Winter Cleanup

A bunch of circumstances colluded to motivate me into making some changes on this site I’ve been meaning to get to for a while.

Firstly, under the “Social Context” links provided to the right, you’ll notice that the links to my FOAF file and Blogshares are gone. I axed my FOAF because nobody was using it according to my server statistics and because FOAF, like so many RDF/semantic web initiatives thusfar, is an awkward pain-in-the-ass way of conveying information that doesn’t yet have either a usable interface or clear purpose (and this coming from someone about to embark on a very FOAF-centric project this past summer. Diss!). The Blogshares link is gone because Blogshares has, in the last week or so, closed, reopened, changed hands, and is in a general state of flux. Blogshares was also boring about a week after it started. Unlike the Jerkcity boys I’m not suicidal over its passing. Yawn.

Secondly, I’ve re-written my “About” page to be a bare-facts list of things about me. Anything you’d like to see added I’ll happily consider, but the goofy narrative that was there before had to go.

Lastly, and still in the same vein of goofy narratives, I’m taking Betsy Devine’s advice about some of my personal posts. She says, wisely:

Don’t blog your drinking habits, pet peeves, relationship issues, etc. in a personal blog that’s on the first page of Google when [a potential employer] types in your name […] limit yourself to corporate/geeky stuff on any page linked to from Google results for your name.

Sage advice. A Google for “Alexander Payne” usually offers this site, or a recent post from this site, on the first page of results. At times I’ve been blogging near-daily I’ve actually beaten out the director with whom I share a name. Do I really want potential employers and strangers knowing about my breakups and such? Nope, not really; I usually regret posting that sort of thing even for my friends. So I’ve cleared a few things out the “Personal” category archive. I was hesitant about deleting a couple of those posts for fear of losing the supportive, insightful, and pleasant comments attached to them. But, for the same reason I hardly keep any pictures, I’m comfortable keeping those comments and memories to myself.

It does feel a little dishonest to have deleted these things I’ve shared with anyone and everyone, like I’m re-editing history (now I know how the Bush administration feels! ba-zing!). But, just as I remember writing those posts, so too do any friends and regular readers remember reading them. I’ll exercise a little more discretion in the personal matters I post here in the future; things like my move home I see as apropos, an update for my far-flung friends and well-wishers. Relationship issues and the like, well: this isn’t a LiveJournal. It’s fine to write those things, no doubt, but this just isn’t the space for it.

I considered seeking out such a space, slightly more personal and dissociated from this “professional” online identity (cough) , but I just can’t see that being useful. If anything, barring myself from posting personal issues here should get me back to writing more interesting and critical material, something I feel like I’ve been away from for a long time. It may be cathartic to write about my personal life, but it’s rarely writing I’m happy with or proud of in hindsight. And that pretty much settles the matter for me.

So there you go: couple little things, couple big things. Now back to your regularly unscheduled blog.