Four years ago today, we began this thing – and, lo and behold, we’re still here!
HERE’S my original announcement, posted on August 14, 2008,
of what I called “The Issue At Hand Blog” (or “TIAH Blog”) – named after my
long-running APA and Fanzine column!
Back then, I’d never have imagined the sheer amount of FUN
I’d have with this endeavor over the next four years!
All of you who read and contribute to this Blog share in its
success! And, I define it’s “success” BY
that vast amount of fun! Both my group
of personal friends – and the many new friends we’ve made along the way are
responsible for that fun.
I’m very proud of the fact that, TIAH Blog is a “nice” place
on the Internet where “No Negativity” occurs!
There’s too much of that elsewhere, without my adding more. Check almost any message board for constant
examples. Oh, we will disagree here, but
we’ll do so in a civilized manner.
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| None o' THIS, see! |
I moderate comments – and recommend that all of my “Blogging
Friends” do the same – to keep out Spammers.
These are commenters, always strangers, who post a VERY GENERALIZED
comment (“I really liked your post!”), with NO specific reference to anything
ABOUT the post, and have their name link back to some commercial
enterprise. They can infiltrate many of
your older posts – and you’d never know it without Comment Moderation.
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| ...And, none o' THIS! |
But, I’ll confess that I also moderate for negativity. And, in four years, I’ve only received one
comment that failed to meet my civility standards. All of you take a bow for keeping those
standards so high!
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| ...or THIS! |
You should also know how grateful I am to receive Blog
comments. It means that someone took the
time to read these writings – and share his or her thoughts on them.
I always offer return comments – not because I like to “have
the last word”, but because I wish to acknowledge that person’s contribution to
our little get-together – and to further the discussion the commenter thought
enough of to continue.
There are Blogs that I frequent (one in particular) where
comments are left with no “return comments” – no matter how much the commenter
might add to the discussion. I don’t get
that! But, every Blog reflects that
Blogger’s personal style – and it is mine to show just how much I appreciate
your contributions.
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| Take a bow, ALL of you! |
Nowhere was this more evident than in my “Gold Key 50th Anniversary Post”, where the comments ran for two full weeks. This is one case where the comments may have
offered even MORE (in the variety of different areas covered and places the comments
“went-to”) than the post itself. I
continue to thank you for that!
And, considering the hoops that Blogger requires one to jump through these days in order to leave a comment (wavy letters and numbers that are often difficult to duplicate), your contributions are appreciated all the more!
And, considering the hoops that Blogger requires one to jump through these days in order to leave a comment (wavy letters and numbers that are often difficult to duplicate), your contributions are appreciated all the more!
The original “The Issue At Hand” printed column (or “Dead
Tree TIAH”, as Chris B. put it) ran from 1994 thru 2012. Let’s see how long we can keep this one
going!
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| Someone should bottle it! |
4 comments:
Congrats! I'm glad we have a place to read your stuff now that, alas, your letters-column hegemony is no more.
As far as comments goes, my compromise is to leave them open for--I dunno, a few weeks, I guess? The system does it automatically--and have them moderated after that, which seems to work fairly well. Though actually, these days, blogger is pretty good at weeding out spam comments before I even get to see them.
Thanks, Geo! And, yeah, those letter columns were fun!
These days, Blogger is getting pretty good at weeding out COMMENTERS too! I swear those skewed letters and photo numbers are getting harder and harder to discern. I sometimes have to click “Edit” multiple times, just to get a configuration that I can see clearly enough to duplicate.
If I said you don't post as often as I want you to, would that count as a negative comment? :P
Congrats Joe! I always look forward to seeing a new TIAH post pop up in my feed.
…And, speaking of “new friends made along the way”, here’s Joecab!
That is absolutely not a negative comment! And thanks for the kind words and wishes!
We’ll never have a “Mark Evanier Level” quantity of postings here, but I DO try to space them out at about two per week. I want to keep it fresh, yet manage to work within all the other things life piles on me. And, yes, I actually do say to myself, “This post should stay up for X number of days.”, and usually have a “next one” ready to go.
The Looong DVD Reviews take the most amount of time and effort… formatting them from MS Word, finding and saving the illustrations, and placing them in proper places. (They also get the highest number of hits, BTW – by far!) I’ve got a bunch of them already written (some sitting for quite a while) and several more currently in-progress, but waiting for me to find the time to do all the other stuff they require. MS Word and Blogger being incompatible doesn’t make that any simpler! That’s where easy posts, like things with Comic Book Covers, take up the slack.
Finally, if we double our time here and reach EIGHT years, what will I do when I run out of “Lost In Space Third Season Opening Freeze-Frame Title Graphic Countdown Numbers” to use to illustrate the anniversary. They started the countdown at 7. :-)
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