The Melancholy Thoughts of a Known Weblogger

*Don’t be put off by the title – give it a read. It’s not often I make a post without trying to raise a titter or two.*
It’s a funny old thing with weblogs. Some are merely places to share amusing or interesting things – links, videos, pictures and the like. People click the links, laugh (or not), respond, and wait for the next gem of linkage to appear.
Many others are like online diaries – a place where the owner can put down their earth-shattering, life-changing thoughts. Throughout the day, these people have ideas, brainwaves, criticisms and thoughts involving the three main staples of life – namely jobs, relationships and family. Just like any other person, you might say – only webloggers go one stage further. They write those staple thoughts down, invite comment, purge their souls and ponder awhile.
wibbler.com has tried to be both of those things, bless it. It’s stradled the strands like a true workhorse. But I’ve come to the conclusion that a diary weblog’s effectiveness is directly proportionate to its anonymity. I’ve thought of many things to write about over the last month involving those three staples, and almost every one I’ve vetoed on the assumption that the views – or at least the public airing of those views – would be at odds with at least one of the people who read the site. I’ve even on several occasions had to remove certain posts I’d already made, when people have protested that it doesn’t quite fit in with their views (one of which I did manage to tell you about). And I suppose it’s a symptom of a successful weblog that every contentious post is bound the touch the nerve of at least one reader.
I’m sure that people who know me will now ask the obvious question. “Was it about me?” they’ll think. The probable answer is yes, more than likely, at some point I may have wanted to say something a little close to the wind involving your good self. It may even – are you sitting down? – have been a positive thing. Who knows? No one knows, of course, because I couldn’t say it.
Of course, I can’t complain at the attention – in fact, I’m glowing with pride, puffing out my chest and announcing to all and sundry how successful it’s all been so far. As I put in a post the other week, wibbler.com has brought me all sorts of visitors, all sorts of positive feedback and all sorts of little web projects. 3000 people a week visit to read me droning on; 200 people subscribe to my RSS news feed. 1000 people a day visit my subsite Boriswatch – a fact that doesn’t please my hosting company. I’m at my busiest yet with out of hours projects, and I only have this little trojan of a website to thank.
But I hope this goes some way to explaining (along with the horrendous hours I’ve putting in at work and the going out having fun part, of course) why the posts have been few and far between lately – and why the posts that do appear may be sporting those clever little rose-tinted glasses. It’s not that I don’t have a lot to say – it’s just that a lot of other people may not like me saying it. And that’s a sad thing.