For much of 2014, I thought daily, of shutting down thomascwaters.com. A number of things kept that from happening, including that the hosting site and name has been paid for through 2017. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be some changes coming. There are.
Beginning today possibly, the blog will have a new look and feel. As I’ve studied my blog analytics and thought a lot about user experience, I’m not sure the current theme/look of the site is serving me well. So, a makeover is in order as a way to better put forward what I write. Connected to this change, will be an overhaul of the commenting system for the blog. For some people it works, but for far more, it doesn’t, or it is confusing as to how to leave a comment. I’ve seen a marked decrease in comments, and the current site is probably most to blame for that.
Recent events in Pittsburgh have left me thinking much about what I blog about as well. I have not focused heavily on local LGBTQ stories. There are other blogs like Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents where local stories get covered pretty well, and blogs like The Pittsburgh Comet cover The ‘burgh in general really well. But then something happens like when Andre Gray went missing, and none of the local mainstream media reports at all, that he may be connected to the LGBTQ community. Emails fly around behind the scenes, but that’s all the farther it goes. Did you know that there are some thinking that there have been three missing persons over the not too distant past who may be a part of the LGBTQ community?
Back after the police incident at Pittsburgh Pride, a reporter for a mainstream paper asked me what was being said within the LGBTQ community regarding the incident. Hard to tell, I told him. I mean, other than reading Sue’s blog, my own, and Delta’s comments as reported by some sources, you would never have any idea what any part of the community thought about the incident. Because Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ community lacks adequate media and distribution of information. Don’t misunderstand that sentiment. I think Sue Kerr does an admirable job, but one blogger isn’t enough, no matter how much she gets right. We need more queer media reporting in this city, partly to fill a void left from the loss of a print publication, Pittsburgh’s OUT, and partly just because even with that paper, there was never enough media coverage. Times are a changin’ and the time is right for far more coverage. I don’t expect to become a journalist or a reporter, but I do plan to try and put more focus on local Pittsburgh LGBTQ coverage.
I expect to put more energy into HIV/AIDS coverage. I began this already, starting to publish a weekly post, This Week in HIV/AIDS. Look for that to continue and to get more provocative. We have a need for real dialogue that stirs up the status quo thinking about HIV/AIDS.
I have toyed a bunch with how to balance my social media time and my conventional blogging time, and have come to a few ideas. Social Media has become for me, in a really big way, a distraction form actual blogging. I waste time posting comments on Facebook, that could simply be blog posts. And I’ve come to believe that while Social Media helps some people stay connected, it is also a way to evade real connections with real people. Some people do “Facebook Activism,” where clicking that dreadful “Like” button serves as an action as if it will change the world. It won’t change shit. It doesn’t do a thing to really make the world a better place. So I am looking to waste less time on Social Media, more time being really social, and more time writing and provoking real change.
I’ll stop now so this list doesn’t grow and get too unmanageable like a list of new year’s resolutions.
Special thanks to my long time readers as well as my new followers. Here’s looking toward a 2015 full of thought provoking posts and wonderful dialogue via comments on thomascwaters.com.