I name the ones I like and leave everything else in a big folder. I am quite sure that 90 percent of them are trash, but the effort of going through all the pics do determine which one to keep is not worth the effort.
Same with your posts. Keep it all, and simply elevate your favorites to a greatest hits list.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:13 am
I appreciate the feedback, everyone. I’m a little surprised by the unanimity of your response. I’ve always felt that pruning away the weaker parts of a composition is at least as important as the act of adding more. My goal isn’t the archival of as much information as possible. What I want is to have something useful for myself, and hopefully for others. In a sense, my blog acts as my mental filing cabinet. There comes a point at which adding clutter decreases the value of the filing system as opposed to increasing it.
August 20th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Naruwan, I like your idea. If I had the time, I’d make a “pruned” tag, and then reprogram my blog not to display pruned posts in the index or the archives. They could be reached at toshuo.com/pruned or something.
August 20th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
I say prune away. It’s not like it’s not all cached somewhere anyway. Just don’t take it as far as the Biesnecker guy.
September 4th, 2007 at 2:22 am
“Thoughts out of Season”
1. Typhoon of wanton fickleness is want of fickling you.
2. There’s more of use in uselessness
Than use that you may find;
What useless now may in time be
to you is now denied.
3. Beware the knife that prunes the tree where wisdom’s flowers bloom.
4. What use pruning uselessness when you prunings prune!