Tuesday, February 17, 2009

When is it time to shoot the horse?

I am not really asking advice on horse murder here, it was a metaphor. What I really want to know is how does one know when the time has come to delete one's blog.
Is it when one only gets round to posting something new once a month... at the most?
Is it when the comments on one's infrequent posts become even less frequent than the posts themselves?
Or is it when one no longer has the thought, "I'm gonna blog about this!" half a dozen times a day; in fact one battles to find anything at all that seems blog-worthy in one's life.
Ponderous questions, indeed.

But then what if one doesn't want to delete one's blog and lose all the hours of work that have gone into it in the sum of all those posts. One can't help but think of the time spent writing, rewriting and agonising over the wording, not to mention finding and editing pictures and photographs. A blog is a creative thing, something born of one's own inventiveness. Hitting the "Delete Blog" button is quite a big deal, when the blog in question has been a work-in-progress for around 5 years.

Perhaps I'll ponder the question a bit more. After all, no-one ever accused me of making decisions quickly.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd say only delete it if having the material hanging around is a problem or bothers you. Not updating terribly frequently is okay. I don't think that means it has to go.

Anonymous said...

Please don't stop. I'm a pretty sporadic reader, but I'd miss having access to your random thoughts and quirky humour. I just don't comment very often - that doesn't mean I don't enjoy your blog. In fact, just the opposite.

anne said...

Cyberspace is a big place it can surely handle an unused blog (or two...). x

Anonymous said...

A blog is ones personal journey in cyberspace. It's a record of those parts of ones life that we cared to share, be it work or personal. Unless there's a privacy or safety issue, to delete it would seem sad.

Terri said...

Jason - You're probably right. I guess it's my slightly obsessive tidiness gene that feels like I don't want to clutter up cyberspace with junk. Nice to hear from you; I'm afraid my reading of blogs is even less frequent than my writing of them!

Mom - Random and quirky, eh? Well I'd be hard-pressed to go against my mother's wishes, wouldn't I ;-)

Anne - Hello! Nice to know you're still around :-)

Gino - Sound advice, as always. It's good to hear from you.

Well if I follow general opinion I guess I'll leave this thing hanging around a bit longer. Who knows, I might suddenly find myself with loads of time and creativity on my hands... who knows what could happen :-)

BazL said...

How can I comment if I have nothing to comment on? Keep writing!
Love L

AngelConradie said...

hhmmm... i reckon that even if you decide to hibernate, leave your blog as is.
then again, if it doesn't represent "you" anymore maybe rather make it "private" rather than delete everything.
just make sure you give us enough time to let it sink in!
:D

Anonymous said...

I've been having the same problem, primarily because I am a different person to the one who started the blog.

Maybe the secret lies in reinventing your blog?

Terri said...

BazL - Yes Ma'am!

angel - Considering I'm the queen of procrastination, no doubt I will give plenty of warning. There are a number of reasons for me considering deleting the blog but I can't quite bring myself to do it. So I guess while there is still doubt, you can rest assured I will leave it as is. I may even updated it occasionally :-)

Katt - Indeed, blogging seems more complicated than it once was, somehow. I have tried an occasional overhaul but the last time didn't do too much to inspire me. It is an option, though, and a good one.