What if you’re interested in some of the things I write about, but not really the rest? The “categories” system helps you to pick out only the strands you’re interested in.
(See “categories” list. Unless you’ve got an unusual browser setup, it’ll be in the sidebar down the left hand side of the page. One or more category links also appear at the end of each article – depending on which categories the article has been placed in. Each “category page” is a kind of index for its category.)
With or without a feed reader…
If you don’t have a feed reader (and don’t want to bother setting one up), then you can simply bookmark the “category page(s)” you’re interested in, and visit from time to time.
If you do have a feed reader, you can set up custom feeds for the strands you want. Go to the “category page” index for that category (via the link in the “categories list”). You’ll see a feed link there for just that category on its own.
How categories are organised on this particular blog
You may notice that in the list, there’s a hierarchy of main categories and subcategories. Any main category also includes the articles in all its subcategories.
Different blogs set up their category lists in different ways, but I’m thinking of my main categories as “catch-all areas” and the sub-categories as “strands“.
So, to put it another way: Viewing any catch-all area will also get you all the articles in all its strands.
Duplicate articles?
If you chose two categories you wanted to follow, it’s possible that sometimes an article would appear in both of them, and you’d see it twice. So the system isn’t absolutely perfect. But I think it’s well worth having anyway, for the flexibility it provides.
If your interests include several of the strands under a catch-all area, you might think it was worth selecting the whole area. E.g. the “Queer etc” catch-all category would give you all the bi, queer, bdsm, polyamory & trans articles, with no duplication.
Or, on the other hand, you might just want two or three from that list, and want to skip the rest – in which case you could make a custom selection of several strands (but at risk of occasionally getting duplicate articles).
Background principle
I’m imagining that most people will want to read either
- one of the catch-all areas, or
- one or more of the (more specific) strands, or
- one catch-all plus a couple of strands from a different catch-all, or
- the whole blog.
So I’m categorising articles to fit in with that.
Examples
For instance, if you’re only really interested in the “non-school education” strand, because you like to keep up with what’s being said about that in particular, then you can get that on its own.
Or you might want the catch-all parenting category, which would also include other parenting topics.
You might have a particular current interest in intuition and unconscious wisdom – but on the other hand, you might want whatever I have to say on the general subject of “Life & creativity”.
Take your pick :-)