Last night, I nuked my blog. At first, I was just doing it to make a point, but I quickly reached a point where I was almost convinced I was going to leave it nuked. I was going to toss the albatross overboard, and start fresh.
But then I got an email from someone I've never met (although I've exchanged a few emails with him over the years). He convinced me to put the blog back up.
This whole edupunk stuff lately - it's caused some strange reactions in people who get so hung up on the word. It's not about the word. It's about the concept. The idea that participatory culture needs to be more than just Web 2.0 Buzzword Compliance. The idea that it's not about radicalism, or conservatism, or antiestablishmentism. It's not against anything. It's about standing up and doing things, and not just talking about them.
But my blog is strictly just a bunch of words. Just a bunch of talk. I described my edupunk heroes, because they are the people whom I look up to because they aren't just talk. They live this stuff, and have for years. They don't do it for recognition, or visibility, or fanfare. They just are.
One thing the blog nuking showed me is just how hard it would actually be to completely nuke it. I've got backups of files on several hard drives, database dumps in several safe places. Even if I actively tried to delete every backup, I'm sure I'd miss something, and some form of this blog would live on. It's some kind of freaky albatross-cochroach hybrid...