Not that anyone’s counting, but we’ve just now passed 200 posts for the Points blog.
This is #202, to be Precise
As I noted back in July on the occasion of our 100th post, we’re no match for the production levels of older and more established academic blogs–but we’ll take the excuse to settle back for a bit of self-reflection. Let’s think a bit about these first 200 posts, and perhaps offer up some New Year’s resolutions to go with them.
If we wander about the tag cloud for a bit, as we did on the occasion of the 100th post, we see that the most popular tags look like this:
Addiction (50 posts)
Alcohol (50 posts)
Policy (47 posts)
History (45 posts)
Drugs (38 posts)
Popular Culture (35 posts)
Transnational (31 posts)
Research (29 posts)
Drug War (26 posts)
Law (25 posts)
I guess the list isn’t all that surprising–why wouldn’t the blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society feature “Alcohol” “Drugs” and “History” in the top five? Moreover, the “Addiction” and “Policy” tags at the top of the list reflect another basic fact of this blog–that public policy (see also “law” at #10) and the addiction concept (see also “research” at #8) dominate the posts. And now, two resolutions: Points will publish at least another 200 posts in 2012. Readers will appreciate that the first 200 have been pretty substantive, and publishing so many is no easy task. We’re enormously grateful to the Contributing Editors and the guest bloggers who helped to generate so many thoughtful posts. Good news–we’ll soon be announcing the 2012 roster of Contributing Editors, a group that’s certain to continue bringing the quality, the quantity, and the history.
Points will continue to try and explore new dimensions of the drugs and alcohol history experience. Though “transnational” comes in at #7 on the tag list, there’s no question that Points needs to broaden the geographic focus of its publishing–so here’s our commitment to do just that in 2012. Once again, we’ll be adding Contributing Editors and guest bloggers that should push Points in that welcome direction. Likewise, though “drug war” shows up at #9, much of the writing has been focused on very contemporary drug war issues. There’s a big, bad history of drug war policies out there, and we hope to bring you more of that story in 2012.
If you’re not in the mood to make resolutions of your own this new year, why not try telling someone else what to do? You could start by sending suggestions to the editors of the Points blog, here in the comments section. We’re always eager for feedback!