Sunday, March 16, 2008

On biting off more than one can chew!

I fear that I have bitten of more than I can easily chew in the post I began with yesterday's Saturday Morning Musings.

It's not just the length. Rather, it's the fact that to write it I have to go back and check so many past posts to provide the supporting material.

To illustrate the point, I have just updated an earlier stocktake post on demography. Not only did this take a fair bit of time, there are some 43 posts listed, but the location of the stocktake post itself is wrong. Because it covers all my posts across blogs, it really should be on this blog.

What to do? I do want to write a synthesis post, but it really needs to be in several posts. I also want to provide access to the supporting data, so I have no choice but to update and check as I go.

The gaps in the supporting material are also greater than I realised. While most of the material is there, it often takes to form of a small section of another post. This makes it a bit hard to access.

In all, I think that I have no choice but to adopt a series approach, with stocktakes and cross-links as required. To avoid ending up with another unfinished series, something I am really prone to, I am going to limit it to four or five posts, using the Saturday Morning Musings as an entry point. Neil has already put up a link to this post.

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