Fisheries blogging - is it sustainable?
I've put up 16 items on this weblog over the past three months, of varying degrees of "heaviness". These have attracted the grand total of two comments. This wouldn't be an issue if there were plenty of pageviews, but the one page I installed a counter shows that there aren't many hits.
I know from experience that, even if people appreciate an information-source, getting feedback from the readership can be like getting blood out of a stone. I also know from experience that it takes a while for the readership of a blog to build up, assuming it is worth reading in the first place.
And that is my dilemma. At this stage I don't know if it is simply a matter of time before what I put out here reaches "critical mass", or whether it is simply uninteresting.
I'll continue a little while longer though, and see what happens. Next week, when I'll be at the FAO Committee on Fisheries meeting, should provide plenty of food for thought ...
Tim
ReplyDeletehaving been directed to the site from your email, have had a look and there first item struck - Fisheries management index, and the links, as spot on for topicality and direct interest, for obvious reasons. Others browsed are of great interest too.
Not sure that being in at work on Saturay morning constitutes working hours or not! I think it should be sustainable - not sure what your marketting campaign has been.
I'd like to post a short note on Ecosystem-based Fisheries management, and will try and sort the technology shortly, I'm concerned, primarily, I suppose, that there will continue to be fruitless effort put into debate over the slightly different flavours of EBFM and EAFM and angels-on-a-pin debate that obscures the essentially more precautionary approach that goes with it, rather than the scarey emphasis on progressively more expansive, and expensive data gathering that there is a lot of arm waving about. The particular concern, of course, is in data-poor fisheries, but data come in several shades too--- the important thing to me is the shift of the frame of reference to a system base, however defined, and of course, spatial anchors.
Thanks for the feedback, Gordon. I am encouraged to continue.
ReplyDeleteI guess I haven't publicised this blog because I'm not sure how much I should be saying. On the one hand, the director of an intergovernmental programme has certain obligations when it comes to "transparency" but on the other hand there is also an obligation to avoid being considered a "loose cannon". It is a fine line to tread.
However, the bottom line is that a weblog, with its built-in mechanism for allowing feedback, seems to be at least a good way as any of bringing up issues and talking about some of our work. I've just got to be careful about straying too far onto politically-contentious topics (and I don't mean intellectually-contentious, but topics where different SPC member governments have expressed different positions).
Thanks Tim for your comment. Now that we have read each other's blogs we have doubled the readership. I promise to visit again in the distant future.
ReplyDeleteEmma
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