Transmigration of a Site's Soul

The first words I published in a weblog were on xanga.com. After some time, I used myspace's features. Still later, a friend of mine from high school - Chase Lloyd - offered to host a blog on his domain and server. However, in the last month, he published his last blog post and put a keep out sign as the main page. In the preceeding year, he had uploaded his final posts but not published them until the new year. So, it looked to all the world as though he and his brothers (whose blogs he also hosted) had gone silent.

I admit that I published little after June of last year. That's not to say I didn't write anything. I mostly produced programs in Java, as I was learning to use it last year. But I didn't journal either so it wasn't an introspective episode in my life. Further, Chase and I have not spoken substantially for about a year. I was always aloof from his end of our high school clique, much to my chagrin as it lasted longest locally after we graduated. My inclusion in D&D campaigns was always midstream and at another's prompting. This is no gripe, I state this to expose my perception. I orbited far from his social circle, and yet he usually found room in tales and on his server for my contributions.

So, I felt guilty about relying on a fading friendship for a personal and seldom updated archive. Occasionally I toyed with the idea of migrating to a site of my own. One project I'd like to finish is a family tree as a web of pages. If you've ever looked at a family tree of more than three generations (or three children), you can see the leaking abstraction in making a 'tree.' Namely, spouse's branches are almost never present. A multidimensional graph (as afforded by links) suits the project much more. It may lose some nicity in visualization, but they all look the same anyway because of the abstraction.

In the meantime, I had downloaded an offline wiki called Zim. I have posted a very few articles onto a site called everything2.org. (Imagine the lovechild of wikipedia and a fiction forum. It hosts a spectrum.) Unfortunately for my pride, many obvious articles have been posted. So, my main options are usually either large topics I know little about (1969, Jean Marie Jacquard), unreviewed media (Ingloruious Basterds, My Name is Earl) or a grab bag of stuff (revolving door, gas station). One good way of ingraining the knowledge I paid to acquire is to write it myself in an easily accessible format. Wikipedia is indeed good for a quick refresh or introduction, but a quick read is a shallow event for engraving.

Suffice to say, my offline migration is at a standstill as well. As noted, I wasn't expressive during the period. And the point of the preceeding is that I had many destinations for harvested thoughts, but let my fields lie fallow. So, I set the idea aside after noting that google sites offers little advantage for my needs and my budget won't permit vanity publishing currently. And then Chase gave a fast-forwarded 2011 retrospective before going dark. My attitude turned from elation to panic. Perhaps, he might let his domain expire. It wouldn't be just to let him subscribe for solely my account (ignoring any fondness he may have for the name himself). So I exported the xml and reserved this spot. This post might have eventually lead to my dispassion for xanga's archival export (straight html, I could have done that myself), but it is late.

A deque could be benefit a blog. One end points to the beginning and flows chronologically. New readers start there. Caught up readers read from the most recent end and scroll down, if necessary. Or use a main page with the most recent post and organize the blog as a queue? Of course, reading chronologically assumes that order is paramount in enjoying a blog, which is far from certain. At the moment - xanga aside - I have refrained from publising the imported shakytable posts. How much history is too much? I do anticipate a future where all we upload will be correlated to us without extreme care (ip masking from anonymous public terminals), so it won't be hard to find what I published as a teen. But, as BF Skinner's perspective notes, could it muddle my impact to keep everything in a single location or paste in my history every time I change horses?