Moving to the new format has caused me to revisit some old ways of doing things and think about some new ways of doing others.

In order to get people to subscribe, some blogs have “popup” mailing list  boxes that appear when a visitor comes to the site.  I’ll be honest. It is tempting to do. I’m not doing that because I find it annoying and highly irritating. While I like for people to subscribe to this blog, I am not going to get in their face in order to do so. There is a subscribe link in the upper right hand corner of the page and I do encourage readers who find the blog helpful to share information about it with others.

I’ve decided not to continue the Google Ads on my blogs for the following reasons (not that anyone probably cares…but here goes):

• I’m tired of looking at them.
• They are ubiquitous.
• They sometimes advertise products I don’t like and would not buy.
• They sometimes are from companies I don’t like and I don’t use.
• I want more control over what I advertise on my site.

I do have affiliate links for certain companies and products on my site. While I may occasionally express frustration with a company or with a product, they are services that I do pay for myself and utilize regularly myself–warts and all. I’m a firm believer in informed researchers being better researchers–even if they are using sources or sites that have limitations. My practice is to only mention items that I use myself in my own research. We will continue our policy of not throwing press releases in reader’s faces or writing cursory “reviews” that aren’t really reviews at all.