I’ve been writing a blog in one form or another on the internet since about 2003, and have records of posts stretching back to about 2006. Idiotically, I didn’t hang on to the first few years worth of posts - they were most likely lost while hopping blog platforms back in the day - you haven’t always been able to export and import content as easily as you can these days.
It struck me recently that a lot of people have contributed thoughts and opinions to the blog over the years in the form of comments, and I’ve done little in the way of reaching out to them beyond cursory replies to their feedback.
I changed all that last night, and sent an electronic “thank you” card out to everybody who has ever commented on the blog, and left a sensible looking email address. The hard work of running Santa-like between the various global destinations was handled by Mail Chimp. Compiling the list of addresses required a little head scratching, but after breaking out Python, and an export of the entire blog from WordPress, that problem got solved pretty quickly (being a software developer has it’s benefits sometimes!).
This “reaching out” was perhaps triggered by my blog appearing on “Freshly Pressed” - the front page of wordpress.com. The response reminded me that the community of those of us who write is much bigger than the small group of friends I sat comfortably at the edge of. I also realised that only in recent times have I put any effort into thanking those who have contributed.
Standing atop the virtual pile of banana boxes I had constructed, and instructing Mail Chimp to go forth was pretty scary - but totally worth it when the trickle of emails began arriving from the four corners of the internet.
There is a world out there, and it’s vast.