No más! (consecutive posts)

Well, that’s not true; I’m sure there will be additional consecutive posts, but not deliberately.

“What the heck are you talking about!?”

This is the 61st consecutive day that I’ve published something. To be clear, a blog post, and not a book. I remain — explicably — unpublished.

I should explain . . . WordPress does this thing where once you have a few days in a row that you post something, it sends you a congratulatory acknowledgment. At first, I wasn’t trying, but once it got to a few weeks, it had become a habit. More than a habit, actually; I was addicted.

OK, so addicted is a little strong . . .

. . . but you get this little jolt when you read the notification:

“You’re on a 60-day streak on Disperser Tracks!

. . . it feels like you accomplished something.

So, after a few weeks, I started making the effort. I have scheduled stuff I post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays. . . I just needed stuff for the other four days and, after a while, it became a chore. Many evenings I would rush to get a post out before midnight, keeping the streak alive.

Nota Bene: because of Time Zones, the only temporal place where my streak was alive was in the Central Daylight Time Zone.

Two months, I said . . . 61 consecutive days. . . and here we are. Did it make a difference? Did it accomplish anything?

They tell you consistency helps drive visitors to your blog . . . they lie.

If anything, it burdens loyal followers with too much to read . . . especially because a good number of my posts are the opposite of short. I suppose I’d have more followers if my posts were shorter. You know, like only 30 photos instead of 90, and only 200 words instead of 2,000.

But, that ain’t me, Bob.

“So, if anything, what did the streak accomplish?”

Weren’t you paying attention? Mostly it taxed loyal readers, probably shortening their free time and pressuring them to keep up.

“No extra visitors or views?”

Nope! . . . well, there was one day; the day before the autumnal equinox (unless you live in other parts of the world, where it might have been two days before, and might also be called the vernal equinox).

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot are you babbling about?”

Sorry . . . September 21, is what I mean. On that day, my views went nuts. I had 1,023 views . . . but just the regular number of visitors, likes, and comments. It was strange enough that I got in touch with WP to have them check if there’s something weird going on. Rather, why there was something weird going on. They said all is right with the world.

I don’t think so; normally, I get 50 views or so, and on a good day, maybe 80, but that’s usually when I get a comment, and I respond, then the commenter responds, then I respond, then they leave a like . . . etc.

Meaning, there are extra views, but no extra visitors. Except on that day . . . at one point, I could literally see the counter change on the fly. I presume it was a bot of some kind because no one could read my posts that fast.

Before you ask, I don’t normally check my stats, but I got a notice from WP. The notice read:

Your stats are booming! Disperser Tracks is getting lots of traffic!

I wasn’t expecting to see over 900 views and the counter changing every few seconds, I tell you what!

Curiously, it all stopped while I was on the chat with Support. I don’t know if they did something, or—dum dum DUM—it was them all along!

Has this happened to anyone else out there?

Mind you, the help desk said it might have been someone on the home page and just scrolling . . . except that gets counted as Home Page Views (I’d previously done a test). And, yes, there were 592 Home Page views, probably from the reader. You’ve heard of ‘butt dialing‘? My guess is that was ‘butt-scrolling‘ . . . someone probably sat on their reader, and it just scrolled.

But that doesn’t take into account the 55 views of the ‘About’ Page, and over four hundred views of individual posts, a mix of old and new posts. The thing is, I only had 47 visitors . . . and on average, each visitor looked at 21 posts.

But, I digress.

“Yes, often.”

OK, OK . . . the point is, no post tomorrow, and maybe no post on Saturday; I’m giving my readers a break. Yes, I’ll still keep to the scheduled posts (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays), and, going forward, additional posts will be less frequent . . . maybe only six a week as opposed to seven (yes, it’s an attempt at humor).

Anyway, so much for the 61st consecutive post . . . enjoy the break.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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