Nice to get an email that begins like this:
I’m writing because I’ve been delighting in your website.
The message continues:
I found it really helpful to see how you manage to weave a thread through many diverse interests.
As you know I’m a blogger, and have been a daily blogger, but I’ve stopped for now. So I was interested to read your latest posts and I had a question.
I notice that you only keep a few posts online, and you have been using RSS.
I was curious to know why you don’t keep an archive of old posts? Is the motivation to keep things live, or current?
I like RSS, it feels internet old school!
Anyway, if you get a moment to respond to my curiosities, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I replied:
Thank you for what you say about my site. That means a lot.
I love RSS – which gives me something like the relationship with readers that I enjoyed on a newspaper – a very quiet relationship! – but I’m not sure I’m using it to best effect, nor whether many people even know what it is, let alone how to use it – my family have no idea – so I tend to imagine that literally nobody ever sees my output…
For some time now, I’ve been looking for a way to puzzle this out for myself. But lacked any reason or urgency.
I would love to talk to you about this – talking might be better than exchanging messages / emails? But maybe not.
More soon, I hope.