Mississippi Atheists: Past, Present, and Future

In the life of a blog, it is important to periodically pause and reflect on what has been accomplished, whether the goals one started out with are being met, and to map a course for the future. Since I am only one of a team of authors on Mississippi Atheists, I present my thoughts on this subject and make no attempt to speak for the others.

In the Beginning...

When I started Mississippi Atheists, I had one simple goal in mind. I wanted to make sure that when someone entered search terms in Google that included "Mississippi" and "atheists" or "atheism" that they would find a site informing them of all the various atheistic groups in our state. That is, I wanted to make it easier for people to find information about atheist groups in Mississippi. As an atheist in Mississippi, I know all too well how lonely it can be. I thought that helping others connect with like-minded individuals was a worthy goal.

In the beginning, I did not even think that this would be a blog. I was actually looking into formats like Squidoo and HubPages. However, I soon realized that these formats were less than ideal for providing updates about events around the state. I also started wondering whether it might be interesting to have many voices from around the state represented. Surely atheists in the Jackson area had a somewhat different experience than those in tiny rural areas. Clearly, a blog was needed and a team blog would best fulfill this vision. Mississippi Atheists was born.

Current Status

I am happy to say that the initial goal of turning up in search engine results involving "Mississippi" and "atheists" or "atheism" has been accomplished reasonably well. We may not always be at the top of such search results, but we are there. We continue to get a respectable amount of search engine traffic (as well as traffic from other sources), and I believe that we are making it easier for persons wanting to find information on atheist-related happenings in Mississippi.

On the other hand, my vision of this blog giving voice to atheists across our state has not been particularly successful. I had hoped to have a cadre of bloggers by now, each of whom would be willing to contribute a post every week or two. We have not come close to this. Recruiting team members has been more difficult than I imagined, we do not have particularly good representation across Mississippi, and few of our authors are posting regularly. I am guilty of this last criticism and make no claim otherwise.

A Look Ahead

Do we keep trying to fulfill the portion of the initial goal we have not accomplished yet (i.e., expanding our roster of team bloggers until we have a combination of more regular posting and improved representation of our state), or do we modify this goal and consider moving in a new direction? It has never been my intention to have this blog generate much traffic outside Mississippi. To the degree that it does, great, but if we are not being read by other Mississippi atheists, we are doing something wrong.

Personally, I would like to keep trying to recruit other contributors in Mississippi. I'd also like to put some more effort into spreading the word about this blog as a connection point for atheists in Mississippi. Other ideas?

Tags: blog, Mississippi atheists, atheists, atheist, atheism, Mississippi