Why a blog?

For many years I had a static black-and-white website, like most academics. I edited the simple bare bones HTML files on my machine with Microsoft Frontpage and then uploaded them to a specific directory of some departmental server. This was a perfectly acceptable state of affairs, but it had some drawbacks:

• Changing files locally and uploading them was not only a bit cumbersome but also required a secure connection to the server when updating the site from outside my office (e.g. from home or while on travel). Moreover, I would have to carry around my laptop or an external storage device with a copy of the files.
• The site’s consistency and navigation had to be maintained through careful manual editing. For example, every time I added a new paper to my publications list (organised by year), I also had to add a link from another list organised by topic.
• Anything graphically fancy would require some investment into learning Cascading Style Sheets or some other technology, which I thought was not really worth the effort.

In time I began to realise that what I was craving for was a Content Management System (CMS) that would provide the necessary infrastructure for a flexible, well organised and good looking site, allowing me to focus on content. The CMS would have to be web-based so that I could edit the site from any computer in any location. There are full blown CMSs that allow building any imaginable website, but since my aim is not quite to develop the next Amazon site, I narrowed my search to a restricted type of CMS: wikis. Besides fulfilling all the requirements, a wiki has the added advantage of allowing collaborative writing when needed, e.g. if I’m working on a paper with someone else.

For over two years I tried out several wiki systems (but that’s another story for a future entry in this blog), and came to realize that they aren’t really suited for collaborative writing of academic papers, with several figures, formulas and references. Moreover, almost every wiki system uses a slightly different markup language to format the pages: I don’t think I could convince any colleague to learn a markup language they would probably never use again.

I then started to think whether a blog would be more interesting, due to its multiple features. First, it can be used to produce a site that has both long permanent pages and short chronological notes (e.g. to announce a new paper). Second, blogs can have sidebars where one can put links to useful websites and widgets, like for example a conference calendar. In other words, a blog can also serve as a personal start page, similar to (but probably less powerful than) those provided by iGoogle and Netvibes. Third, a blog allows for readers to comment  on the content, which fits quite nicely with the bread and butter of a healthy academic life: providing and being prepared to receive constructive criticism.

Tempted by the potential uses of a blog for academic purposes, the next question was: which blogging CMS?