Summer 2019 blog pause

It’s time for one of my occasional breaks from blogging.

Unlike traditional blogs, which are usually the main feature of a website, mine has always been a bit of a sideshow. People mostly come here for the library of detailed articles, not my musings. The blog’s main business purpose has always been to demonstrate that “the lights are on and somebody is home.” Fresh posts are a strong signal to visitors that PainScience.com is actively maintained — not abandoned like so many information sites, especially the independent ones.

But I started comprehensive update logging in 2016 and put lists of updates on the home page and the “New” page (right alongside blog posts). Anyone can plainly see that someone is definitely home, blog or no blog.

Maybe it was never necessary to blog to advertise content currency. 99% of new visitors arrive here via search and see a fresh date on their landing page. Maybe that was all I ever needed, and this sense of obligation I have to keep the blog up-to-date is a bit obsolete.

Who knows. So much of what keeps this place working is a mystery to me.

Probably my update notifications should just be part of the blog, making it a cocktail of both the usual musings, excerpts, and digressions plus a steady stream of brief descriptions of new content around the site. Making that happen would be a buttload of work, though. Maybe someday. (Technologically, the updates are handled in a totally different way than blog posts, and it would take hours of programming to integrate them. I can do it, of course, but where’s the time? •sigh• I really, still, always need a full-time business partner who codes.)

Anyhoo, I have a couple new books to finish this summer, plus the usual infinity of other updates and content improvement projects to consider. It’s time to buckle down and focus on those. The blog will be quiet, but trust me: not only are the lights on and “someone” is home, but that homebody will be working as hard as ever.