“Breaking up is never easy, I know, but it’s time to go” – ABBA
This will be my last post on Nature Network.
I’ve been blogging here since January 2008, and I’ve greatly enjoyed being part of the community. I’ve “met” and become friends (no quotation marks) with some wonderful people, and I’ve had a whole heap of fun. However, there have been several times over the last year when I’ve wondered whether it’s all worth it – as a blogger, not as a commenter, I hasten to add. Some conversations I’ve had over the last few months – some private, other more recent ones on NN (e.g. here, here, here, and here ) – have made me realise that really, it’s just not worth it any more.
Put simply, the benefits of the status quo should outweigh the drawbacks. And they don’t.
Here’s my reasoning:
Drawbacks
When I started blogging here I kept up my original Blogspot blog for my many non-science related posts, and almost immediately realised that it takes a great deal of extra effort to compartmentalise my blogging efforts by splitting them over two sites. I usually have a good sense for which ideas belong on which blog, based on category – but then depending on the tone of each individual post, some categories (notably my grant-related posts) get split between the two sites.
There’s also the problem of motivation. Like any blogger, I go through peaks and troughs of activity – sometimes I have more ideas than I have time to post, and at other times I wait weeks for inspiration and motivation to strike. The specific kind of motivation I need in order to write science-related posts waxes and wanes even within that overall variation in output, meaning that if I happen to hit a trough within a trough, I sometimes have so few ideas for posts on this blog that it starts to feel like a chore to keep it up.
Besides, the split feels increasingly artificial. There’s not a Scientist-Cath and an Other Interests-Cath – they’re all just different aspects of who I am as a whole. Things would just be so much more natural (not to mention easier) if I was blogging on just one site.
So much for the drawbacks of maintaining two blogs. What about the drawbacks of blogging on a network provided and controlled by a corporate entity?
Well, this is another thing I’ve struggled with. I have nothing specific against NPG, but they’re still… The Man. There are always going to be restrictions on my blogging – for good reason, I do understand that – but it still grates. Earlier this year I had the experience of asking permission to write a specific post, and being allowed to include most, but not all, of the features I wanted. Again, I understand the reasons for this – that’s why I asked – but there are no such restrictions on my other blog (compare and contrast). Plus over there I get control of my header, blogroll, stats, comment policies, and other features (such as my popular “Bragging Rights Central” feature where I quote and link to my favourite comments and posts of the week in the right sidebar).
Benefits?
When people talk about the benefits of blog networks, they usually mention increased traffic and visibility.
Well, yesterday’s events confirmed a suspicion that’s been nagging at me for a while.
I already knew that I have far, far fewer subscribers to my NN blog’s RSS feed than to my other blog’s feed (based on Google Reader stats). But that’s OK, right? Because it’s a network, so you don’t need RSS! People will find your blog from the main blogs homepage!
Erm, no. It turns out that even other NN bloggers, who know the site and the system, can’t find my blog that way and forget that it’s there.
Hence my little “if you read this blog, please click through to where I can see some stats” experiment yesterday.
Here are some graphs showing the relative hits I received from that NN experiment post over 24 hours, compared to the first 24 hour’s worth of hits on the last post on my Blogspot blog (the two were written ~8 hours apart and I tweeted both links. According to my j.mp URL shortener stats, the NN post tweet got 50% more clicks than the Blogspot post tweet). My RSS subscriber stats are also shown.
Yeah. Not so much of a benefit, eh?
The hits on my recent Blogspot blog post are almost certainly an underestimate, as I don’t know how many of the people who viewed just my main front page over those 24 hours read the post in question, so I didn’t count them. However, I’m confident that I captured every single person who clicked through from NN.
A silly post I wrote this morning consisting of a photo of my dental floss has more hits in 8.5 hours than that NN post managed in 24.
The interesting thing is that the majority of the people who clicked through from my NN blog weren’t first-time visitors to my other blog. In fact many of them are frequent visitors and/or regular commenters. But they don’t comment over here – and I’ve had two people confirm that this is because of the NN login requirements, which I understand are not going to change.
Conclusion
I’m sorry, but the drawbacks of blogging here far outweigh the benefits. It’s clear that the best thing *for me* is to consolidate all my blogging on my Blogspot blog, while continuing to read and comment here so that I can enjoy the community and hang out with my friends.
This is not about MT4 – the technical problems will eventually be resolved, I’m sure. This is a personal, selfish, and lazy decision based on what’s right for me.
It’s not you, it’s me. No, really, it’s me.
Staying in touch
I do >80% of my blog reading through RSS feeds (and the rest through blog rolls), so I’ll still read all the blogs I currently read, and can easily follow them wherever they may wander over the years.
If you’d like to stay in touch (and I really, really hope you will), I’ll be blogging here.
I’m also on Twitter.
See you around… probably tomorrow morning, in the comments… you don’t get rid of me that easily!
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WTG Cath. You trick me into giving into registering then just walk away chuckling. Only joking. I have read this blog as often as your other one, and will miss your split personality blogging over here but no real loss as I am sure your blogspot place will get progressively more sciencey.
That’s the plan – most of my commenters over there are scientists, and judging by the IP addresses I see, so are many of the lurkers. The ones that don’t want to read the science posts can just skip them! And it does seem that most people who’ve been reading this blog read the other one anyway.
Long time lurker here very sad to see you go, Cath, but as someone who largely fails to maintain even one blog, I can certainly sympathise with the need to simplify. Good luck and hope to still see you around these parts 🙂
PS: I have your Twitter, so fear not, I’ll be sure to tweet you if I ever see another Shearer shirt walking past my building. Wouldn’t want you to miss the really important things!
nooooo… i’m not good with this break up stuff… and you quote ABBA… (on a ide note; Abba is a huge fish/herring producer back in Sweden so the capital letters are there for a reason 😉 )
Anyway, I’m partly just joking since I read your other blog and therefore will get my “Cath dose” still. And I sorely need that one!!
The other part of it, well maybe I can comment more tomorrow. I am true about not dealing with all this up in the air thing real well at the moment.
As long as you are happy though, that is the base line.
Surely I can’t be the only one who reads (ahem: used to read) this blog more regularly than the other one? I promise I’ll try, but I worry that I might miss the sciency posts on the Blogspot blog (I miss so much anyway…!).
I heartily approve of brave decisions.
See you on the other place! I’ve mostly followed you only here, but happy to trek over there and experience the fully integrated Cath version!
Aww, I love you guys!
And not just because I dealt with the trauma of ripping off this bandaid by going to the pub with Kyrsten and 19 of her closest friends.
GROUP HUG!!!
Personal responses in the morning, I think 🙂
(please bear time differences in mind when judging me for the previous comment. KTHXBAI).
Aw man. I do read both of your blogs, but this one faster and more often. I haven’t yet seen your latest on blogspot and did click through on the NN one. But at least you still have a blog somewhere, and it’s in my feed already, so when I’m not suuuuperbusy like now I can catch up on… dental floss? Okay! =)
I’m genuinely sorry to see you go, Cath. I’ve very much enjoyed your posts here and you have always made me feel welcome on the (rare!) occasions I plucked up the courage to actually comment.
(BTW, I’m trying very hard to suppress the urge to say AHA, Alan Partridge style….. doh! Failed!)
Sheesh – very sorry to see you bail out of blogging here Cath, though I understand the reasons. I do hope you’re wonderful sense of humour will crop up regularly in the comment threads…!
Very best,
Stephen x
FWIW, a partial solution that sciblogs.co.nz use is to allow people to syndicate posts to the main site. They don’t have to send every post over, but can arrange things so that a post category is syndicated with the remainder only being on their “parent” site.
I have to admit for many reasons (all small and no one worth holding up as significant on their own), I have wanted to find time to explore moving off the main site and syndicating, one being that I would feel freer to write well off the subject of science. (I suppose I could just make public the parallel blog I already have half-ready to go…)
I’ve noted your new location in my growing science blogs list. (Was it Lou that mentioned that Nature Networks scans 800-odd science blogs? Is this list publicly available?)
Grant – I think this is the most compact version.
Cath – ack! Now I know how you felt earlier this week. Like Steffi, Eva, Jennifer and apparently others, I did actually read this blog more regularly than your other, usually because I was around here anyhow. But since science blogs are numerous in changing their coordinates lately, it’s not a real problem to change one more little habit among many.
Your reasons for moving back to vwxynot are clear and well explained. I hope that, now that the value of aggregation is becoming increasingly recognized, in particular by Nature, that one’s host and personal freedoms in style no longer will matter so much since everyone will be accessible and visible from these aggregators. Thanks to Grant and Frank, and others, for talking (writing) more and more about these possibilities and about evolving to a kind of Science 2.1 where the ecosystem supports individual bloggers or other kinds of contributors just as well as networks to everyone’s mutual benefit.
I’m sad to see you leaving.
I have been reading you blogspot blog through RSS, so see you on the othe (side) site.
Frank,
Thanks for that.
Having a quick look, with I think one exception, none of the New Zealand blogs are listed 🙁
(I haven’t checked them all.)
Or, put another way the fame of the blogs at sciblogs.co.nz doesn’t extend to the other side of the world 😉
(I’m kidding, I’m kidding…)
Off to add my blog to the list, as if it needs more.
Ahem.
Coherence levels are now medium, and rising.
Thanks, everyone – you’re all yakawow!
Joanna, things will certainly be easier with just one blog to think about! And definitely let me know of any other NUFC-related news. I’ll be happy if we just stay up this season – to be honest I kind of enjoyed the feeling of being a big fish in a small pond last year, and actually winning some games for a change!
Åsa, sorry 🙁 Break-ups always affect the mutual friends too, right? But I’ll still see you in the other place! (And I fixed the ABBA thing – thanks for that!)
Steffi and Eva (and anyone else who only wants to read my science-related posts rather than photos of dental floss and the other random crap I blog about) – maybe I can use a Twitter hashtag when I tweet links to the posts that previously would have gone on this blog? Like maybe #scicath, which no-one else seems to be using, although I’m open to better suggestions! Maybe #NotNet? 🙂
RPG, thanks! It initially felt more lazy than brave, but then I realised that I was in fact mildly traumatised! 🙂
Jenny, thanks! I really appreciate that. RSS makes this kind of thing so easy (and please see previous comment about hashtags)
Dorothy, I’ve had that stupid song stuck in my head ever since I wrote this, with the “AHA!” in there too 🙂 Thank you for your comment, and for reading – and remember that you’re always welcome to comment on my other blog, any time!
Thanks, Stephen! I will definitely be haunting the comments; like I said, you don’t get rid of me that easily!
Grant, that’s a really good idea. I’ve been wondering whether that kind of thing might be possible, but hadn’t actually got to the stage of investigating yet.
Viktor, thanks! Keep up the good work with your cartoons – a few have featured in my Post of the Week section, and I’m sure there’ll be more!
Aw, it’s such a shame to see you go, Cath. I’ve really enjoyed your thoughts here over the years. I completely appreciate your situation – I’m also stretched out over multiple blogs. Of course, you’ll always be welcome here on Network, whether as a commenter or reader.
[hits “sign in to comment”]
[waits for 5 seconds or so]
[re-scrolls back down to bottom]
Cath – you just made my life easier, thanks. Reading you at your one personal blog will be much more seamless than reading you in two places, particularly given the tick-tick-tick-wait involved in everything that NN does. This is turning into a mass exodus…
I already read your personal blog (soon to be Cath Blog United), so I’m not saying goodbye.
Harrumphh! 😉
Sad to see you go 🙁 But so happy you have the other blog. See you over there
Cath – you’ve gone Gaga. And you may not be the only one.
(I hope this works)
Bum
Double-bum. My earlier comment that was just after Grant and Frank is STILL held up in moderation? Yegads, there was a link in it.
Perhaps, Bob, all is not lost forever? I’ll try to post my new test link in another comment.
Test link
Well, I can LINK to it. (So where the !&@^$!@ is my other comment, much more innocuous?)
But can I embed it?
Standby.
Thanks M@! And thank you for the original invitation to blog here, and for the support ever since.
Richard, hooray for an easy life!
I don’t think this is a mass exodus – just two bloggers, and I’m only a wee fish in this pond.
Well, maybe a medium-sized fish. On a good week.
Kristi, or One Blog to Rule Them All? See you over there!
Thanks, Elizabeth! Hope to see you over there too!
Bob, were you trying to post more high-quality music videos?
Waiting for our Chilean friend to weigh in. Well, it doesn’t show up on preview of this comment, anyhow.
Maybe it’s an issue with Shockwave Flash?
Cath, can you check in the moderation queue? Otherwise I will have to put M@ to more work. When I did submit my other comment, it did say it would be held for moderation, I thought maybe that was for all comments. I had put links to other discussions, trying to follow up on syndication and so forth.
Everything looked OK from the back end – but I did have some comments flagged as needing approval in my email. Hopefully everything is OK now!
Thanks for your comment, and the interesting links. Food for thought!
Huh, Shit.
I threatened the same thing in the Nature bloggers private forum. Well, damn. I feel scuurrred now….
Hooray! Comment back up there. A bit outdated now, you might also have a look at this and this too… though I think you have.
So, it’s FOUR links that kill comments. And/or embedded video, despite earlier all that working just fine.
Sorry Ian, beat you to it 😛
Heather, I’m working my way through Bora’s post in chunks – it’s way too long to read in one go!
Cath> It was merely a little diversion for myself to focus on rather than the whole “we’re leaving”. I’m pretty sure you could find the herring at IKEA 😉
…and yeah, I’m happy you have the other place since I like dental floss and other diversions as well. Not only science.
Cath – as a newcomer to NN I’m really still feeling my way around, but knew I could count on your blog to be interesting and entertaining, so sorry to hear you’re off. In the same way that I bought my house just as prices peaked, have I started blogging just when it’s all about to fall apart?!
Cath – I’m going to fully admit that I haven’t read your NN blog since I stopped posting in March. Please know that it was nothing personal – I stopped reading all NN blogs because of the time commitment I had to give in order to keep up. But, as you are well aware, I read your other blog regularly and will continue to do so.
Also, all this “upheaval” (if you want to call it that) on the NN might finally give me the kick in the pants to just give up my blog here instead of keeping it online “just in case”.
I missed all this…sorry to see you go but will check the other blog from now on.
Keep in touch!
Thanks all, and sorry for the delay in replying to the new comments – I’ve been on holiday.
Åsa, “diversions” sounds like a great description of the majority of my blogging! I might use that!
Tom, I think the one thing we can say for sure is that the blogging bubble isn’t going to burst any time soon! So I don’t think you’ve bought a house at the peak of the market – it’s just that some of your neighbours have realised that they’re living in a part of town that doesn’t really fit them any more 🙂
Alyssa, no worries whatsoever, time is always an issue for all of us!
Ken, thanks!
Jacqueline, will do! It’s incredibly hard to get me to shut up (just ask my husband), so there’s no danger of anyone getting a chance to miss me 🙂
BTW, I’ve chosen a Twitter hashtag for my links to blog posts that would formerly have been published here:
#vwxsci
For this time I will surely comment for having following you silently for a while,you are really fantastic got lots of interesting tips fom you.Those peaks and troughs you’ve encountered is only a steps ahead in life.I think that this would help you positively to get through in life.Keep it up.