As I try to steer a course between providing too much information and too little, let me attempt to explain what I plan to institute as a general policy with regard to links in my posts. I provide links to other sites for various purposes: to give credit where it is due, to provide resources for further exploration of a subject, and/or because I think I can't do justice to the source with a few excerpts. At the request of several of my readers, what I will try to do is provide enough information within my own post to make it informative and perhaps interesting, providing links for the above-mentioned purposes but not expecting the majority of my readers to follow them. When I do think a link is particuarly important, I'll make that clear.
I've been thinking about the subject recently, as the amount of information that comes my way continues to expand exponentially. I like to think of myself as an aggregator for my friends and family, passing on important ideas, worrisome trends, and interesting stories that others might not find; I know that I am grateful to people who provide that service for me. But I also know that merely being sent a link is no longer particularly helpful. If I don't know something about the subject, and what's more important, what the sender himself thinks about the link he has sent, I find I'm less and less likely to check it out. Too much information, too little time. Since many of my readers have less time than I do, I'll try to provide better service here.Permalink
Category Computing Random Musings


