Ftrain, by Paul Ford

There was an article by David Carr for the New York Times about becoming addicted to blog comments, checking your statistics, measuring your own worth by the number of visitors to your website.

As an old hand (nine years and some months) I can tell you: the web-writer’s ego once stoked is a fire almost impossible to extinguish. I will never get enough feedback to erase the justifiable fear that I am a stupid hack.

Before I read that Times article I was setting up a new webserver, and I turned off all tracking and statistics on Ftrain. Then, on my home and work computers, I cut myself off from the sites that track links and serve as Echo (ping) to our collective Narcissus. Just as well. A post is “a pole or stake set up to mark or indicate something,” rather than a thing unto itself. As to comment systems—this is a world where people shit into their own salad, then talk about the wisdom of crowds.

Now I’ll be scrawling into the void to an audience of only you. After all those years checking and measuring this makes me very anxious.