The voluntary simplicity movement* of blogging and making websites

I can be very easily influenced by the latest “this is so hot right now”, even if I don’t pick it up / join initially. In some ways I can be extremely resistant (I only registered at del.icio.us today), but being… I dunno, human, I want everything to be lovely and good and for people to like me (and visit me a lot, and tell their friends).

So I think I need a shake-up. I’m not going to delete all my posts again like I did when I moved to WP (and as you can tell, putting them back is taking, erm, for-freaking-ever), but I think I need to remember that my personal website is just that, personal:

No more Blogsvertise. Fewer ads in the weblog. There’s no real need to have the domain / webspace pay for itself, even though it’s nice. I’ve written to them to get my account / profile removed, and I’m going to delete all those posts once it’s done. It may have helped me write about different topics, but most of them didn’t really strike me in any way, and I am also tired of receiving advertiser requests for posts about hotels in Sydney and poker. You’ll also have noticed that I’ve pretty much removed all the ads, save the Google bar in the footer and my Amazon aStore here and there. It’s just too much of a hassle.

Elements of my weblog should reflect elements of my life more. That is, I’m not going to let stuff faze me (except when people use ‘phase’ for ‘faze’ — it drives me mad). In life I’ve become very good at letting things slide. This is the first time I have uploaded a new theme / design and not started on a new one almost immediately. I like that I’m not so bothered about it looking perfectly modern or current or whatever. I’ve noticed that while I admire new, more modern designs on other people’s websites, I can never imagine having to look at that design every day.

Be organic. Not in the ‘no pesticides, I’m so green and carbon-neutral’ way. I will continue to write whatever I like (and I am going to be more self-disciplined with the work-personal life separation as of now), and I will stop thinking about SEO. I was a lot happier online before there was such a thing. I don’t really have an interest in web popularity contests because it’s too much stress, so I’m going to avoid adding plugins / widgets for social bookmarking to try and get my site noticed — it’s been six years, if I was gonna be up there, I would be by now — it’s time to give it up totally, even that nagging little wish. (I blame that early nomination in the Weblog Awards, it made me assume I was something I’m not. Hehe. Not my fault.)

Be kind, no matter what kind of day I’m having. I’ve always tried to be helpful if someone needs me in real life, and I try to keep to that online, too. It shouldn’t even matter if someone slags me off for something I’ve tried to do, because I know I’m doing my best with the best intentions, so I don’t need to be defensive. (And here’s something I need to learn to do more in real life — admit when I’ve done something wrong, promptly.)

Finally, remember why I started this in the first place. It was because I thought I was annoying people by constantly forwarding links to folk, typing, Check this out, or some such. It was fun. There are more funny sites now, so this should be easy!

* A movement of one, because I’m surely the only one who’s this lameass and has to write it down. So many of the websites I read are already perfect examples.

• 6 Nov 2007

• Thinking