If it isn't apparent, I'm losing quite a bit of my desire to preserve the history and link structure of this site at all costs. In the beginning, I felt that doing so was very important. I wanted to be found in google. And I wanted to ensure that any link to me would never be broken. These are both noble goals, but the headache that comes with them probably isn't worth it.
I set up Google AdSense in order to make a small profit from all the google juice I earn by being link friendly. To date, I've earned less than $70. Meanwhile, since Google indexes me very well and quite deep, I dish out lots of bandwidth to people I don't know nor care about. In most cases, the people visiting my site from Google aren't potential new readers… instead they are bored and stupid and resort to leaving dumb comments that I later spend time deleting. Further more, they refuse to actually read the material they are commenting on so, on those that plea for help I feel guilty for ignoring them and subsequently deleting their comments as opposed to taking the time to respond and simply repeat what has already been said. Further more, I get referrer spam like you wouldn't believe, even to pages that I have since deleted just to get them to stop spamming me.
I'm still stuck using an *old*, outdated tool to manage this site because I refuse to "upgrade" until the software I would move to (mine, or someone else's) has at least all of the features that this site does with a clear path to old link retention.
I'm |— THIS —| close to just saying "fuck it" and letting all the things I once regarded as important slip to the bottom of the priority list. Sure, 99% of my readers see my entires first in LiveJournal. But, if my new software doesn't support LiveJournal syndication right away… so what.
For the most part, people either read my site, respond to me on occasion, and will continue reading no matter how I write or where those words show up or they just read when they feel like it, and really, skim for the most part. And, why should I care if I'm catering to their needs or not?
Part of me wants to turn everything I do over to various free and pay services on the Internet. Then, my site will simply be a collection of information from all of those sources, redirecting you to that information on those sites when requested. I don't *like* this idea, but I loose control, I lose ownership, and I lose flexibility. But, it sure would make things a lot easier.
