Since I have intentionally kept this blog focussed on my academic interests related to James, translation, exegesis, Greek, linguistics, etc., it pains me to interrupt those posts in order to celebrate…

• THIS 100th POST!
• FIRST TIME OVER 400 PAGE VIEWS IN A MONTH! (already on 20 August)
• FIRST TIME TO HAVE 5 INCOMING LINKS TO MY BLOG!

Thanks to…

1. Wycliffe UK
2. Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament
   
3. Kouya Chronicle
4. Wycliffe UK (again)
5. Better Bibles Blog

To celebrate, I decided to educate myself about the difference between Tags and Categories so I could start using them better. Lee Aase at SMUG (Social Media University, Global) has a very clear explanation of Tags and Categories at his blog. He states…

• Categories are internally focused for your blog, to help users navigate and find posts on similar topics. Once a user has found your blog, categories provide organizational structure to help them discover what your blog is about and to navigate efficiently….

A post can belong to more than category, but generally you would want to limit the number of categories you have and how many categories are selected for each post.

• Tags, by contrast, are externally focused. They’re aimed at the people who haven’t yet found your blog (and the search engines that guide them.) So instead of trying to find the one or two labels that best describe your post (as you do with categories) you can and should apply multiple tags to a post, based on words others might use to describe your post…or words they might be searching on to find relevant content….

If you click on any of the tags at the bottom of this post, you will find a list of blog posts on WordPress.com that used that tag. This is really helpful to users exploring a topic, because they can easily find a group of relevant posts. And if you use several related word variations, you’re not requiring users to choose your exact tag (e.g. blogs vs. blogging) in order to find your post.

So, for example, I have started tagging every Scripture reference in my blog postings by book, chapter, and verse. But I only categorize Scripture references by book (although I use book and chapter for James since that is a major focus of this blog).

I still need to manage all my tags and categories better by going back and deleting poorly used categories and more thoroughly tagging previous posts. But I did go back and thoroughly tag and categorize all 20 of my August posts.

Thanks to Anthony, I woke up from my dream that there was already a way for readers to subscribe to an RSS feed of my blog.

If you look to the left now, you’ll see “Subscribe to ΑΓΑΠΗΣΕΙΣ” next to the feed icon that you can click on in order to subscribe to an RSS feed.

After my multiple posts in January about posting via Flickr to WordPress using email, I must apologize for never putting this method to use. I seem to have disappeared from blogdom without a word of explanation. I did try once to post via email during these last few months, but the Flickr requirement of including a picture seems to have messed me up. Since I connect to email in our remote village through a high frequency radio connection, attachments normally get separated from the message body.

Anyway, here’s where I’ve been…

January-April: My family moved to Madang for these months as I fulfilled the role of Academic Coordinator for all the new members of our organization arriving in the Pacific. Major responsibilities included teaching Tok Pisin (Melanesian Pidgin) and giving other lectures in Anthropology.

May: I barely made it out to our village in order to help do final checking of the Gospel of Luke for 4 related Austronesian languages. This was thoroughly enjoyable, especially working together with another translation consultant through the 24 chapters of this book.

I am now happily reunited with my family, and I am preparing to help check Luke for another group of 4 related languages in mid-July. I am also helping the 3 related languages that I normally advise to prepare their drafts of Luke for checking at the end of July.

In my next post, I’ll include the message that failed to survive the radio transmission earlier this month.

This is my first post at AGAPJSEIS.wordpress.com after finally taking the plunge and deciding to switch from blogspot.com to wordpress.com. Enjoy the new format.

Here are some of the pluses…

• wider columns for my postings
• the theme (layout) I have chosen has a variable width, so the formatting stretches or shrinks with the size of the reader’s window
• this theme includes three columns, so I can put sidebars on the left and right
• and my favorite: separate pages (see the links at the top)

Check out my updated Recent James Scholarship page. The ability to keep a page like this is one of the main reasons I switched over to wordpress.com. While it does include the most recent Letter of James scholarship at the top of the page, it is also meant to be a comprehensive bibliography on the Letter of James. Give me your additions in a comment.