Looking at my Site Metre, I see that visits are going down by about a thousand a month. Of course I realise that I am a Bore, but are there
other, technical, reasons, which a technical approach might remedy? I am very technically uneducated. Since it is as much work to write a blog read by 5 people as by 100,000, one has a natural disposition to hope that one might be read by more rather than by fewer, if one is to feel it worthwhile to continue!
Father, if you will forgive a few humble suggestions from a daily reader of your blog - whilst technical changes to your site are beyond my ken, I would possibly suggest that you concentrate on posts concerning liturgy & history (such as the recent posts on 1559) rather than posts directly concerning the Extraordinary Form, which in all fairness, cannot be used in most Anglican churches. There are already blogs which concentrate on the details of the EF such as Fr Zed and the New Liturgical Movement (if only you could be the NLM's Anglican correspondent!) What I, or perhaps others would greatly appreciate for example, would be a series of articles on the English Missal Rite which in their totality could be presented to a PCC/Vicar/training incumbent/diocesan bishop on the value and use of such a form of worship and to gain permission for it's use. Indeed I would also value your reflections on the Sarum Rite, the 1549, the details of the rite Augustine brought to these lands and whatever rites they used previously. Also, how to properly elevate the dignity of Worship for those of us who have to use the 1662, the 1928 or Common Worship. I hope these suggestions could be considered and know that I remain a loyal reader.
ReplyDeleteActually Father, your's is one of my favourite blogs. It is of a high intelletual calibre.
ReplyDeleteBy all means encourage the English Missal but really that is just the Extraodinary Form in Good English. I see no objectiobs to your talking about it about the Missale Romanum..
As for the Sarum Rite, So much of it is very lovely but I really don't see much of a future for it, at least at present.
And as for the 1549 Rite, about the only value I can see in writng on that is to show the surreptitious ways by which Cranmer changed a word here or there within familiar phrases in order to catch people off their guard and slip in his own meaning.
I don[t know why you are losing readers. Blogs which I respect list you among their recommended blogs.
Tell you what - if we all check your page ten times a day, the site meter will shoot up again.
ReplyDeleteOnly...you'll have to write more entries to reward us!
Could it be because of something like Google Reader? When you read your site from there does that register on your meter?
ReplyDeleteFather, please keep going as you are for you are greatly appreciated even in heretical places like Brighton where SCP members increasingly seem to reign supreme. (I am but a humble organist if that is not the biggest oxymoron of all time!)
ReplyDeleteNot only are your daily posts informative and interesting but they also help to keep me as sane as can be expected under the circumstances. The reason? I suspect that you, like OLJC himself, have a highly developed and wicked sense of humour.
I vote google reader too. I read every post you write. I also see others linking to your pages. But SJustin has a point too.
ReplyDeletestill I read,
thanks
You do know, don't you, that when the Protestant Truth Society expelled some of its members for radicalism, they simply reformed as Google Inc......
ReplyDeleteDear Fr: the wit, devotion, scholarship, wicked sense of humour, fair dinkum papalism and micky-taking of our enemies . . . I check in every day. Keep it going! Your little bits of trivia no less than your schloarly pieces help to keep me sane.
ReplyDeleteThe blog's great just the way it is!
From across the Tiber: the stuff's great; keep it coming!
ReplyDeleteOh, and come yourself, too, please.
ReplyDeleteMy son, fear thou the LORD and the king:and meddle not with them that are given to change:
ReplyDeleteProverbs 24 v 21
Doth God take care for oxen?
ReplyDeleteOf course, Father, until you are better paid the Site Metre is your electronic ministry's fodder. So, while ninety-and-nine are safe in the fold you prove your faith by works. And the lost lamb crying "Lord, Lord" but in novus ordo timbre will be gathered in rejoicing, though sought with tears in the good old Tridentine kind of way.
I do not read the NL(B)M or Fr.Z because they bore me and it's a sin to be bored. Obvious "life-style choices" made by blokes at the NL(B)M are troublesome, they are way too precious for me. Fr. Z while brainy is prolix and his site is so chaotically organized I never know where to begin!?! Sorry, Fr. Z - I'm sure I ruined your day. But, I do have trouble connecting with celibates...
I'll recommend you heartily to my friends. Your blog is one of the brightest spots of my day. I feel downcast when there is no new entry. Who else speaks so eloquently for every lost cause dear to the heart of the true blue Briton?
ReplyDeleteThe brighter and more inquiring minds in my congregation (there are one or two!) would I'm sure be as concerned as I at any suggestion that we may be denied the regular dose of stimulation which your blog provides.
ReplyDeleteAs Gideon found out (and as I occasionally have to remind myself – like last Sunday morning), sheer numbers aren't everything … even if they are gratifying!
Nebuly said...
ReplyDeletemeddle not with them that are given to change Prov 24.21
Hear! hear! The site is first rate as it is and much appreciated even in watery Burgundy.
Site meters are notoriously unreliable anyway.
ReplyDeleteYou say that visitors are down by a thousand a month, but how many does that leave?
ReplyDeleteA lot of people are on holiday; that might have something to do with it. There is also the counter-attraction of fascinating Parliamentary news, which at present I tend to read first, consequently perhaps reading your blog once every other day, but with undiminished interest. Don't stop.
Picking up on LBS's point about reading your blog every other day rather than every day: does your site-meter provide statistics about "unique visitors", based presumably on IP address (or even "absolutely unique visitors", which I gather from Archbishop Cranmer's blog is yet another measure, though I'm not sure what the distinction is)? If your site-meter is merely registering the number of times the site has been accessed, without further qualification, then we can easily redress the situation by doing as Sue Sims suggests and check out your blog several times a day. In which case, consider it done!
ReplyDelete