#24093: Chris Clarke — 05/05  at  09:11 PM
That's it, you're out of my blogroll!

#24094: Chris Clarke — 05/05  at  09:13 PM
In seriousness, my partial solution has been to make sure to link to people whos blogs I actually like, and many of them are very small readership indeed... for the moment.

Maybe I can do some kind of moral support thing by de-linking Atrios.

#24096: PZ Myers — 05/05  at  09:39 PM
Does anybody link to people they don't like, though? That would be weird.

#24097: Jenn — 05/05  at  09:41 PM
As someone who sees a decent amount of referrals from your blogroll, I say "Keep Rollin' it!" .

#24106: — 05/05  at  10:42 PM
Problems with blogrolls:

1) no description, just a weird name: how am I supposed to know what Creek Running North is about? The name tells me nothing. there's no description.

2) Blogrolls are too long: Okay, so you are aware of 78 other blogs. How am I supposed to know which 6 of them don't suck? If you just put the 6 there, I'd click.

3) Obvious entries: How many more people does it take to link to Instapundit?

#24107: ang6666 — 05/05  at  10:43 PM
I have no intention of getting rid of my blogroll. Everyone on it I read. Yes, thru bloglines. But I still read. Tho I will admit there are some I dont' agree with that I read thru bloglines but dont' link to. But that is more cause I like to see how the other side thinks. But my blogroll is staying. As far as if others wish to link to me or not, that it entirely up to them. I am never offended and it's never expected. But I am always truly flattered when they do. I've been seeing this topic all day. I blog to vent. So it's more for my sanity anyways.

#24110: Chris Clarke — 05/05  at  10:58 PM
Does anybody link to people they don't like, though? That would be weird.

Clarification: "Like" enough to read a couple times a week... or in the case of lucky people like PZ, to comment on 100 times a week.

#24111: bitchphd — 05/05  at  11:05 PM
PZ, no one is ever gonna de-link you.

I link to people i don't like, at least people who I STRONGLY differ with politically. Basically my sort of litmus test is, do I think this person is sincere, or do I think they're just out to be an asshole? If the latter, i won't link 'em, but if the former, I will--at least in the "academic" category. Political blogs, I feel no need to be fair-minded about, and "procrastinate" is purely "blogs I like for no reason other than I like 'em."

#24112: David Winter — 05/05  at  11:09 PM
Keep blogrolls. I can’t count the number if times I whiled away a few idle minutes clicking on blogrolls; sure there’s chaff with the wheat but hey, that’s the internet.

I agree with PZ blogrolls are like a declaration of the community you belong to. They’re also a chance to highlight something you think should enjoy a wider currency. I’ve recently discovered a bunch of really great blogs I’d never heard of. Now they are on my little blog’s blogroll and hopefully they’ll get a little more of the recognition they deserve.

Of course I think using links as ammunition in some cyber pissing contest is really stupid (and NZ Bear’s ‘ecology’ encourages an equally stupid view of biology anyway.) I just don’t think it follows that we should give up all great things blogrolls do.

#24115: Steve — 05/06  at  12:17 AM
Some folks just want to disappear from the web.

I seldom pay attention to the actual rankings at Technorati or the Ecosystem but at least once a week use each of them to find new voices! It can be a blast fingering through the Wiggly Worms.

Browsing through the Blogroll of a regular read or a new find is also a great way to find new stuff. And, on and on...

My rolls will stay up, and I'll honor reciprocals no matter how long the roll gets or how opposite their views!

It will be even better when everyone pings the update services so we tell when they have fresh material!

Pingomatic.com is a great service for sending 'just updated' pings.

#24119: — 05/06  at  01:42 AM
A blogroll should, in my opinion, reflect who you approve off, not necessarily who you read compulsively. If a blog is on your blogroll, you have somewhat endorsed their content.

I don't have a blog (well, actually I have, but there is no content, so it amounts to the same), but I would make sure that my blogroll never linked to blogs that promotes pseudoscience, racism, intolerance or similr traits. I could see myself linking to blogs I disagree with, as long as I think they are sincere. I wouldn't link to blogs that links to racist blogs like LGF.

There are liberal blogs I would never link to (Oliver Willis for one) because they have posted views in the past that I find repugnant.

To sum it up, blogrolls are important, but they person who maintains the blogroll needs to be aware that he/she endorses the blogs on the list.

#24139: — 05/06  at  06:16 AM
People take the linking/blogroll thing waaaaay too seriously.

Not that anyone cares, but my blogroll consists of the blogs I read on a regular or semi-regular basis. I often use it in place of bookmarks, because I'm just that lazy, and because I like giving an honest recommendation - why would I leave out a blog that I read all the time, or include a blog I don't like all that much? These aren't political decisions, these aren't weighty decisions, these are just the blogs I read. It's not much bigger than that.

Things start to get weird when people blow the importance of traffic out of proportion, and then start resenting the bigger-traffic bloggers for not resenting them. I've seen some truly melodramatic exchanges over this sort of thing. Christ, people, it's just blogs.

#24140: coturnix — 05/06  at  06:26 AM
Hmmm, this reminds me that my blogroll is in dire need of updating. It is long already, and it is about to get longer, much longer. I wonder why I have A-list bloggers on the blogroll, as I almost never read them. If one of them writes a really good post, it gets linked everywhere and I may or may not click on the link - usually quotes and commentary are sufficient to get the feel for the post.

I link to a lot of small unknown blogs and will add more of those. I find good new blogs regularly on various blog carnivals - the fantastic place to find like-minded people. Mungowitz End is the only blog on my blogroll that I vehemently disagree with, but the guy is smart, polite and thoughtfull - no Hindraker - and we keep respectfully linking to each other's rants (while voicing disapproval) all the time.

Link to blogs you like, even those you read only rarely. Link to as many as you can. Link to little blogs. Link to new, young blogs - remember when your blog was new how exciting it was to get on somebody's blogroll! This is the way to build the community and to promote communication: blogs are not JUST our own personal soapboxes, but also ways to talk to each other - You write something on your blog, I respond on mine, you respond to my response on yours, and so on... How can I know you posted something if I do not have you on my blogroll?

≥

#24153: Mark Gisleson — 05/06  at  08:02 AM
How often have you watched or read the news and thought, that's an OLD story, then realized you read it on a blog yesterday? I think we're running about 18 hours ahead of everyone else thanks to this thing of ours.

I think some of us get too far ahead of the curve sometimes. Blogrolls are essential for guiding new folks to other blogs, and since we're still a tiny minority — even online — there are plenty more coming.

And this defense of blogrolls is coming from someone who's on his sixth blog! (Starting then quitting then starting new blogs is NOT the way to build up links in!)

#24158: — 05/06  at  08:38 AM
I'm not sure that I completely understand the social rules of blog rolling anyway, but I will say this: If the blog community wants the middle adapters and late adapters of technology to begin to explore the world o'blogs, its best to have a jumping off point that they can understand. Most folks understand weblinks now. Feeds and stuff, not so much. In fact I'm still working out how those work.

I know it seems to most of the folks that have blogs that they are as understood as webpages, but this is not yet true. Not a week goes by that someone doesn't ask me the question of "What are those blog things again? Well, how do you find them anyway?"

#24165: Shelley — 05/06  at  09:13 AM
"I link to people I like"

"I link to people I approve of"

"I read others, maybe even several times a week, through Bloglines, but I only link to people I like"

Can anyone see the potential harm in this? Anyone at all?

If a blogroll reflects who we're reading, then shouldn't it reflect all who we are reading?

If a blogroll reflects our community, than are we saying our communities are only made up of people we approve of?

If a blogroll reflects our approval, then where is the diversity that weblogs are supposed to encourage?

But PZ, I respect your writing, and think you're an interesting person and will continue to point to writings that grab me, and comment, and I promise not to delink you.

Wait a sec...I don't have a blogroll...ooops. I guess you might say you were delinked embryonically

#24167: PZ Myers — 05/06  at  09:26 AM
Where is the diversity? Everyone's blogroll is different! Mine is just an htmlized opml file, and it reflects the people I like well enough to read routinely. Each of the people on it has their own list, different from mine, that reflects their interests.

I don't see any other way to do it. If it were a list that echoed some arbitrary level of diversity, and therefore include X% Republicans, X% Evangelical Christians, X% Astrologers, etc., it wouldn't be about my interests anymore.

Maybe we're just caught between two extremes: there's a desire to keep them personal and at a low (but non-zero) level of importance, yet some people see those links as the key to mapping out The Greatest Blogs in the Blogiverse. The gripe shouldn't be with the people who maintain a friendly list of their fave sites, but the people who abuse that information to generate misleading ranking systems.

#24171: Jeff Keezel — 05/06  at  09:43 AM
My blogroll is my daily reading list. It's the blogs I like to read every day. Along with a couple other links to movie reviews, etc...thekeez

#24181: PSoTD — 05/06  at  10:17 AM
I'm thinking the problem is the other way around. We need more reader-friendly blogrolls - ones that load quickly but show some subject line info on recent postings.

#24187: Chris Clarke — 05/06  at  10:51 AM
Can anyone see the potential harm in this? Anyone at all?

You're right.

But you don't go far enough. Thoreau said "to vote for the right is merely to feebly express your wish that it should prevail," and a blogroll is just like a vote for blogs you like, and like you say, Shelley, that's dangerous, but losing blogrolls is a bvote too,, and votes are feeble.

What we should be doing to really make a difference is to blog things we don't agree with. Otherwise our blogs become insular, isolated, and other island-based metaphors.

Our obvious course as lefty bloggers is endorsing ideas we despise. So I'll write an impassioned defense of lynching. Shelley, you do a piece on the positive effects of clitoridectomies. PZ, your assignment is extolling the virtues of bushmeat hunting of endangered primates. I tell you, it's the only way to really solve whatever the big vague problem is that abandoning blogrolls is supposed to address somehow.

Or we could recognize that adding someone to a blogroll is an endorsement and use those endorsements the best way we can.

#24195: donna — 05/06  at  11:48 AM
My blogroll is who I read, and how I read. My blogroll comes up in a random order and adds interest to my day by always being different. Took me a while to get used to it, but I like it.

I don't like the feed readers because I feel obligated to read everything when I use them, and I just can't. Plus you tend to get the newer stuff first, which means you don't get to the longer, but less frequently posted, more interesting stuff.

So yeah, I use my blogroll, and that's what it's for. It's not really a political statement, although I guess it could be taken as one since it's lefty oriented. Hey, I'm still registered as a libertarian too, though, so you can't always tell who people endorse by what's on the record.

Trackback: Blogrolls, Ego-Surfing, and General Stupidity. Tracked on: aldahlia (69.90.35.84) at 2005 05 06 11:54:00
This is all Burning Birds fault. The Technorati Top 100 is too much like Google in that ‘noise’ becomes equated with ‘authority’. Rather than provide a method to expose new voices,

#24200: Shelley — 05/06  at  12:04 PM
Chris, you ran into a tree while waving at the forest. Forest says hi back, and next time be more careful.

I have disagreed strongly with many conservative webloggers, but I link to what I'm disagreeing with, so that others can read the original material and form their own opinion. Same as I link to those I agree with, giving my reasons why what I read interested me and so on. There's a lot of context associated with that link in the post -- it doesn't just sit there and imply something.

If I were to have a weblog roll again, though, I wouldn't hesitate to link to A-listers, if I read them regularly; or to any other person -- as long as I read them regularly. I also would probably link to several neoconservative webloggers. My link does not say "I approve", but a visitor may read this into the blogroll, because these carry an enormous amount of assumption and inuendo with them.

Oh I suppose I could start segregating my roll into types: these are ones I approve, these aren't. Frankly, this strikes me as offensive because it has less to do with what the person writes, than the person themselves. I do not like to make bold, sweeping statements about people; I prefer to make statements about people's actions (including writing).

Still, I'd have to do something if I were to have a blogroll again, because I wouldn't just include people I approve (or people who have linked me or people who have said good thins about me). In my opinion I feel there's something inherently dishonest in avidly reading several weblogs who you wouldn't link in your blogroll.

I could classify people, like PZ has done -- but then, doesn't that set expectations? People see that I'm listed as a feminist...imagine the puzzlement when they come to my site and I'm writing another ghost story about the Ozarks, and showing off my new PHP script. Another weblog will have me listed as a tech, and then imagine there, a person coming to my weblog and seeing a feministe rant.

Sigh -- what is a taxonomists to do?

The point is, when I write about something in a post, I provide context; a sidebar link is just there.

#24202: Mark Gisleson — 05/06  at  12:15 PM
Blogrolls are fine they way they are. If you add text, then you're talking about inserting an aggregator, another thing entirely. For an example, go to mnspeak.com and check out their MN Blog Aggregator.

#24204: Chris Clarke — 05/06  at  12:23 PM

Chris, you ran into a tree while waving at the forest. Forest says hi back, and next time be more careful.

See, now it's lines like that that leave me still tempted to blogroll you.

I have disagreed strongly with many conservative webloggers, but I link to what I'm disagreeing with, so that others can read the original material and form their own opinion. Same as I link to those I agree with, giving my reasons why what I read interested me and so on. There's a lot of context associated with that link in the post -- it doesn't just sit there and imply something.

Same here. I also blogroll people who I strongly disagree with, but who express their opinions ethically and entertainingly. And I'd suggest that your policy, or thought process, or whatever you want to call it is still an endorsement, even if it's just "this link is worth your time to check out."

The thing is, everyone's got their own personal policy setting who they link to and how. That's a good thing. If having a blogroll doesn't work for you, more power to you in removing it. If you want to discuss problems inherent to blogrolls and their implementation, that's great: I'm all ears.

But saying, as you did, "to every weblogger who has a blogroll: you are hurting all of us"? Not only is that just as hyperbolic as my comment above, but it denigrates the work some of us have done to actively seek out and include minority voices. Considering the A-listiest bloggers in my blogroll - now that Duncan Black isn't on there anymore - are PZ and Bérubé, I'm pretty sure I'm not actually hurting anyone.

That's the only real problem I have with what you wrote. I think your criticisms are largely correct. I'd just hate to throw the baby into the forest while irrigating the trees with the bathwater, is all.

Oh, wait: I disagree with this, too: In my opinion I feel there's something inherently dishonest in avidly reading several weblogs who you wouldn't link in your blogroll. I respect it, but I disagree. I think it way overstates the importance of the blogroll.

<blockquote>I could classify people, like PZ has done -- but then, doesn't that set expectations? People see that I'm listed as a feminist...imagine the puzzlement when they come to my site and I'm writing another ghost story about the Ozarks, and showing off my new PHP script. Another weblog will have me listed as a tech, and then imagine there, a person coming to my weblog and seeing a feministe rant.</blockquote>

That's a feature, not a bug. Tweaking stereotypes is a good thing. I write about entomology and travel and true crime and hiking and family and lost love and politics and paleostratigraphy. Someone comes expecting Green rants and gets turned off by a story off a remembered poetry reading, that's not my problem.