Friday, December 27, 2013

Suggestions for Blogging in the New Year?

I am not sure if this blog has any regular readers other than my parents. The site meter makes it impossible to sift out real readers from bots. But, in the spirit of optimism I am going to assume that I have one or two, three if I am really lucky. To these few people I am asking what direction should I take this blog in the next upcoming year? There doesn't seem to be much interest on the internet at all in most of the topics I write about, but some do better than others. My most popular blog post ever by far is this one on communism in Africa. It has about three times as many hits as the next most popular post. In the last month my most popular post has been this one on the distribution of Russian-German labor army conscripts in Soviet labor camps in January 1945. In the last week my popular post has been this one on racial discrimination in the USSR quoting Marina Mogil'ner on how natsional'nost in the USSR "was in essence not only racial, but 'racist'..." So I am not exactly sure how to interpret these results. Any subjects you would like to see me cover more of in the next year?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm a new reader but I love this blog already. I don't have any suggestions yet because I don't know what you have written about so far. Great blog, though.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Thank you very much for stopping by.

Allen Palmer said...

Otto, here is a little item I thought you would find interesting--taken from the Namibian, a Windhoek newspaper:
"The Reiterdenkmal, the bronze statue of a German cavalryman overlooking Windhoek, was moved from in front of the Alte Feste on Christmas night. Media and residents could not get access to the site yesterday (25 December) as all roads to it were cordoned off. The statue was inaugurated on 27 January 1912, and erected in honour of German soldiers and civilians who died in the 1904-1908 Namibian genocide on the birthday of Kaiser Willhelm II. On 26 August President Hifikepunye Pohamba said, "this monument is a symbol of victory on the side of the Germans. This monument means ‘we have defeated them’. The horse rider must be removed."
There is a photo of the base of the empty statue.
--Allen Palmer

Anonymous said...

I am interested in your research and in hearing about life as a foreign academic in Ghana. For example, what did you do with your private library during all of these intercontinental moves?

Leo Tolstoy said...

No new topic suggestions, but get a camera and post pictures. That would be really interesting.

I've given up on my original blog; I'm just going to focus on the Tolstoy blog from now on.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Walt: I have thought about that. But, I take really bad pictures. I will, however, give it some more consideration.

Bookandsword: (sounds like a Jethro Tull album ;-)) I have most of my books in pdf form so they can be transported easily.