Dusting it off

 I've been off and on going through this blog for *mumble, mumble* years to tidy it up. I downloaded the whole thing to preserve for myself as a diary of sorts but also to go through each and every post. I wanted to evaluate if posts a) should still be taking up space on the internet or b) needed some editing. To that end I have...

Deleted posts that-

• were relevant in that specific moment in time (sales, contests, events)
• centered on topics that I've moved beyond and others had/have more thoughtful things to say than me (like how many posts of me ranting against the BCS does the internet need to preserve?)
• were connected to dead ends (the internet is forever except when it isn't)
• were the 4th, 9th, or billionth link to a particular author/writer; feels like I should just link directly to their work at this point in the link widget
• highlighted people we ("we the public", I imagine a certain collection of folks always knew) now know to have been actively damaging to their colleagues/communities

[revert to] Drafted posts-

• where my thinking has evolved so much that I want to revisit/refresh the topic. This didn't end up being that many posts. That's not at all because I am some bastion of wisdom and knowledge knowing all things on all topics but because I was trying to be very careful to not wholly discard snapshots of my thinking in the past.

Edited posts that-

• had dead links
• had typos
• had unclear language
• used language I've tried to remove from my vocabulary
• had titles that were too connected to in-jokes or what was happening very specifically that week/month/year and so weren't really descriptive

There were a few posts that I outright wanted to delete for no better reason than I thought they were badly written, or lacked a coherant through-line of what my thoughts were. I can read between the lines since I remember the experience but I expressed myself so poorly the post absolutely did not make the point I wanted it to. Or the posts that address topics I know more about, or have more context for now so they feel embarassingly inadequate. However, in the end, I left them as part of preserving not just snapshots of my thinking but also how self-expression/knowledge changes... or how sometimes you just have a bad writing day.