I have had this post in draft for several weeks now. Then, Zoot posts about Blogrolls and Link Pages which made me realize that I should dust this draft off and finish it...........
______________________
I have been noticing a sad trend as of late. Blogrolls are disappearing en masse. I realize it was inevitable with the mass exodus to feed readers, but it still makes me sad. Do not get me wrong - I love my Bloglines and Google Reader accounts - you will have to pry them out of my dead, stiff hands before I will give 'em up. However, despite my unabashed adoration for my feed readers, I will always remain utterly devoted to my blogroll. Because of my blogroll, I know for a fact that folks have become friends - say, Monkey and Modern Day Hermit. Even Monkey had discovered me via another blogroll. Through Average Jane's blogroll, I discovered Rozanne where I began commenting. Rozanne then found Diana (or vice versa?) on my blogroll and they have since become good friends. You get the picture.
So, do I actually care when someone deletes me from their blogroll/links page? Um, yeah. Fortunately, I am well-versed in the arena of Rejection so I am able to push aside my hurt feelings and move on. Do I feel bad when I am the one doing the deleting? Oh yeah. Unfortunately, life happens and my reading tastes change - it is never personal. Is my blogroll reflective of my feed reader accounts? Hardly. My blogroll is far, far shorter. I attempt to keep my blogroll to those bloggers that I feel I have a personal connection with or those sites I comment frequently. The keyword here is "attempt" - my blogroll is horrendously out of date.
Politics, popularity contests and hurt feelings aside, blogrolls in conjunction with comment sections are what give blogging spice and flavor. When I first began blogging, I depended on blogrolls to find other folks that I would be interested in reading. Blogrolls contribute to the positive viral nature of blogging in general. If we give up blogrolls, how will we find each other?
12 comments:
The reason mine was down for so long, honestly, was because I had switched sites (yet again), and on top of that, kind of took an unannounced hiatus from blogging.
I have started to put it back up, though. Mainly because I don't do bloglines and it's much easier for me just to click on my blogroll.
Some of my favourite people went password protect, however. :(
You are so correct. I too would never find some people had someone not had a link/blogroll. I just went through and cleaned house on mine... even created a doo doo list for those who haven't updated in forever (which thankfully is never you).
After all of the discussion about this in the past couple of weeks, I think it's obvious that I need to do a serious overhaul of my blogroll. There are dozens of blogs I love that haven't been added and there are also a few that have dropped off my radar since I put them up.
If only I could feed my Bloglines links in directly...
I totally agree. Which is why I still have (and love) my blogroll, even though I read every last one of them in Bloglines now.
I agree, I heavily used blogrolls when I first began blogging. Now? Not so much, more that I peruse comments and if someone says something witty or interesting I'll scoot on over to their blog and take a peek. I am horrendous in keeping my blogroll updated, as I am in replying to people's comments which totally makes me feel horrible!
My blogroll does not in anyway reflect all of the blogs I read. I have updated it with a few over the last few days...but all the blogs I read will not fit on the page.
I've found so many blogs due to blog rolls and I am always checking out blogrolls.
If it's any consolation as far as being deleted on the blogroll.. I know that every time I change my blogger format, I lose some blogroll people. Not my doing at all, but sometimes it takes me months to realize someone is missing! So it may not be personal!
I agree. I actually found your blog off of Amalah's blogroll.
I also love the blogroll, thanks for its defense. I have bloglines, but I miss the personaity of the site design surrounding the posts, so I will more often use blogroll to check & read my sites vs. bloglines.
I completely forgot about the fact that I wouldn't have a blogroll if it wasn't for other people having them, meaning that I wouldn't be reading so many blogs if others hadn't had links to them. I hate when I blog I like doesn't have a blogroll. Sometimes, I am just bored and start clicking away, and I usually find a new blog to add to my Google Reader.
I so hear you!
My blogroll is what I read, where I comment, who I care about. I have tremendous guilt when I delete someone, usually if they are AWOL for an extended period of time. Occasionally I out grow someone's blog and then sneak away, which brings on 'guilt on steroids' when I finally bite the bullet and hit the delete button on the blogroll.
I'm a fan of blogrolls, too. A couple of times I've considered signing up for Bloglines or Google Reader, but I guess I kind of like the element of surprise in clicking on my blogroll to see if one of my pals has updated.
Post a Comment