The Fifth Column Poll & Detailed Comments

I have written a series of questions that I ask visitors to the Fifth Column to answer. They will appear at the top of the blog until the summer. The Fifth Column encourages you to make more detailed comments by posting them as comments to this post.

The Fifth Column: First Year In Review - The Commentary

The Fifth Column has become perhaps not what I was hoping for when I first planned on writing Internet columns when I retired, which was to make a real name for myself with my self-assessed great writing. But a lot has happened since then, primarily the invention of the blog and the proliferation of blogs and bloggers, including many more dedicated and better than I could ever hope to be. There are some really great blogs out there and I am privileged to be in their company, even as a minor blogger.

I suppose with almost 5,000 visits by 3,670 visitors in my first year of blogging I should not feel too bad. From checking my stats I do have a sense that I do have some regular visitors and I know some bloggers have linked to me, either to the blog itself or particular posts. I do feel good about that. My biggest disappointment is in the lack of comments and I am not sure how to interpret that.

I do wish I had a greater sense of who was reading the blog and why and how many regular readers I have. I plan to post some poll questions in the near future to try to assess my readership better.

The blog did seem to take off, relatively, when I started posting daily (weekends and holidays excluded), in September, as well as when I became listed on Progressive Bloggers and New Democrats Online. I try to post at least one substantial post a week as well as shorter observations on the other days. I do not always follow the pattern and sometimes it is primarily medium length commentaries that get posted. I wonder if trying to post daily reduces the quality of the posts but then I think if I consider myself a blogger I should be able to have something to say everyday.

My blog also tends to be not just a political blog but to sometimes be a more personal blog.

The main thing that keeps me writing for a relatively limited audience is that I am also writing for myself. One of the first jobs I applied for after university was as a journalist but I did not get that job. Then I ended up working for the House of Commons where I was paid to read what Members of Parliament said and figure out what it meant. I left when the job was essentially dumbed down by new technology that allowed the work to be done faster by fewer people. The blog gives me a chance to write and express my own opinions after reading and analyzing other’s opinions for most of my life.

Lately I have found myself, more excited about blogging and thinking of more things to write about, even thinking that perhaps I should post on more than one subject per day. One thing I do try to do is to not just follow the “party line” but analyze the situation and call things as I see them - to be a progressive minded, but independent blogger.

The Fifth Column: First Year In Review - The Stats

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The Fifth Column: First Year In Review - The Commentary will be posted tommorrow.

The State of the Blog

I am very happy with the progress of the blog. It has been 9 months since I created The Fifth Column, two months of that was the development and testing stage, 7 months with actual new blog posts and the last two months with posts every weekday.

From April 1 to October 31 there have been 1852 visits by 1293 unique visitors with 2832 page views. The blog took its biggest jump in traffic when I started posting daily during the week. Being “syndicated” on Progressive Bloggers and Blogging Dippers also helped a lot.

This may not be a lot by the standards of the big mainstream blogs but I certainly feel that it is enough to make the effort worthwhile, especially as I do appear to be getting some regular visitors to the blog. I am also very pleased to be receiving votes on Progressive Bloggers, yesterday’s blog receiving 5 votes. I look forward to growing the blog further.

I am however disappointed in the low number of comments being posted, one of the main goals of the blog being to initiate discussion. So if you do have any general comments on The Fifth Column please post them in response to this blog posting, and please let me know if you are a regular reader of The Fifth Column.

On Blogging

It seems like I have always wanted to have a blog even before there were blogs.

When I attended Laurentian University I was active on the student newspaper, Lambda, and had a regular column, the Fifth Column, for which my blog is named.

My first personal computer was an Osborne 1 and I remember watching the dots go by as I downloaded files from computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) . My first Internet experience was with the Freeport based National Capital Freenet and I was one of the NCFs first information providers and one of the first NCF information providers to go to HTML web format with the Bridlewood Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) Information Service.

My political perspective was formed, as with many people, during my university years where I studied Political Science and was involved in student politics as well as the New Democratic Party. When I moved to Ottawa to work for the House of Commons (indexing the House of Commons Debates and Committee Proceedings), I continued my involvement with the NDP. After moving to Kanata, I became involved in municipal politics as well, in particular the Bridlewood Residents Hydro Line Committee. Since then I have stepped back from active political involvement but remain an interested observer.

Upon retirement it seemed natural to bring my interest in the Internet, politics and journalism together in a blog. My blog is still young and struggling to find it’s place. I do not think I have reached my goal of providing the type of writing that I think I am capable of - original and thought provoking. Finding a distinctive style, beyond avoiding using question marks (as my daughter informs me I do), is another challenge.

I think my blog is going to find it’s place somewhere between a personal blog and a political blog. As an avid outdoors person, hiker, mountain biker, kayaker and cross county skier, I am more than just a “political animal”

I have recently disciplined myself into writing something every weekday. I wonder if this is hampering my writing of longer more thoughtful blog entries, but then if I cannot think of at least one interesting thing to say each day should I really be doing this. Blogging daily has certainly increased the readership of my blog which encourages me to spend more time researching and writing this blog..

Let me know what you think of the Fifth Column. I look forward to seeing how it evolves