Thanks and Feedback

[Johnathan Clayborn]
First of all, dear readers, thank you. Today marks the day where readership of my blog has reached over 1,000 views. It’s a small milestone, I know, but it’s not too shabby for a small intellectual blog that I don’t really advertise.

On average I get about 168 views a month when I only post an average of 5.5 posts. That breaks down to about 30.5 views per post.

I have had readers from all over the world; the United States, Russia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Malaysia, Turkey and Georgia.

A lot of the more interesting follow-up conversations happen off-site, either through Facebook or through email or on the phone. But, as I was explaining just last night, the purpose of this blog isn’t to shove my ideas down people’s throats and assert my “rightness” on these issues. It’s simply to provide me a place to vent the deep thoughts that I have sometimes have and to provide my readers with an article that makes them think or question or ponder, even if only for a moment. Being highly intellectual I crave those topics that really make me think, even if I disagree with the overall point of view. Those opposing points of view that have been carefully represented and backed up by research or other empirical data I truly appreciate it as it makes me re-evaluate my own thoughts and I’m able to ask myself “does this opinion come from biased feelings that I have, or is there actually a valid reason to think this way?”

What I would like to know is this; what topics do you want to hear about? Do you have any specific requests for articles for me to research? What do you like or dislike about this blog?

Also, as an Athenaeum is an institution that is dedicated to the promotion of learning I have tried to keep many of my articles as unbiased as possible. I have been toying with the idea of opening up this blog to other authors who may also wish to write intellectual articles of a similar fashion. In the promotion of knowledge and making people think it could be good to present ideas from more than just one person. What are your thoughts on that? Would you be interested in reading articles from other authors as well?

Anyway, thank you all for your readership this far. I sincerely hope that I can meet some of my self-imposed goals and that you do (at least occasionally) leave this blog thinking about the topics that I’ve written about.