Way back when I was the lone blogger at Feministe, I purged the blogroll. Many people were incredibly angry with me and made similarly compelling arguments, but that was several years ago when the ride to the top of the ’sphere wasn’t so steep. This is one of the most compelling arguments against purging blogrolls I’ve come across since then. Which reminds me how behind I am on the redesign, and how the three at Feministe have been asking for blogrolls for, oh, about a year. That and they constantly complain about the spam — but I’m beginning to think they like it. Flattery.
Now that I’m a smaller blogger with a lesser-known blog, I’ve re-realized what it means to finally find yourself on a major blogroll:
In a monetary economy, those with the most gold have the power. In a linking economy like the one that exists in the blogosphere, those with the most links — the most currency — have the power. And they pretty much wield it as they wish.
In other words, it’s about time that more progressive and feminist blogs get more rank. Jill, Zuzu, Piny, I’ll be working on it, as long as y’all pass along the love.
Why did you quit there?
Cant you be like an emeritus and post there evry once in a while?
That would get your name, tags etc count up.
Maybe it’s just the techy in me, but I’m more concerned with their running v1.5 of Wordpress. Right there’s a security no-no. And also the apparent manual spam-filtering they do.
I might also point out, while I’m at it, that the release series you’re running here is six point releases out of date (v2.0.9). Sorry, I’m an incorrigible version-hawk.
I hear you. I just hate doing upgrades.
Indeed. I’m pleased with Wordpress insofar as it’s not a particularly difficult process anymore.
There are also plugins to do it automatically, though I’m naturally a little leery of such things.
It’s going to get even worse now that Matt & co. at Wordpress are trying to push out a major release every six months or so, á la Ubuntu.
I’m supporting Heliologue in this one, Lauren. WP updates are a snap to do in under half an hour (just be sure to backup the DB first! and delete/backup the right files). Feministe apparently needs Akismet ever-so-badly. Fuck a redesign until it’s updated.
As for the linkage issue, I’m all for pointing folks to great sites but I’m weary about the blogosphere’s cliquish behavior.
I also don’t know the stats on the efficacy of blogrolls — are they that effective? I mostly find new blogs through random search stumbles or when folks post about their own stumbles and say, “Hey, read this excerpt!”
But let’s not talk blogrolls — let’s talk UPGRADES!
I also don’t know the stats on the efficacy of blogrolls — are they that effective? I mostly find new blogs through random search stumbles or when folks post about their own stumbles and say, “Hey, read this excerpt!”
True. But the gravy is in the Google rankings. Depending on how you like your gravy.
hey lauren, you’re not only on my blogroll, i just gave you a literally huge shout out for designing my site.
as to google ranking vis-a-vis blogroll purges, see my post here.
Oh, I just LOVE THE SPAM.
I actually spoke to Atrios about his blogroll purge, and what he said made a certain amount of sense: he can only read so much, and he prefers to link to more-specialized blogs, like Feministe, or LG&M (which, amusingly enough, he links to all the time but hasn’t put back on his blogroll), which he expects links to other blogs, and so on. Which kind of still reinforces the whole A-list thing.
It did make me determined to not be such a slacker about reading other peoples’ blogs, and we’ve started the Shameless Self-Promotion Sundays in an effort to give other bloggers a chance to promote their stuff. But a blogroll would also help immensely. If for no other reason than that it would let me navigate off Feministe’s page rather than some other site’s blogroll, which is what I do now. Because, ahem, we don’t have a blogroll.
Blogrolls are important. My traffic is small enough for me to be able to actually track where people come from, and a large part comes through blogrolls (especially Skeptico’s blogroll).
I really need to get around to making a blogroll myself. I started on one, but never really got going.
Hadn’t realized you designed skippy. That’s some good work there- helps distract from the lack of capital letters!
zuzu: That “I can only read so much” line only really makes sense if a blogroll serves as nothing more than a glorified bookmark list. I think the very controversy over BAD shows that there’s more to it, though. Rolls serve to knit progressive blogs together into a bigger network, and it’s the network and related identity that is the strength of the thing. What Duncan (and Kos, and the other Amnesty people) did was basically rend the network asunder, leaving resentments and hostility that really hasn’t gone anyway.
(It’s weird that conservatives seem to understand that better than many liberals do.)
Sorry, that should be “hasn’t gone away”.
When I first wrote about Blogroll Amnesty Day I was amazed at how many people bought the arguments of Atrios and Kos that narrowing their blogrolls down to a select few elite was actually a good thing. No one seemed to see the irony of the top two liberal blogs having blogrolls with so little diversity. Atrios claimed he was going to add new blogs but in fact just ended up repopulating his blogroll with the usual suspects. He also rarely links to anyone new or outside his narrow circle despite what he may claim. And when he writes outrageously insulting pieces like “Why Your Blog Sucks” he doesn’t get called on it by too many people.
My modest conservative blog has had a liberal blogrolling policy–which is that I will link to anyone who links to me–for quite some time. I’m glad to see that it is catching on. The more voices the better I think, and perhaps that is what scares people like Atrios. As some conservative philosopher once said, “Let 1,000 flowers bloom.”
personally, i like the idea that markos (and to a lesser extent, duncan) rendered the network asunder.
zuzu: That “I can only read so much” line only really makes sense if a blogroll serves as nothing more than a glorified bookmark list. I think the very controversy over BAD shows that there’s more to it, though. Rolls serve to knit progressive blogs together into a bigger network, and it’s the network and related identity that is the strength of the thing. What Duncan (and Kos, and the other Amnesty people) did was basically rend the network asunder, leaving resentments and hostility that really hasn’t gone anyway.
I should probably clarify that we were talking both about blogrolling and links. He also gets a lot of requests to link posts, not just to blogroll people, and that’s what the time limits refer to, mostly.
But I profess ignorance on the actual effect that blogrolling has. Hell, I don’t even know how to use an RSS feed.
Demosthenes:
Ha!
Me too!
I first read about lack of capitalization from bell hooks, who apparently does it in order to de-emphasize herself/person in her writing — her theory is her content, not her anecdotal speech (a slight twist on M. McLuhan, perhaps).
Jon Swift:
Except for those of us doing research into blogs! If you look into the scholarly research on A-list bloggers, you understand.
–Cliques, anybody?
A-List bloggers are, generally, those who get the most linkage, and the most offline media attention (and update most frequently, and perhaps get the most comments — if they allow them). When you read an offline media article about/referencing blogs, they’re most likely (but perhaps not always) talking about A-Listers.
Jon Swift, pt. 2:
Of course not! Calling him out would call attention to our own (little, unpopular, humble) blog(s). We’re certainly not such authorities on the subject like he!
David Schraub: http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2007/03/or-of-blogroll.html (one of your [Lauren] trackbacks)– great post on the topic!! I very much concur.
Zuzu: Read this, a Wikipedia article on RSS feeds. If you have a lot of sites you would like to keep track of (such as when they update), RSS feeds really help. It all depends on how much time you have to devote to reading blogs, as you pointed out. Firefox can do it automatically for you, otherwise you can find many free RSS readers.
Related, Internet semioticians can look at Feed Icons.
So: what makes the blog? Content, or popularity? Both?
dude, if I limited my blogroll to only those i can read on a regular basis, i’d have to purge like 9/10ths of it. I don’t want to, because as long as the list is there, 1) i have more likelihood of reading ‘em -sometime- 2) other people passing through can use it as a jumping off point/resource.