I’ve been thinking a lot about blogs lately. The idea of the blog as a standalone site, an Internet destination unto itself, has long since passed. Blogs today function more as repositories of content accessed through social media, RSS feeds, and aggregators.
With this in mind, I spent the past week tinkering with The Granite Studio, cleaning up the pages, and streamlining the site. Whole posts on the home page have been replaced with titles and excerpts, past posts and subject headings can be found on the archives page, and lists of my favorite China blogs and news sources now have their own page.
One other important change is the lack of comments. Commenting used to be one of the defining features of blogs and I’ve enjoyed the dialogue in the comments section of this and other sites. But over the past few years, I’ve noticed that more and more of the substantive conversation takes place in the realm of ‘social media’ leaving the comments section of blogs and websites the domain of those with more time than sense. If there’s one thing I don’t have a lot of, it is time, especially time to moderate comments in a way that allows for reasonable and intelligent debate.
So I have made the decision to scrap comments entirely.
Nevertheless, I still like feedback. If you have something to say, if you think something sucks or you think a post rocks, feel free to drop me a line using the contact page. I’m likely to respond to particularly thoughtful criticisms and comments in post form.
Thanks to everyone for supporting the site. This summer marks five years of Jottings from the Granite Studio. It’s been a blast. Looking forward to more.
- Jeremiah (花崗齋之愚公)