This is a posting about postings—which is to say, it is a meta posting.
So, this is not a posting about the Lake, but about the approach adopted when presenting the Lake. It was prompted by a recent discussion about the motivations behind blogging and the way the resulting blogs are implemented. The codification applies to both portions of the site: the website, organized topically, and the blog, organized temporally.
Raison d’être
The Kootenay Lake website and its blog are personal journals of local discovery—merely notes to myself. That they can be viewed by others is the happenstance of how they were created. Certainly, I am happy for others to view them. Yet, the fact that they are available publicly does not mean that the motivation is promotional—a suggestion sometimes made. As the home page of the website states, this site “is not here to make a profit, promote a cause, build a reputation, encourage a tourist, or educate a soul—as with the Lake itself, the site merely is.”
Writing
Being a journal of discovery, its writing is expository. Avoided are commands and exhortations—the imperative mood is not used. There is no presumption to tell visitors what to do or think. Absent is the pressure applied by many sites to: buy, join, volunteer, vote, donate, visit, travel, play, pray, register, conserve, or click. No advice is offered and no activity is encouraged.
Images
The pictures are local; most are taken by me, but a few by acquaintances. The latter are always used with permission and acknowledement. There are no images copied or linked from afar: no clip art, no pictures lifted from Flicker or Wikipedia, no videos from YouTube and its kin.
Design
The design is simple. Eschewed are: ads, invitations from Facebook or Twitter to like or link to what you see, share buttons, tag clouds, weather widgets, calendars, lists of related blogs, and pictures of followers. Not only would these add clutter, they deliver nothing I seek.
If I were to reduce the essence of the Kootenay Lake site to one image, it would be this one of Trumpeter Swans taken three kilometres from my home.
I observe, photograph, learn, write, post. That is all.
Bravo!