I used to love adding bloggers to my blogroll. Every time I would add a new name, it was as if I was sleeping with a new exotic woman — sometimes a redhead, sometimes a biology professor, sometimes a mother with three children. There were some cool guys also, but with them, it was more snuggling than anything else.
I now have 300 people on my blogroll, and even I have trouble performing to my potential when I am bed with so many people at once.
Would it be so terrible if I deleted my whole blogroll and started from scratch? This way, it would be like I’m a virgin for the very first time. I also might be more apt to reconnect with some of you that I haven’t in a while. There’s something about having a person’s name on a list that makes me take them for granted, like I bought the DVD, so now I don’t have to actually watch it.
Sophia, my blog editor, is worried that this might make my Technorati “rating” plummet, but honestly — can my blogging salary go any lower than it already is?
I’m curious, how do you approach your blogrolls? Why do we even have them? We all know where each of us lives on the blogosphere. Longtime readers of this blog know that I’ve been struggling with my blogroll for a long time. Once, I became so desperate for a way to organize it that I suggested making categories based on whether or not a blogger trimmed his/her pubic hair! (I was a lot more immature in my early days of blogging)
I don’t like it when bloggers are so cliquish that they only include FOD (Friends of Dooce), but at the same time, why do people add blog-linkrolls of 400 Blog Chicks? How many relationships can one person have? I find it difficult enough being involved with Sophia, or having two IM conversations at once, or even reading about one of Margaret‘s dates-gone-bad in the morning on Bloglines without spilling hot coffee on my pants.
I’ve met three bloggers in New York this week, so maybe I’m craving more from my interactions with others online. But don’t worry – that does not mean I’m going to send you photos of my penis. Not yet.
A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month: Wacky and Intellectual Gifts
After posting on the topic some months ago, I removed mine recently. The people I read and comment on know of my visits. Less headaches without it!
i was thinking about it last night and you can delete me from your blog roll. then you have only 299 more blogs to worry about!
I keep my blogroll to 3 kinds of people:
1.People I know or have met “I.R.L.” at BlogHer etc)
2.Friends who’s websites my husband and I have designed,
3. People who blog on the same topics that I do.
Dang it Neil! Now you’ve made me go and update my blogroll!
P.S. All the blogs that I read are kept in a seperate RSS feed (on a separate web page). There are too many names!
Most of my blogroll consist of blogs having to do wit the same subjects that I post about: Knitting, Crochet, L.A. Restaurants and other things goin’ on in L.A. or pop culture.
If a blogger on my roll hasn’t posted in over a month, then they’re deleted. You got to be interested to be interesting! IMHO
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My philosophy is “less is more”… and I only link to the nice peeps I actually read and who read me. That’s it!
i dunno.. i don’t really have a structure to mine. i put whoever i feel like and remove those i don’t read anymore. you know.. it’s like the quick dial pad.
Hi babe, sorry have been absent from your blog for a while. Yep delete the whole blogroll and start again, although decide in advance your criteria for adding a new blogger to it. Hope I am included, in a non-sycophantic way you understand! lol
When you get the hang of google reader let me know. I hate programs that are not intuitive as I don’t have time nor the inclination to sit through a tutorial. It seems you have to click on each posting to indicate you have read it – unlike in bloglines where you can select “mark all read”. Other issues too regarding your comment but too long to write here. Will catch up with you later.
Since I don’t understand any of this, I was thinking of adding a line at the top of the list:
If you wanna’ be here, just tell me.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with my blogroll as well lately. Having had a couple instances of drama surrounding it, it’s nice to read all comments above from people who clearly don’t take it so personally.
I use my list mostly to keep track of blogs I read more often and as a sort of stat calling card because sometimes I feel reticent or have nothing new to add in a comment. RSS readers wouldn’t really help in the latter regard if I understand them, right?
My blogroll is the real deal: my own SON’S blog doesn’t make the cut, a fact he bitches about on his own blog regularly. It’s who I read and for whatever reason I read them. I have to admit, sometimes I click on a few people’s blogroll links and start reading and think: “What on earth does (insert name of esteemed blogger) read THIS for? Must be a ‘she was there when I first started blogging’ thing.” But I won’t mention any names…meow.
It IS tough. I get overwhelmed when I go on there and see such a high number of posts I haven’t written. It was a lot easier to keep up when I had the cushy office job with nothing to do but make use of the high speed internet.
In general, my blogroll lists the blogs I read on a daily basis. (If you are able to read 300 blogs per day, I’m amazed at your ‘mad skillz’) Occasionally I link to people just because they link to me… but that’s just because I want everyone to LOVE ME, DARN IT! *sigh*
Yes, delete it. And start over with Prisstopolis featured prominently.
I have Willie Wonka categories, with secret meanings known only to me. You are an Everlasting Gobstopper.
(In case you were worried you were a snozberry.)
Hey, tell Machiavelli back there in your bed in L.A. that the Technorati rating comes from the number of blogs that link to you, not the ones you link to in your blogroll.
As far as your blogroll goes, I’m ok with you deleting everyone except me.
Machiavelli was worried about precisely that, Post Sass. Hell Hath No Fury Like A Blogger Scorned. But thanks anyway for explaning how things work.
Doesn’t technorati only count the links that are new over the last 3 months anyway? The shorter the list, the more chance anyone on it has of being clicked or noticed anyway.
Clean house. Start fresh. New year, new list.
A question on your blogroll….you have catagories….any hidden meaning?? I’ve uses yours like a roladex…kind of exciting getting to snoop through your (desk) drawers. Mine is small…not a who’s who..just a who I read. If you feel the need to purge..go for it…any favs that are deeper than just infatuation…will pop back up again…
Pearl, yes, technorati only counts for the last SIX MONTHS. I know that because Sophia is always calling me and saying, “Your links actually are going down!” I would not worry about those stupid links. Honestly, now with those Blogger Chicks adding 300 links to each other in a snap, links are completely meaningless. If I wasn’t lazy and could code better, I would come up with some application that we could all join and abuse the system, and keep on linking to each other five times a day until we run the internet and would split all the money we made. The only real barometer of blogging success is becoming one of my “Blog Crushes of the Day.”
Wendy — hidden meanings? You mean when I had it organized by breakfast, lunch,and dinner? Absolutely. Not all bloggers are born equal. Those categories represented the time of day I usually fantasized about being in bed naked with that blogger. If I remember correctly, you were at breakfast, right?
Will you still read my blog if my dates start going better?
Margaret — Probably not. Unless you describe your bedroom activity in detail.
that involves my dates going better
I set up my sidepanel/blog roll so that I don’t have to plug so many urls into my bookmarks at work (just in case they check those kinds of things).
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