So, I’m starting over here at Naked & Ashamed. Here’s what I’m doing:

1. Changing the name
2. Clearing out the old plugins
3. Changing the theme
4. Cleaning up the links

The only functionality I’m keeping for sure is the tagging bits. The rest of it, especially Extended Live Archives, is going the way of the dodo.

Edit: I’ve replaced Ultimate Tag Warrior with Simple Tagging, as Simple Tagging is just a way better plugin. And smaller.

Prelude: My mother just brought me a little St Nicholas chocolate man. I don’t like chocolate much, though milk chocolate isn’t bad. It turns out the little man is hollow. I feel cheated.

Onward: I had a talk with Steve last night, and I think I’ve narrowed down the internet-connected public to three categories, at least in the context of blogging and reading blogs.

The Blind Eyes don’t really care. Blogs exist, maybe they read them every once in a while, but generally blogs aren’t interesting to them. Most of the older generation tend to be like this.

The Voyeurs do care, but don’t care to interact. They’re the hit-and-run drivers of the internet. They read blogs out of curiosity, out of boredom, or out of the all-too-human urge to cast judgment on someone or just to be nosy. Most of the generation who grew up just as the internet was exploding are like this.

The Socialites read, care, and interact. Even if they don’t care that much, they still interact. They primarily use blogs like their parents use phones: as a method of social interaction, and they create blogs primarily for that purpose. This is why blog growth has exploded amongst young people. Blogs are like a townhall meeting: everyone gets to talk, and everyone gets to respond. Most of the younger generation, especially teens, do this.

Postscript: For those of you reading right now, I really do encourage you to share whatever thoughts you have in the comment form. It’s easy to use, it won’t broadcast your email address to the world, and it will provide linkage to whatever site you choose if you do so choose. Be a man and sign your name; use at least some form of legible English; try to make a modicum of sense. Even if you think I’m dead wrong, or if you think I’ve missed a category, above. Or if you’re Geof Morris and rather invested in the blogosphere.

Finally, what class of blog reader are you? Feel free to invent your own category in the comments.

Again, let me harp on something none of you may care about. I’ve made some changes - things I’ve wanted to tweak for a while now, really - and if you’re aggregating this blog in any way, you should know about them.

First, tags are no longer going to function like they used to. Instead of /daniel?tag=poetry the link will be /daniel/tag/poetry/ just makes more sense. You can, if you wish, aggregate a particular tag’s feed if you like. For instance, if you’d like to read none of his blog except for all thing poetry, you can grab that tag’s RSS feed, or you could do the same with any of the others.

Also, if you subscribe to the main feed, you’ll have noticed how it includes the tag links twice. I’ve found the troublesome option that causes said duplicity and disabled it. You shouldn’t have that cosmetic peccadillo bothering you any longer. It always bothered me.

And that’s all, folks. Thanks as always to Christine for creating UTW.

I’ve added my good friends - alright, not really friends, but if you can know someone from poetry, they’re my friends - to the links on your right under the heading “Poetry”.

Katy, first off, writes some of the most interesting stuff I’ve ever had the pleasure to come across. At least on the internet.

Tom is a recently minted poet (something he was born with, I might argue), but his stuff speaks to me quite strongly. And he struggles against boredom; so do I.

Enjoy!

I have installed (thanks to my wordpress.com API key) Akismet. So not I have Spam Karma and Akismet running, which should also take care of trackback spam, most of which slips right through SK’s filters, though I suspect Dr Dave simply hasn’t written SK to take care of trackback spam. Edit: I suspected wrong, as Dr Dave maintains he did indeed write SK to take care TB spam.

Sheesh. I still fail to see who actually buys anything presented in a spam email anyways.

I get so much comment spam it’s not a funny little joke anymore. Seriously, I must get over 50 per day. That’s almost as much email spam as I get on my Gmail account!

This is, I think, more proof that spammers do indeed rule the internet.

As you can see, the old depressingly boring theme is gone, and in its place a theme called Fork, a modification to K2 done by some good people on the interweb.

Also, the shoutbox is back, and I’ve added a link to the sidebar called “My del.icio.us”.

dan (myyyyy precious!)

In the middle of having the most annoying day ever, I’m taking a break to install a couple new plugins, but only one you’ll really care about - and that’s the Democracy poll on the sidebar, way down at the bottom under the tag spread. Feel free to try and game the system if you want to. I can’t stop you. But it’s pretty robust all the same.

Also, I’ve plugged a Private Messaging system in; if you register as a user, you can send private messages to other users, or me, should you feel so led. So now you have at least four different ways of interacting with me and eachother via this blog. Can you feel the excitement?

dan (feel free to suggest poll topics)

I’ve started up a sort of technology testbed blog at http://scatterfingers.wordpress.com. Just thought I’d let you all know.

dan (booooooring for you…. exciting for me)

Okay, so here’s the deal. I’m looking for three people to be guest posters on my blog. That means you get a post on the frontpage, and you can say pretty much whatever you want, as long as scripture and my conscience don’t have anything against what you say.

If you want to, send me an email at scatterfingers@gmail.com and we’ll have a rum go of it, alright?

dan (or, alternately, use the comments)