by Ralph
on June 12, 2013
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William Grant Sumner, a professor at Yale long before the Great Depression wrote an essay titled “The Forgotten Man”.
“As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffereing, A talks it over with B, and A and B propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine…..what A,B and C shall do for X.” But what about C? There was nothing wrong with A and B for helping X. What was wrong was the law and the indenturing of C to the cause. C was the forgotten man, the man who paid, “the man who never is thought of.”
Amity Shlaes has used the forgotten man as the title of her best selling history of the depression. It’s a timely read given that our leaders in Washington have all but declared the current economic problems as the return of the Great Depression. One might hope that we have learned something since the last one but the jury is still out.
What impresses me is the superficiality of the history I was taught in high school – and this was back when education was the prime objective of the schools. Hoover was always presented as victim when he was actually a prime driver of the economic failure. Haven’t got to FDR yet. So far its a wonderfull, rich pudding with lots of details about key players of the time. 
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by Ralph
on June 12, 2013
I know it when I see it.
Until recently, the only criteria I had to decide the quality of a post was my own judgment. I didn’t have many comments and frankly very few actual views. Since I now have an audience and some regulars who come back, it seems like a good time to evaluate what is popular (generates comments) and use that information to provide greater value to those regulars. This is probably only part of a good strategy for growing a blog but since I am a slow learner I need to go with it and not let myself get distracted by details. I am so pig headed in thinking I am smarter than I am that it usually takes a 2X4 to the head to get me to change direction. So let’s go with this and see where it takes us.
At the top
The top two posts with a nearly identical score (29 and 30) seem very different to me. One is a list post which according to Problogger are popular. I came up with nine reasons that support a blogging schedule of one post per day and asked for suggestions for the tenth. It generated interest and some debate because there are different philosophies. There were many comments. This confirms the idea that list posts can be good. My second most commented post is about long words. It didn’t really start out to be about long words. I was thinking about my difficulty in focusing and I got fascinated by the word flibbertigibbet. Before I knew it I was carried off into a riff about long words. I used a second post to finish my original point and that second post with the ‘meat’ so far has only 3 comments. There is some kind of lesson there. I didn’t expect much interest in that word post. It seemed trivial but I went with it anyway. I don’t know how to explain why it was popular. I know it was fun to write. Maybe it was fun to read as well. I don’t know what the lesson is for that one or how I can use the experience to stumble into another winner. Oh well.
Number 3
We fall way down for the third most commented post, a second list post on reasons not to post daily. It received only 20 comments. It was probably too close to the other list but still it was number 3. Lists rule. Almost as good with 19 comments was a post about Failure. I was trying to counter the people who are always advocating being positive with the idea that you can’t accomplish your goals without failing along the way and that you need to embrace it.
Experience Counts
The next two are tied for fifth place. One discussing Change with my own experience as the example and the other urging people to eliminate self-doubt from their thoughts again discussing a recent mental struggle with myself. These each received 17 comments. This suggests to me that my own experiences when associated with a lesson make good posts that readers can relate to. Since a good number of my posts fit that general description, I probably need to look as these posts more carefully to discover what makes some of them more relatable than the others.
And Finally Number 6
The final post for this discussion was really a question to help me either be comfortable with my blog name or learn what I should do to change it. I got a great many helpful comments which convinced me to stop worrying about the name and focus on other more critical areas. I got 14 comments here and I don’t think I provided anything valuable to my readers except the opportunity to help me. If that isn’t a reason for me to give back, I don’t know what is.
And my conclusions are
So far my conclusion is that list posts are good, questions are good, having fun is good and lessons from experience are good. Now I need to step up the analysis and examine some similar posts that do not have the comments and see if I can discover more secrets. What else do I need to do to learn about what readers like and how to give it to them? Anybody have suggestions or comments?
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