The comments to all of the relevant posts lead me to believe that most people find blogrolls valuable for one reason or another and would hate to see them go. Personally, I'm a little surprised that anyone is making such a big deal out of this. While it's true that circular linking in blogrolls can inadvertently cause inflated rankings, at the end of a day, it's all about how you use the tools you're provided. That's what google bombing is all about. If you don't like the current rankings, a concerted effort across a large enough group of people can change them. People didn't like that "abortion" and "Roe v. Wade" both resulted in anti-abortion websites at the top of the google rankings, so a campaign to change google's results led to the links you see on my left sidebar. As of the date I'm writing this, that campaign has been fairly successful. Also, and perhaps I'm wrong, but isn't this what "subverting the dominant link hierarchy" is all about? The very act of linking creates a hierarchy. Short of abandoning linking altogether, you can't really change that. But you can change the dominant hierarchy.
In the comments to Bitch Ph.D's post, Rana suggests that the argument against blogrolls is also promoting the idea that there is only one right way to blog. I'm not sure I'd go that far. I do think that Shelley is saying that some ways are better than others, and she's certainly entitled to her opinion. And if there is one thing that political blogging and/or activist blogging is about, it's to convince people of your opinions. However, in this case, I think there's something to be said for doing things the way everyone else does them. Blogrolls serve many purposes, and I think I'm safe to assume that I'm not alone in using them to find new blogs. But I think they serve another important purpose. Namely, they help you see at a glance the community with which a blogger identifies. This is quite handy when you're reading a new blog for the first time. In this light, the phenomenon of circular linking actually plays an important role. I quickly know I'm reading a feminist writer if the blogroll links to Bitch Ph.D., Alas, A Blog, Feministe, and Trish Wilson.
This whole anti-blogroll thing reminds me a lot of the bloggers who claim that blogs shouldn't have comments, but should instead strive to link to other blogs in the content of posts. Whereas my blogroll serves to let my readers know which blogs I read on a regular basis, comments are a way for my readers to let me know they identify with me. In a certain sense, my blogroll is a list of bloggers that I wish were reading Shades Of Grey. Likewise, comments let me know who would like me to be reading them. Both are an important part of the feedback system on which blogging thrives, and I don't really see how the whole system would work in the absence of either.
And perhaps that attitude is why I don't understand why some people get so upset about blogwhoring. I'm often reluctant to post a comment that includes a link back to me for fear of coming across in the wrong way. Though trackback is pretty much designed to encourage blog whoring, it is not as well understood nor as widely implemented as comments. Also, because of its character limit, trackback doesn't lend itself to responding in depth to the original post. Because there isn't a whole lot of point to blogging if people aren't reading what you write, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that some bloggers would stop self promotion on their blogs. I wonder, how do those bloggers think people found them?
Trackback, comments, and blogrolls are all relevant to this conversation because they are all means of blog promotion. But trackback is relevant in an additionally way because Shelley has recently dropped trackback in favor of tagback. It seems to me that having dropped two of the three traditional methods of blog promotion (ignoring tagback for now), Shelley is inching closer and closer to a situation that, if universally adopted, would hurt small blogs much more than having a blogroll would. As you eliminate more and more of the means of cross promotion, a blog becomes less like a blog and more like a regular website. Blogger and Typepad are the new Geocities and Angelfire. What sets the former apart from the latter, aside from a focus emphasizing content over presence, are the tools that help promote your writing.
Let’s get back to tagback for a moment. It's a new concept to me. Reading Shelley's introductory post to tagback, I note that it relies heavily on Technorati, which I think explains why she is so upset about Technorati's Top 100 list in the first place. I think it's safe to say there are many more people use both trackback and blogrolls than people using Technorati. Though I don't exactly see what problems tagback is designed to fix, I'll be the first to admit that it's possible that it's just my understanding that is lacking. At any rate, I'm all for evolving standards of communication in life generally and blogging specifically. But there's something to be said for allowing everyone to participate without setting the bar too high. Why not implement trackback and tagback simultaneously? That would allow people who don't yet understand the new system to use the old system, flaws and all. Likewise, instead of eliminating your blogroll because other people's blogrolls link in a circular fashion, why not break the pattern and link to smaller blogs?
A comment to Shelley's post has made me aware of one thing, however. The term "blogrolling" comes from the term "logrolling," which I'd never heard before. Wikipedia says this about it:
Logrolling is a colorful phrase used to describe trading of votes by legislative members to obtain passage of actions of interest to each legislative member. The term is also used for similar activities in academics, notably the "cross quoting" of papers in order to drive up reference counts.
I don't really care for that connotation, and it isn't how I see blogrolling at all. To that end, "ye olde blogroll" has become "ye olde links," which is more accurate anyway since not all of my links are to blogs.
Finally, I'd like to share my favorite solution to alleviate the fear of blogwhoring. Shakespeare's Sister explicitly sanctions it three times a week her Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Blogwhorin' posts. It's a forum to shamelessly promote your own blog, and everyone is invited. It is a feature I fully intend to steal should my traffic ever grow to the point that I can pull it off.
7 comments:
Some great thoughts here, and I think you're on point. Thanks for the added input.
Yeah, good post.
I know about the "blogrolling"/"logrolling" thing, and I've never really minded it--it's amusing, for one. And for two, I honestly don't think that our tendency to network and talk to friends is a problem! I think that it only becomes a problem when it becomes an exclusionary power play. But, for instance, if one welcomes newcomers (simple manners, people), responds to comments or email (and if not, has some kind of polite explanation about why--e.g., "I'm sorry I can't respond personally to email, because I get so much of it, but please do forward me links" or whatever), and--ideally--makes a point of actively adding new people to a blogroll or pruning it or whatever--then I think that is really a good thing.
Thanks for a nice, useful, calm post on the topic ;)
Tagback isn't dependent on Technorati. Trackback is vulnerable to spamming, much more so than comments. So much so that, yes I pulled it.
People said, "How can we have conversations, then?" So I came up with an alternative. I'm open to other ways.
I don't care if people trackback or not -- I won't leave a hole open in my system.
Has nothing to do with my views on blogrolls. If people want blogrolls, fine and dandy. They say it's a great way to find new people. Fine and dandy.
After this recent ruckus, though -- I think--my opinion, since that has to be said at least six times for it to register--I think all they are is way to force people to conform. People invest too much emotion in them.
Or do we need to point out recent examples to demonstrate this?
Good post, Charlie.
I also use other bloggers' blogrolls to discover new bloggers, so I happen to like them. And I feel one can easily buck convention in the ways one uses blogrolling. I add new blogs only once a week, on Fridays, in a "Friday Blogrollin'" post, where I take time to highlight each individual blog I'm adding and say why I like them. It's an idea put forth by PSoTD, and I think it's a great way to promote a new blog on your blogroll and give some attention to a fellow blogger. I also tend to add way more smaller/newer blogs that I find and enjoy. The Dark Wraith calls me the "node of Blogosphere 2.0" because of that, lol.
And I love Blogwhoring MWF at Shakes Sis. I discover lots of interesting stuff that way; I have no idea why blogwhoring is seen as a bad thing, hence my keenness to undermine its bad rep. :-)
I just did a Mother's Day shout-out (with links) to all the maternal bloggers I'm reading. (Half of them aren't in my blogroll yet, and I'll get around to adding them someday.) I found about half of them through blogrolls and the other half through nlog comments.
I proudly blog-whored a couple times in an attempt to get people to visit my page and follow a link to donate to a good cause. I don't know if it worked or not, but I wasn't really whoring myself, I was whoring the good cause. So that's all good, right?
I just checked SiteMeter and learned that 58 people came to me after reading a comment at Chez Miscarriage, asking people to come to my site to access the fundraising link. And another 23 visits came from comments I left at Cancer, Baby. I hope at least a few of them actually did make donations. I just jumped back to my blog to thank them (and make them feel guilty if they hadn't donated but pop back in).
Interesting post. I think you are a sarcastic blogger and I can learn a lot of things from you, specially the way like you redact the information: common sense and good sources.
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