Some people have taken blogroll amnesty day the wrong way—or perhaps it has been used in the wrong way. Jon Swift registers the impression that this was an undemocratic purge that simply re-enthroned the same old elites and tossed the little guys on the scrapheap.
But the more I learned about this Amnesty Day, the more I realized that it was a very strange amnesty indeed. The amnesty he granted turned out to be amnesty for himself [Atrios]. He wanted to assuage himself of the guilt he might feel at kicking blogs off his blogroll instead of granting amnesty to others to swarm across the border into his domain. “Everyone feels a wee bit guilty about removing blogs from their blogroll, so they’re hesitant to add new ones to an ever-expanding list,” he explained. So Atrios deleted his entire blogroll and disappointingly repopulated it for the most part with the usual suspects. Then others in the liberal blogosphere followed his example, including Jesus’ General and PZ Myers at Pharyngula, who already takes a very Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest approach to blogrolling. Then Markos at Daily Kos joined this ruthless bloodletting. “It sucks and it feels bad,” he said, daubing the tears from his eyes as he typed. So the end result of Atrios’ Amnesty Day was to make some blogrolls smaller and even more exclusive than they already were.
Uh-oh. This is precisely the antithesis of why I thought the amnesty was a good idea: we shouldn’t take the A-listers for granted and just put them on the list because everyone else does, but should instead critically evaluate all of them. I like Atrios’s site, for instance, and browse it regularly because he seems to be an excellent and responsive weathervane for issues that might be of interest to me…but it’s all those smaller sites that put a little more care into more substantive or quirkier posts that I appreciate more.
For instance, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo thought I’d dropped him in the revamp. No way, man—that’s a much more fun site to read on lefty political issues than what Atrios does. Besides, I’ve got the t-shirt. I think that means we’re in a committed relationship at this point. Oh, and Skippy, I’ve never been on Atrios’s or Kos’s blogrolls myself—we’re just going to have to settle for each other.
I should also explain that Jon Swift has the wrong impression of my blogroll policy. It isn’t quite as brutal as he supposes; I’m extremely liberal about adding new blogs to it, and although I do drop blogs that are abandoned by their owners for a month or more, I’m also quick to add brand new ones that I find, and do so on at least a weekly basis. That’s how my complete blogroll has grown to 405 blogs at last count (and which I could never handle without my NetNewsWire to manage everything).
I have and always will consider linking to be a way to break out of stale hierarchies, and I hope no one gets the idea that I would want to use them to lock out fresh ideas.
Nobody links to my blog.
If I had a blog, I’m sure no one would link to it either.
“Nobody links to my blog.”
Including yourself, apparently…
i echo pz’s criterium for dropping blogs from my roll: only if they’ve stopped blogging for a few months, will i then cut them.
again, my apologies for misreading mr. swift’s misreading of your amnesty post; and for my inability to find your blogroll!
Because Pharyngula has the rotating featured blogs on the blogroll, maybe some people were unaware that Pharyngula was linking to so many types of blogs. It is nice of you PZ that you are mindful of the smaller blogs.
Forget about the purge. I wanna know why I am not listed in the blogroll. It’s time for the domination of the aussie blogs! Heh
I usually only remove blogs after it is clear that the blog has been abandoned. I wait at least three months, and sometimes longer for good ones. Even then I keep them on the newsreader just in case.
Generally I try to link more to smaller blogs than larger ones. Many people already link to big blogs like Daily Kos and Eschaton, so why add one more when I could be giving support to smaller blogs that are just as good?
I did not realize that the blogroll on your page is just the tip of the iceberg (a phrase that future generations will not understand according to global warmists). If there is a link on your page to the rest of your blogroll, I’m sorry I missed it and gave the impression you are more Darwinian than you truly are. I’m also glad to know that my reading of Amnesty Day differs from your intentions, although I am not sure that is the case with the other blogs I mentioned. I still believe that many of the major liberal blogs are less inclusive than they should be while many of the major conservative blogs are ironically more democratic. Anyway, I apologize for any mischaracterizations of your own blogrolling policy.
By the way, I have had your site on my blogroll for quite a while and I shall continue to do so whether you deem my modest blog worthy of inclusion some day or not.
Many people already link to big blogs like Daily Kos and Eschaton, so why add one more when I could be giving support to smaller blogs that are just as good?
BLASPHEMER!!!!!!!!
Um, most of us small time bloggers blog for ourselves and don’t really care who links, reads or blogrolls us anyway.
It’s a hobby, really. Not a money making operation, at least in my case.
I have a quog that no one links to.
Reading blogs with an RSS reader, as I do, sure gives a different feel to blogs. Namely, I couldn’t care less about a “blogroll”.
A blogroll is a list of names, not very prominently placed. There is hardly any annotation, no way to know if “My Red Burkha” is better than “The Mad Genghis & His Cohorts”. In my view it serves more as a way for readers to identify themselves better with the writer: “Ooh, she reads those same kickass blogs as I do! Cool!”
If I think of how I found Pharyngula or any other blog I like to read, it was through a link in a post. This is not much of a surprise, as the “thing” with blogs is just that — linking and posting. So. Instead of maintaining a blogroll, why not do an occasional post about the new blogs you’ve found with short descriptions and perhaps a few links to the best articles?
I like this blog.
Aiiiii! WHY did you post that link to your blogroll, PZ? Now I’m not gonna get ANYTHING done.
I still believe that many of the major liberal blogs are less inclusive than they should be while many of the major conservative blogs are ironically more democratic.
And I believe that many liberals have hit their children, while many conservatives haven’t, for appropriate values of “many”. But such statements, even if true, are misleading and stupid.
I just pretend I am writing my blog for myself so that I have a sort of diary of what I was thinking and or reading on the internet at certains times. This is until a big news networks asks me to write for them. Yea right. I am to lazy to be a full time blogger like PZ. I do use it as a diary. I wish I was be more prolific. Guess it takes discipline.
My blogroll is too large to be manageable, but some people say they like it and use it regularly to find new stuff.
How is “endless forms most beautiful” not Darwinian? :-)
How is “endless forms most beautiful” not Darwinian? :-)
I’ve never been in the habit of clicking through people’s blogrolls. I usually find new blogs through a referred link in a post or on Daou Report.
I just assumed it was some courtesy thing blog writers did but went generally unused by readers. Are you sure that’s not the case?
Maybe it’s time for your own version of Daou Report where you (or someone) can provide teasers and links to lesser visited but regularly updated blogs. Crooks and Liars has a small version but I’m thinking a more formal Daou Report type place.
Anecdote time!
I think about half the blogs I regularly read (Pharyngula included) were found in blog rolls, so I know at least some readers find blogs that way. The other half came from clicking on the names of people leaving comments. (Don’t bother visiting mine right now, it’s pretty dead.)
So, uh, yeah. What you described as Amnesty is pretty much exactly what skippy is doing, and pretty much the opposite of what Atrios has been doing. (Except maybe for that 30 days thing, and I have to strenuously disagree with that policy, as it would have meant no Billmon back when he was doing his thing.
And, of perhaps less note, yours truly, as real life issues have gotten in the way)
Still, you had to have known what this would actually amount to; it was pretty clear as soon as Atrios announced it, and crystal clear once he posted his new, Kos-like list.
Well, one good thing has come out of this: I’m quite a bit more “back into the game” than I was for a while, having fallen into the habit of only reading the big (and utterly unwieldy) “big blogs”. I had completely forgotten just how good a read Skippy could be.
I think, then, that the best lesson of this all might be for Amnesty to follow the same rule as carpentry: measure twice, cut once.
You might just have forgotten why you liked the blog so much in the first place.