You Need to Start a Blog.

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You Need to Start a Blog.
Posted Nov 13, 2025 - 22:49:20

You need to start writing a blog. Yes, you -- the person who is reading this right now, either on my blog or a syndicated version on one of the websites I distribute this to. You need to go out, find some web space or a blog host, and start writing a blog.

And you need to do it now.

I talked about this back in March in my post about being an internet cockroach, but we're siloing our internet into these social media black holes. Like I literally made a video about this today, and if you don't follow me on the specific platforms here I post those, you'd have no idea that I said anything about this. We're putting too much content into these black holes that cannot be archived, cannot be searched, and cannot be found years later. One of the reasons the web has, frankly, become worse is that we're feeding everything into these centralized platforms that hide from the light of day.

One of the things that used to make the internet so useful was that people posted their random thoughts to blogs on the public web -- be it on their own sites, LiveJournal, Blogger, etc. Your friends would either just visit your blog or subscribe to your site's RSS feed (here's mine!).

This made it easy to find information, let the sites get archived by services like Archive.org, and kept our platforms diversified -- in case one site went down.

Blogging is the easiest thing to do out of any of these things too. You just post whatever you're thinking the same way a lot of folks use platforms like BlueSky. Just... do that thing on a blog like this one.

You can self host like I do if you have the money, or use a dedicated blog platform. There are a bunch still out there. Heck, if you have an old TRHOnline account, you could even do it here (but maybe don't, my software is terrible). Between services like Blogger, Wordpress.com, Pillowfort.social, and a bunch more I've never heard of... there's a place you can put it.

Importantly the first steps in building a better online experience for everyone has to come from us. We need to refracture into the smaller communities the internet used to be driven by instead of the outrage and algorithm driven centralized platforms we have today. And the easiest way to do that... is to start a blog.

And it can be about anything. Whatever you're thinking. Just do it.

And tell me about it when you do.

Also, remember, you can pre-order Buried Memories, the fourth book in my contemporary fantasy series the Mia Graves Saga, out December 15th 2025.
- Traegorn

I still got my little place at james-strocel.com, but here's the thing, we have to do something about discoverability. There must be a way to have an algorithm that can't be used against us. It should deliver information that we don't expect or ask for. A true surfing experience, if you will.

Discoverability is definitely an issue, but I think we need to think of it differently than the way we've been trained to by the world of social media.

But that's its own blog post.

Have you heard about substack? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it as if it’s a blog- what’s your opinion about it??? I’m thinking about starting a blog with my writings and I’m between the substack or a website! Thanks for the encouragements!!

I'm not super fond of substack as a platform, but it's a legitimate solution.

I kind of rank things into tiers:

A tier- Self hosted, self owned.
B tier- Hosted on a platform you can easily export from if you need to move it
C tier- Hosted on a third party platform that seems insular

Like a B tier solution is Wordpress.com -- you're still using someone else's platform, but they have tools to export your blog and move it to a self-hosted Wordpress install. So you don't own the platform to start, but you can always move to one you do.

Substack is C tier -- it's better than closed off social media, but it's still kind of a captive of that platform, y'know?

A few of us started a site about criticizing and researching Wikipedia in 2012 called Wikipediocracy. It has a blog, and a forum, which has grown to over a thousand members. The secret is to be focused on an issue and be really annoying.

The Wikimedia Foundation is sick and tired of us being around, chewing on their ankle and exposing their many errors and follies for the last 13 years.

We've gotten press coverage from the Register, the BBC, Slate, and many others.

But we also discuss world affairs, politics, and random Internet craziness.

So come on by and lurk for awhile, you will see a lot of the non-commercial Internet in us. No tracking, no monetization, and kindness among the insults and rage.

https://wikipediocracy.com/

Registration at the bottom of the article.