Blog Insider: An unsolicited and superfluous look beyond the minutiae
Today's Episode: Draft Status
Back when I started blogging getting to your hundredth post was kind of a big deal. People would celebrate the accomplishment in different ways. When I got there I made a list of 100 people I knew who who influenced me. At 500 I wrote a parody to I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). Since I consolidated all my blogs here I have been in the process of consolidating all posts from all those blogs here as well. Because of that I'm not quite sure what number post I'm at exactly but I am nearing 1,300 for the ones that have been written or transferred here.
Earlier this week, I discovered a different century mark. I noticed that I have 100 posts here in this blog that are in draft status. That means they are not currently accessible to you. the reader. I was astounded that it was that many.
When I consolidated the 2 other blogger blogs here it also brought over anything in draft status from those blogs.
The most recent of my posts in draft status was from May 26th. Over the past 3 years I have had 35 more identical posts/ They have no title and no content whatsoever. I don't think I was aware that i was leaving phantom drafts
The oldest of my drafts is originally from my sports blog. It is from January 10, 2012 (more than 10 years ago!) and entitled A thought on Harold Baines and the HOF. It was written right after Baines was removed from the HOF ballot by failing to received more than 5% of the writer's vote. Written is too strong of a word as the only thing written was the title of the post. Baines was eventually voted into the HOF on the veteran's ballot in 2019. So since the motivation for my post (expressing my opinion that Baines is HOF material) has been for all intents and purposes been achieved there is really no reason to keep it in draft status.
The most recent of my posts in draft status was from May 26th. Over the past 3 years I have had 35 more identical posts/ They have no title and no content whatsoever. I don't think I was aware that i was leaving phantom drafts. That's more than 1/3 of the 100 drafts and those will be easy to delete. There are other posts like the Harold Baines post that are title only with no content.
The remaining posts are basically in the following categories.
* You Tube videos.
I post quite a few you tube vidoes straight to my blog. Since I have had in the past more than one blogger blog at a time, when I put those videos onto my blog I get a screen shot like the one below.
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If I accidentally put the video in the wrong blog it usually gets trapped in draft staus in that blog without being immediately aware about it.
* Consolidation
When I moved my sports blog and vlog to this one, I also brought whatever blogs I had in draft status with me, like the aforementioned Harold Baines post.
* No longer relevant, No longer interested, could not do it justice
These are actually 3 very similar situations. In each case I start a post and put it aside to finish. By the time I get back to them they are not worth finishing for one (or more) of the above reasons.
* Work in progress
After I have finished this post, this should be the only category of posts in draft status that remain. These are posts that I am either still working on or do not want to give up completely on.
* Ready to publish/overlooked.
There are a few posts that are in draft status by mistake. When I find those I go ahead and put them into the blog as was originally intended.
100 posts in draft status is not an achievement I ever anticipated achieving. Now that I'm finished achieving it, I'm going to spend a few minutes behind the scenes and unachieve it.
