I'd like to thank each and every one of you who have responded to my request for feedback about my blogging dilemma. In particular, I'd like to thank Becky, Miriam, Lee, JMK, Bill, Apple, Janice, Denise, Randy, and Terry. I really appreciate that you took the time to leave a thoughtful comment for me. I value your opinions and am very grateful for your unfailing support. I must admit I didn't expect the overwhelmingly positive response I received. You all just blew me away.
Two days after I wrote about my dilemma, it occurred to me that I might be able to make use of the wiki I set up last year when I was writing my series on declining memberships in genealogical societies. I initially set it up more or less just to see how easy/difficult it would be to do so before I recommended it in my article. (It was easy, very easy.) I did upload that series of articles to the wiki but really never did anything else with it. A few people posted links to the wiki in the past year but that's about all that's happened on it. No surprise really. I haven't promoted it at all.
So anyway, I got to thinking that I could upload my next series of articles to the wiki and then write a "clean" synopsis of each article on my blog. That way I can publicly post the articles without worrying about taking a hit in readership on my blog :-) Just a few days later, Randy's comment suggested essentially the same solution using a different media venue but achieving the same result. I guess great minds think alike ;-)
To those of you who pointed out that the real issue is, "who am I writing for myself or my readers?", you are absolutely right. When it comes to censoring the content on my blog, or not, it is all about my objective in authoring my blog in the first place. Initially when I started this blog I was writing for myself. A couple of months ago I changed that. I stopped referring to my blog as being about genealogy, photography, and creative writing and slapped a "genealogy blog" tag on it. Since then I've tried to focus my articles on genealogy/Detroit Polonia and minimize off-topic posts. Why? In an attempt to increase my readership. One of these days I'll write more about why I'm trying to do that, if you're interested. Or maybe I shouldn't. I guess it's off topic from genealogy isn't it? I miss the good old days when I wrote what I wanted to write without restricting myself to a given topic. Blogging was a lot more fun when I was only thinking of myself ;-)
OK, Jasia, get back to your point! I'm convinced that there is enough interest out there in the topic I was considering to go ahead with my research and writing. Some people may be offended with some of the subject matter I write but I will proceed anyway and hope for the best. It is not my intention to offend anyone but to write interesting and educational articles on genealogy and family history that will include some of my own insight. I'm intending to do all my research and write all my articles before posting any of them. So you won't see them for at least a couple of weeks. But they're coming!
So thanks again to those who left comments and those who voted in my poll. You guys really come through for me.
