Have that feeling, too. But it is more like . . . should this even be considered for delicious? And as I stated in one of my more blatantly neurotic moments during class . . . the course blog, well that freaks me a bit because I never feel fully comfortable in my own partial knowledge to say anything. And this from someone who advocates partial knowledge and scholarship from that vantage point all the time.

For me what all this has shown is that not only do I need to recognize how I conceive of time -- blog post too much time -- and space -- course blog for relevant information only -- but it shows me how I need to reconceive of writing, something Chris and Tyra have both brought up. I am working up a post that better articulates what I was trying to get at with my question of narrative in class, and I will post that later, but I just wanted to comment on how much potential I see in this blogging thing, but how hard it is to get rid of those old patterns and scripts about time, space, authorship, etc because blogs are written documents (containers, if you will).

I probably wouldn't say I'm kairotically obsessed, but I am kairos-sensitive (ointment for this?!). In other words, I don't think too many folks are watching our collective delicious cache. I like the idea of link sharing, but it seems kind of fragmented to me, and so the writing here seems to reflect more broadly on the course, on the folks in it, on other stuff (oh dear, I'm contradicting what I said in class the other day). But I do think other folks are checking out the weblog. It's just that we don't see the server data (Collin?) or have any verifiable sense--beyond comments--about traffic here. My suspicion is that more people are trafficking this site than we'd guess, but the same force driving us to good pupils is, perhaps, the force keeping commenters at bay. Maybe? When does a class blog stop being a class blog and start being a more robust collective intellectual think-space? Dunno. Maybe later in the semester. Maybe after the semester when/if we decide that we want to keep a collaborative blog going because we have things to write, share, work through.

I did set this up by asking you to keep this space relevant to the course, but that certainly doesn't require each post to discuss readings. And my sense thus far has been that people wait to post here until after they've done the reading for that week, which usually results in a Tuesday-Wednesday spike in activity...

As far as traffic goes, I am tracking that too, Derek. The stats thus far for February:

• Pageloads: 2652
• Unique Visitors: 1538

Even divided by 19 days, that's about 80 unique visitors and 140 pageloads a day--it only counts a visitor once in a 24 hour period, even with multiple pageloads or visits. Typically (and predictably), traffic spikes on Wed and Thurs--this past Wednesday, 159 unique and 285 pageloads.

The question of what keeps potential commenters at bay is, I suspect, partly an etiquette thing. It's identified explicitly as a course space, and so I'm guessing that folks are imagining that they should no more post here than they would walk into someone else's classroom and simply start talking. And that analogy seems to fit with the trend that Madeline's noticing--that an official/unofficial binary is settling into place.

Long comment, I know, but is it worth trying to relax that binary? There are some things I could do to make this look less official, and there are certainly strategies that each of us could deploy to make it seem less so...

cgb

For example...

Let me second Jen, "the course blog, well that freaks me a bit." I don't know what to write here that will contribute in a meaninful way.

It's really hard for me to do the Tues-Wed spike because of commitments here at Mizzou and so I think the posts or comments that I have made thus far fall flat because I'm not there. Well, and, because I think I have to think up something super-intelligent to say. I'll deal with that. And, I can post more and comment more, but I need an example and/or suggestions. Got any?

I'm struggling with the same issues. I start thinking about posts on Fridays, but seldom end up with one for the course until after I've worked out several other "writings" that don't appear in top-line blog stuff.

I feel more comfortable discussing the readings that the ideas of networking and blogging because it gives me a reference that at least seems tangible. I admit I could focus more on the concepts themselves and trying to see blogging and connectivity in a more tangible way.

I've been a slave to the Tu/Wed spike because my weekends recently have been so busy and have taken me offline, so I don't really get geared up to respond until later in the cycle. Also, mid-week days are just more available to me for course work. I do, however, often get time to read and ponder what I might post before I get back to the computer.

We do seem to have developed a genre of one, significant masterstroke for the week in the course blog. A product of our rhetorical situation or economies of time?

I don't know about the traffic on del.icio.us, but I love cruising everyone's links and I often get lost far afield. Thanks to you all, I believe I understand why they named it that.