Yes, I should have done it a year ago, 25 years after the first post on the Occasional Informationist blog was made on 4th April 2009. Ah well, better late than never, for a reflection of sorts.
In particular, a reflection on why keep a blog like this going. After all, we are assured that no-one blogs any more, having moved on to alternatives: TikTok for instant impact, SubStack for money, or podcasts for those who prefer not to read text, and so on. And for those who continue to blog, it’s a different motivation and experience; I noticed with some sadness when WordPress dropped the BlogRoll plugin, which drew attention to other relevant blogs, because they believed that blog writers wanted to compete, not draw attention to others. Not least the changes to search engine algorithms tend to make the traditional non-commercial blog less visible.
That’s not to say that personal text-based blogs do not continue. I continue to value those like Cosmic Stories, Spitalfields Life, Centauri Dreams, A London Inheritance, and others. But they are a diminishing number.
So why do I continue? I did say in my first post that the blog would live up to its name and be occasional, so no matter that I have not posted regularly or frequently over the years. I am always pleased when posts are liked, or even cited in academic articles. But mainly, I have to admit, I do it for myself. It’s a very useful way to keep summaries of things that I think about, and I certainly find it useful to go to past posts for inspiration. “External compost for more internal thoughts”, as Luciano Floridi eloquently puts it in his Notes to myself article on self-publishing.
Nor am I alone in this. Floridi has told us that he uses his Notes to Myself series “to fix some thoughts in writing, and ‘secure them with a rubber band’ … to make some notes to myself, occasionally, a bit randomly, hopefully unsystematically”. And, from a pre-blog era, “Charles Darwin became an avid reader of his own writings. his scientific journey was such a slow burn, and his notes and works so lengthy and, well, tedious, that he would often go back to his earlier writing to remind himself of his once-fleeting ideas” (Caleb Scharf, The Ascent of Information, p122). Not that I would compare my writings with those of Darwin or Floridi, but the idea is the same.
So, on we will go. Occasionally.
The Occasional Informationist 