Outside the Beltway

Out of Hybernation

James Joyner · Tuesday, February 17, 2004 · 3 comments

N.Z. Bear has made an announcement:

I’ve decided to return to my roots, so to speak, and try to focus more of my blogging energies on, well, blogging. Writing. Thinking. Yammering away and sharing my allegedly creative energies with y’all through my own little corner of the blogosphere here at TTLB.

The Ecosystem will stay, and I’ll continue to maintain it, as I think I’d be lynched if I tried to shut it down. But I’m putting the New Weblog Showcase , and pretty much everything else, on indefinite hiatus. The Showcase has run its course, I think, and quite frankly, it just hasn’t been much fun lately. It turned into more work than pleasure, and to be blunt, this is a hobby, and I’m in it for the fun.

Sounds like a plan to me. The various contests weren’t that much fun to begin with and whatever amusement there once was was ruined by people cheating the system.

Ironically, Steven Den Beste has decided to take a hiatus:

I think I’m going to take some time off, and see if I might be able to recharge a bit. It’s probably going to be about a week, but I won’t make any promises. The plan is to wait until I want to write again, until the words flow easily and the process is fun. And until I actually have something to say.

I’m not sure what’s to become of the blogosphere if it’s going to be about fun. I thought we were out to change the world as we know it and transform journalism?