You might have noticed that I’ve been opening every Unredacted article with a sentence describing the assumed audience. The intention behind this is to help readers quickly determine if the content aligns with their interests, especially given the non-thematic nature of the blog.
I first saw this pattern on Chris Krycho’s blog, and immediately fell in love with it. The ability to juggle between the generic and the specific, the momentous and the mundane, the subjective and the objective, is the main selling point of a personal blog. This editorial freedom, however, often comes at the price of readership loyalty.
Adopting this habit as an author should in theory alleviate some of the burden on visitors, both new and returning, of figuring out whether the content matches their interests.
Granted, it’s not an exact science, and I welcome everyone—especially the curious among you—to read past the disclaimer even when it doesn’t appear to be an exact match at first glance.