The irony here for me is that I actually found Lauren and Feministe through your blogroll. Hm. Perhaps I'll pop over there and let her know.
Please do! And tell her how you got there 
What's the evidence base for the claim that people only "rarely" find new things through blogrolls? I found this site through a blogroll adventure! I routinely click on new sites and use the blogroll on sites I like as a pointer to what I might be interested in. In fields where I have little background, like feminist disability studies, the blogrolls have been absolutely critical to demonstrating the vitality of the intellectual network and pointing to the far-ranging resources at my disposal.
I might be alone in my free-range habits, but I'm grateful that you've maintained your inclusive and extensive list of time-worthy sites.
I think I use blogrolls differently than most people; they serve as bookmarks and pathways through my blogrounds first and foremost. (That is, I'll do things like click on Phantom's link on my own roll, then jump off her link to Pilgrim/Heretic, then off her link to David, then off his to Jimbo, then off his to Laura's... and so on.)
But I do on occasion click on links that look interesting on other people's blog rolls, and use those rolls to get access to blogs I'm thinking of adding but haven't yet, like Echidne.
I haven't made extensive use of Lauren's blogroll in this way, but I'd be highly distressed if many more people followed suit.
(As for the issue of weblogs loading slowly, they only load slow if they are hosted by an outside agency. Moreover, if you put them in the column that loads last, you can stop loading after the posts are up if you don't want to wait for the roll to appear.)
(And I suppose I _could_ make greater use of bookmarks, but for some reason I don't.)
wow. i'm a big fan of blogrolls, because that's _specifically_ how I find new blogs. When I have a block of time I think "hey, I'll go through [insert blogger's name here]'s blogroll and see if I can pick up something new."
I use blogrolls literally all the time to find new blogs to read. Especially with special focus blogs, like mama, or feminist, or political, or food bloggers. I think your observations about the way blogrolls are and can be used are spot on.
Looking at the bigger picture, having these lists of links that are at least to some degree, relatively static (perhaps they're changed once every few months or so), affects the way google indexes and ranks pages. If tons of people are linking to BitchPhD (and i hope they are) the higher the rank will be in google for the term BitchPhD to correlate to a working link to your site.
so, in this way, saying that all of us with blog rolls are hurting everyone else is completely inaccurate. the best thing you can do is add the blogs you like. my blog roll remains. it's for my own and anyone else's convenience who chooses to use it.
Rana,
I use my blog roll in a similar fashion. I think it's fairly common actually.
I totally use blogrolls to find other people -- In fact, I only find people through their comments and blogrolls!
What timing ... I just found this blog from the blogroll at Eschaton, and this is the first post I see.
Ironically, I found you through Unfogged's blogroll.
And generally, I think you're right -- I use your blogroll quite a bit when I want to find something new.
Welcome, Cardinal Ratzass. And great pseudonym, btw.
LB, that is pretty damn ironic. Oh well, that gateway to my blog is now closed.
You're one of my biggest sources of hits, probably in part because you fucking write for my blog.
But yeah, especially since Ralph Luker doesn't like us anymore, every little bit helps.
I'm gonna get all theoretical, but I also think of blogrolls as establishing someone's ethos. So you look at bitch's blogroll, click a few to see what kinds of blogs she links to and you get a sense of what kind of person she is. Of course, you can find this out through her posts as well, but you get a broader picture through the blogroll. Not only that, but I think bloggers position themselves within a community through their blogroll. Dr. B. is unusual in having so many links (pharyngula has lots too) but you get a sense of who her community is also--which is probably related to ethos, but is slightly different.
And when I'm talking to people unfamiliar with blogging and they ask me how to find blogs they might be interested in, I tell them to find one blog they like, then use their blogroll links to find more. I found you through Tim Burke's blogroll.
I think the whole blogroll thing is key for knocking down the A-list a notch or two and getting some visibility for some other blogs. I see the logic, but if you don't link to the A-list and you do link to others, you're not perpetuating the A-list. Does that make any sense?
Of course, some people feel like not linking to the A-list makes them look like amateurs--back to the ethos/community thing.
I am at one remove from finding this blog by a blogroll. I found Sappho's Breathing from TAR's blogroll, and found you from a shout out by Cleis at SB.
At the risk of turning this into one of those "everyone agree with Bitch" comment threads, I must say, I agree with Bitch. With a low traffic blog like mine, I figure my main contribution to the internet conversation is raising the Page rank of places I decide to link to.
Heck, I once went for a good ten month spell without making a single entry, and eventually had to use a colleague's blogroll to find my own blog.
HEAR HEAR! Thank you for this post.
Blogging is about community. As soon as we abandon blogrolls we cease to be bloggers and start truly resembling the isolationist MSM.
I've found almost all of the blogs I read via the blogrolls of people I find interesting. Looking over somebody's blogroll is like looking at their bookcase. It's a taste of what they find inspiring, amusing or provocative. If I like what you write, chances are I might also like what you read.
By posting a blogroll we're also showing support for other bloggers and their efforts. Some of those bloggers may only have a handful of readers and sharing their link is a means of exposing them to your audience.
Call me old skool but I love the ideas of community and sharing that inspired the blogosphere and I, personally, will continue to view blogging that way.
I find no reason to link to bloggers who don't have the fellow-feeling to link to other bloggers and display their support openly. It's that "I'm special" ... don't call me, I'll call you.
No thanks.
I completely agree, both with your post and especially with Laura's comments. After all, the blogosphere is a big place - without blog-rolls, finding blogs can be a trick. Heck, I was basically unaware of how many academics blogged until I ran into New Kid's site (where I found this page).
Let's be honest - in running a blog, one is trying to write in a short, witty, and erudite way about something that no doubt 473 other bloggers are also trying to write about in a short, witty, and erudite manner. Blog-rolls serve as a way of getting through the cachaphony to new blogs that only chance could bring one to otherwise.
Up and up, please do keep the blog-roll (rarely have I seen one so comprehensive - that's a good thing) and the good writing.
I only started reading blogs like 2 weeks ago... I was bored at work and frequented bad astronomy.com and the bad astro forums, and I noticed the BA had a blog. so I read it, and it was rad. then I saw his blog roll, and clicked the Angry Professor. And found out teacher/professor blogs are rad (its nice to know the teachers/professors are frustrated with bad students, as the ticked me off when I was a student)
anywhoo... from there I found learning curves, and pharygula, and used phrygula to locate all sorts of blogs, including this one due to the blog roll. they are good, and have me a new way to kill time when I am bored.
I've found almost all my blogs through blogrolls. Back in the day it was just AMERICAblog, and though those links I now have 20 blogs I read daily. I think its a sad day when people stop making good stuff accessable to others because it loads slow. So what.
The theory that people get to blogs makes little sense.
Static links in posts carry more weight than a link on a blog, to be sure.
That said, the post(s) eventually scroll off while the blogroll remains. The fact that the blogroll doesn't move is what makes it a more useful tool.
Roxanne says she's thinking of removing her blogroll because SHE doesn't use it any more, which, while undoubtedly true, is exactly the opposite of how they're used. They're not for YOU, they're for others. At least that's how they're used now; I have no idea if that was the original intent, or if that's how they're used on the other internets 
adding my voice to the chorus of "I agree with Bitch". I was a bit alarmed by Lauren's post. It felt like someone had just snatched away a favorite bookshelf full of books.
Thank you SO MUCH for speaking out on this! I completely and wholeheartedly agree - our blog would be SUNK were it not for being blogrolled on other, bigger blogs (like this one!) and I'd hate to see ditching them become a trend. I'll go add my voice to at Rox's and Lauren's.
Don't you just hate one of those "everybody agree with the post" comment-fests? No. Me neither. And I'm gonna chime in.
Ditto, ditto, ditto. Blog rolls are how I found the people I must read every day! And I refuse to subscribe, so links are it for me. Everybody's right; in-post links scroll away, but a blog roll is forever (if you've been a good little blogger in the eyes of the roll owner).
I always thought that hadn't really made the big time until you were on somebody's roll, as opposed to just linked in a post.
The whole thing does reek of the earlier brou-ha-ha over the WMEnglish-speakers rolling each other exclusively and everybody else feeling left out (and I'm not denigrating the original complaint). It's vaguely analogous to the Star Wars geeks who are camped out in front of Grumman's in protest of Ep 3 not being shown there.
Hear hear...
I am also very pro-blogroll. However, I did hate the way they were SOOOO long down the sidebar, I looked for ways to shorten them. It's also easy to categorize them this way.
They are in there now via java where all you see is the name of the blogroll....and when you click the name, Poof! The blogroll appears! Very kewl.
I totally agree. I'm a relatively new blogger and blog reader, and blogrolls have helped me to find more and interesting blogs. I found you through Unfogged and have found countless hours of enjoyment and procrastination through your blogroll. Thanks!
I found this site through a blogroll. I often read through blogrolls when I find a post that takes me to a site, that takes me to a site, that ...
I've been meaning to blog about this. I agree with you too, B. Shelley says we'll find each other other ways, and I agree; I guess it's not so much that I'm strongly pro-blogroll as it is that I'm simply not convinced by the "lose the blogroll" arguments. I've thought about just having a link that says "Blogroll" on my main page that goes to a list of links; some people have said that there's "so much going on" on my blog that it's overwhelming and the site isn't as usable and reader-friendly as it could be because of all the links and bells/whistles. I might do that, but I doubt I'll ever get rid of the blogoll entirely.
99 feeds at Bloglines. Many of them came from other people's blogrolls.
I do confess that the longer a roll gets the less likely I am to click my way down it. I also am MUCH more likely to explore a blogroll that either categorizes fairly explicity, categorizes in an interesting way, or includes some form of description (even if it just the tagline the author has selected for the title).
In other words, a blogroll with some value-added content is more likely to get clicks from me... but I do refer to them fairly regularly. I try to actually *click* on my fave blogs rather than just read 100% via bloglines, too (and its the only way you can comment).
When I first read the posts about ditching blogrolls, my first thought was "I hope Dr.B doesn't do the same!" since I get more hits from your site than from all others combined. I have always appreciated the traffic from your site, and I respond in kind by "shopping" your blogroll whenever I have free time and am in the mood to discover something new and delightful.
Thanks!
I found this blog through Alas and other blogs that I read were found through blog rolls.
I have had blogs on and off for years for whenever I wanted to vent. My blog is viewed by nobody, but I have started putting up links to blogs that I like in case it is ever stumbled upon and for myself to remember the blogs that I like.
Yes, your blog roll is long, but I like having it as a resource.
Let's see. How many blogs do I have bookmarked and read at least weekly? Close to 30. How did I find them? I started at the Chicage Trib site, which has some columnist/bloggers including Eric Zorn. Eric sent me to flea's One Good Thing. Her blogroll sent me here. The comments and blogroll here sent me to at least a dozen more blogs, which in turn sent me to most of the rest. And then I delved into writing my own blog, and found some more must-read blogs through comments there. (What did I used to do with all these "extra" hours, anyway? It's a mystery.) Love the blogrolls! And love to be in the blogrolls!
Jah, tossing the 'roll is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just because some people are lame with how they use theirs doesn't mean that everybody's got to get rid of their 'rolls.
"I agree with Bitch." heh heh.
Like most, I don't use my own blogroll, I use a feeder, but my blogroll is still there so that people at my site (the very few that there are) can almost instantly get a read on where I'm coming from. The blogs in my roll are the one's I read almost daily.
Dunno if this qualifies as blogwhoring, but I'd also like to thank Bitch for putting me in her's. it's only one of two relatively popular sites in all of blogtopia that has it and it's the source of a plurality of my hits.
Well, I'm supposed to chorus in agreement here, but I shant. I don't much use blogrolls and the longer they get the more likely I am not to hit ones further down the list. And I don't much hit blogrolls because most of the time the rolls don't tell me what the entries ARE. But then, I maintain my own micropage with all the links I use regularly on it.
Now that that's said, personally I would prefer it if blogrolls were on a separate page with descriptive comments about the blogs being linked to. That has its own problems too. As do blogrolls, which increase load time. And as does removing blogrolls which knocks people out entirely.
The blogroll thing, she is not a solved problem. Just like blog commenting.
They work, but not so well.
ash
['Technology take me away.']
Ash, you brat, don't impede my ambitions to climb the TTLB rankings until I am a real boy!!
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Ash, you brat, don't impede my ambitions to climb the TTLB rankings until I am a real boy!!
Howabout I break out the magic fairy pixie dust and soon all your wood (don't. go. there.) will become soft and supple, like Joan Rivers face.
And then the happy blog fairies will take you away to the land where no one disagrees with you and everybody sucks up to you, which is like being in the Senate, but better since you don't have to vote on anything.
And then your brain will turn to goo like those people on Entertainment Weekly.
You are getting sleepy....sleepy...
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
No one can resist the power of Contrary Man.
ash
['Feel free to make up a little song here, involving the words jerk, imp and possibly the phrase bad tights.']
You know, it would be nice to live in the land where I am queen for EVEN A LITTLE WHILE.
You know, it would be nice to live in the land where I am queen for EVEN A LITTLE WHILE.
And you can! Just click your ruby CV's together and repeat after me: 'There's no place like HAHvahd....there's no place like HAHvahd....there's no place like HAHvahd....'
And soon, you will be tenure-track QUEEN of the land of Important Academics!
ash
['It's a little postage stamp country, right next to Belgium.']
Laughing. Ass. Off.
As if I'd WANT that job.
As if I'd WANT that job.
What? You DON'T...WANT...THAT...Job. Mein Gott in Himmel! Woman! Take that back! Quick! Before the Death Saurons of the Dark Humanities Department arrive to dispatch you to the PINK COLLAR GHETTO of the little people Important People Write About. Hurry!
ash
['Uh-oh.']
I find blogrolls to be friendly rather than exclusionary. To me, being on someone's roll is a sign that they like my writing well enough to want to be reminded to read it frequently.
However, I agree that it would be good to do a bit of code on your roll so people can click the type of blog that sounds interesting to them and then see the full list. I fear that the folks at the bottom of the list don't get as many eyeballs because it's so very long.
As for the gender issue within it, I worry that I may be part of the problem rather than part of the solution, as my own blogrolls lean very male.
Well, PG, make a point of expanding your blogroll, then
A couple of comments.
First, since I don't maintain a homepage, my site blogroll keeps track of my links when I'm at a different computer. I use it as a reader. There are a couple of other sites that serve or have served similar functions: I trust the webmaster to link to interesting content and to the sites I have already judged as being interesting, so if I haven't bookmarked or blogrolled them, I can go to a site and find the relevant link there. For me, the political sites that function so are Billmon and Eschaton, the academic sites Crooked Timber and Frau Professor Bitch.
Second, while I'll sometimes browse through lesser-known or unknown sites from a blogroll in a moment of boredom, it's the mainpage references that really grab me. Yes, it's a somewhat authoritarian impulse, but the reason good blogs work the way they do is that an individual has created a particular voice with particular interests. A regular reader has come to trust that voice and its judgments. You click through.
Similarly, and I suppose this is my third point, a particularly compelling voice on a comment thread has led me to some interesting blogs, most particularly this one. One day I finally clicked through your homepage link on your Crooked Timber comments, Prof. B., and found myself here. You were kind enough to click through to my own homepage from my comments here, and as soon as I updated my personal description to mention that I was a PhD candidate, wham!, I was on your blogroll. You were the first person to so do, I'll note.
Attempts at a general conclusion have been deleted by the poster. Drawing the strands of my points into coherency has been left as an exercise for the reader.
Oh how funny... 80% of my personal blog links come from site blog rolls. I find a few new new ones in the course of reading the entries.
This entire issue is seen differently coming from people who have established blogs, then people who simply read blogs and then people who are starting blogs.
As Melanie has pointed out:
I've found almost all of the blogs I read via the blogrolls of people I find interesting. Looking over somebody's blogroll is like looking at their bookcase. It's a taste of what they find inspiring, amusing or provocative. If I like what you write, chances are I might also like what you read.
This reliance upon blogs that cite one another can unwittingly result in an invisible, insular circle -- you're all raising each others' rankings by linking to one another, but at the same time, new blogs are getting buried -- or not even represented -- in the google rankings as the circle rises. The simple fact is that google often does not even acknowledge a site until it's linked several times or linked once by a powerful site.
The only way to get into the circle then, is to promote one's self to individual blogs. But many women are not very good at promoting themselves, as has been abundantly noted before. So, at this stage in the game, the women bloggers who enter the circle are the aggressive, self-promoting ones.
Though, is this necessarily a good thing? Not being aggressive does not preclude being a great, interesting writer. As we all know, often times the loudest, most talkative students in the class are actually not as intelligent and insightful as the quiet, shy ones -- they just seem more intelligent because they talk more. So when aggressivity is the key criteria to entering the circle, you are, in fact, missing out on other women's voices & blogs.
And it needs to be acknowledged here that this tendency to value the "shouters" or the most aggressive people is a symptom of patriarchal culture. Men often have an attraction-repulsion to bitches because they "encroach" on what is assumed to be patriachal territory. When one has to be aggressive or a bitch to get into the system, that's still playing by the rules of the patriarchy.
Not to mention the already established bloggers are being given a great deal of power to decide who enters and who doesn't enter the circle -- a certain degree of humility and critical self-reflexivity about that power needs to be exercised. Sure, it's flattering to be told that one is sending visitors to other, lesser-known sites, but why do you get to be the arbiter of which lesser-known sites are of value? When you say that's "18 other sites that wouldn't otherwise happen to find the site," well, that makes you a benefactor but does that necessarily make the system right? Should they need to be dependent on your site?
If anything, the source of the problem is google -- it's a patriarchal-type system where people have to compete and self-promote to get to the top of the rankings/list and that requires tons of ego and even the desire to be at the top in the first place. Little wonder that the founders are men.
The yahoo system is quite different, and actually, after starting a blog myself six months ago, I have learned that yahoo is a much better search engine when it comes to quality content. Many of my hits come from yahoo, and I get feedback from people who find me on yahoo. But I have not yet penetrated (pun intended) this inner circle of liberal bloggers, even as I link to more than a few.
I think that the other problem is is that people like to link to their own ideological kind and that results in a kind of mutual admiration society and bandwagon effect. It also further polarizes the ideological spectrum and neglects those who work at negotiating a middle ground.
The ranking system may not be going anywhere -- I agree -- but the system is really screwed-up. Saying that the ranking system isn't going anywhere is kind of like saying that patriarchy isn't going anywhere, is it not?
I found you through the blogroll from Whiskey Bar, and now one of my friends reads you regularly too. blogrolls good.
and your blog rocks.
I left pro-blogroll comments on the other sites; don't know how much good it will do but I can't say strongly enough how much I rely on blogrolls to discover new and interesting blogs. I found you from a blogroll, Feministe from your blogroll, Roxanne from someone ELSE'S blogroll -- so there ya go. Glad you're keeping yours.
I have been slowly working through the Bitch blogroll and and I have added 2 or 3 sites to my regular rounds, so I have to disagree
Cranky
THANKYOU!
I can't believe the reasoning behind dumping blogroll, especially as I found most the blogs I read through other peoples.
As for the gender spilt, my roll's spilt 50:50. Only you control what you put on your blog roll - if it feels too male, deal with it by exploring for God's sake and stop whining!
I browse blogrolls like I do the library shelves. It's how I found yours for example. Can I really expect you to work mention of dozens of read worthy blogs into each daily entry? Not.
I love blogrolls. I only recently discovered the blog world and have been skipping through blogroll by blogroll. In fact trying to figure out how I got to anyone's blog would be a great 'six degrees of blogrolling' game. I think I hit you via 'One Good Thing' and have used yours to find many interesting academic blogs and being an adademic that was very helpful.
Personally I like blogrolls, so much so that I maintain mine the old fashioned way, by manually updating it periodically, adding new blogs and deleting others that I no longer like or that haven't been updated in a long time. I rarely mention it when I fiddle with my blogroll, although occasionally I'll announce on my blog that I'm linking to a new blog.
I think it's a great idea to get rid of your blogroll... if you want to make sure that the big white male bloggers get most of the traffic.
Speaking as someone who is trying to get my union sisters and brothers to pay more attention to the blogosphere in general and feminist/bloggers of color in particular, blog rolls are crucial. A lot of the people I work with don't have time to read enough blogs every day. Even for someone like myself, who loves blogs, there are insane weeks like this week when my first chance to look at blogs was today, Friday. For us, blog rolls are a really useful way of figuring out who else we might think about reading when we have a little spare time.
So yes, when you put some people on your blog roll and don't put other people, you are making a choice that has consequences for who gets read and who doesn't. But you know what? That's true if you don't have a blog roll.
A, I see what you are saying, but I think there is another way to look at it. Blogrolls are not competitive; they are (or can be) inclusive--you can add as many links as you like to a blogroll. They function non-hierarchically; you can alphabetize, or just list things as you find them, or you can choose to order things completely randomly. Most importantly, they really can and do serve as a way of spotlighting small blogs. This is different than the whole question of google rankings, Technorati, TTLB, and so forth.
What I find interesting is that the argument against blogrolling (and the people I've seen being convinced by it) are *not* the small minor blogs that the argument is intended to help; it's blogs, like mine, that aren't *quite* at the "top" ranks, that are run by feminist women, and that, as you point out, have a pretty strong presence in the ol' blogosphere. The very blogs that are *most* likely to (and do, if you look at our blogrolls) undercut the "dominant hierarchy."
Now, it's true that we only got to the point of being "near the top" b/c we get linked by a few of the big boys--but it seems to me the question is, having gained "power," what do you do with it? And it seems to me that we've mostly used it to help smaller blogs, not just to entrench ourselves with the big ones. So the impulse to get rid of the blogroll is an impulse *not* to become entrenched, but it does so at a huge cost--as my comment to Roxanne was trying to point out, if you refuse to play the game, you end up sitting on the sidelines. Or, of course, you can go play your own game elsewhere--which is, I would argue, precisely what feminist blogrolls do. *And* I think that some of the big boys have started to go, "huh, that looks like a good game, let's play" (or at least they do so periodically, when there's a lot of yelling in the stands).
Whether or not that affects TTLB is a separate issue; of course, it will, but as people are saying, the way one finds good things to read isn't through the TTLB. That only matters to the bloggers themselves (and I don't think that's innately male--I think anyone who writes wants an audience). To the *readers* what matters is finding stuff to read--and blogrolls, I think, are one of the major ways people do that.
Thank you, a, for posting some dissent. I think I have a better sense now of where the anti-blogroll camp is coming from.
But if the problem is that established bloggers form a network that supports insiders and excludes outsiders, isn't the proper response simply to change your own blogroll to include more outsiders, particularly those with quiet voices? Likewise, if you are worried that left and right do not read each other, shouldn't you simply link to more blogs from the other side.
Google may be hierarchical, but it is also democratic. It seems to me that if you have a vote, you should use it.
How is Yahoo! better than Google? It's still hierarchical. (That was originally the 'h' in yahoo.)
I agree with Sandi, blogroll are like looking at someone's library (what a nice analogy).
I found your site through someone's blogroll (I would tell you whose, but I have no memory), and we immediately placed you on our blogroll b/c we found your site enlightening and entertaining. I like to think we are providing a little service of sorts by listing sites people will enjoy. While it is nice to have reciprocating links, I'm sure we have people on our roll who have no idea we exist.
However, if we notice that a blog does not update after a couple of weeks we take them off our roll. We want the blogroll to mean something.
lol - and not just someone's library - their reference library. I'll admit, I don't often browse through blogrolls to find new stuff, but I do use them to find links to blogs I've seen mentioned in the main blog entries. And I love seeing who's aware of whom.
IMHO dropping your blogroll because you don't like the exclusivity of other people's blogrolls is like dumping the contents of your bookcases onto the street because you're pissed at Oxford UP & Houghton Mifflin.
I use blogrolls every day. I can't bookmark things on my work computer (because I'm not even supposed to be on the internet! Hahahaha!).
And I found your blog initially the same way LB did, but even more ironically, it was the de-blogrolling incident that sealed me as a regular visitor here.
Who is that white woman pretending to be Alice Walker at the top of the page?
Frankly, my blogroll is as much for my own convenience - a set of bookmarks - as it is for anyone else. I don't tend to go through other people's blogrolls that much now, because I already have too many blogs to read, but it was the main way I found new and interesting blogs when I started last year.
When I lecture on blogs, one of the questions I always get is "but how do I find these blogs?" I say: "Search through google, once you find one you like, go through their blogroll for others."
I hope I don't have to come up with a new, even more complicated reply to the unexperienced net users.
Y'know, Joe, I was pretty philosophical about the deblogrolling part (the other stuff, not so much) but now that I'm realizing how many great readers/commenters I got through that link, I'm starting to feel robbed that it's not there any more
I don't blog, probably never will, but I like to read blogs. The main way I find new or different blogs is by blogrolls. I found BitchPhD because it was listed on Fussy.
I don't bookmark blogs because I use several different computers, with several different users and the bookmarks are limited to the sites that we all use. I suspect that people who use truly public computers, as for example, someone who accesses the web from a library computer would have the same problem.
I don't pay much attention to who is 'A list' or whatever. I read some blogs that interest me, and almost all of the ones I read regularly I've found through a blogroll, not a reference in a post.
Another question this blogrolling discussion brings up is: how often have you (the editorial you, not bitchphd) visited blogs on a blogroll just because the name was so damned interesting?
Snappy naming led me to "Respectful of Otters" and "Defective Yeti," to name a couple. And them's some fine bloggin'.
It's nice to know someone else thought this was a terrible idea.
Just to get in on the general consensus. I found this site through flea's blogroll and Feministe, too. How else is one to know what is new and interesting except by personal recommendation from someone you already enjoy? I do not blog and am technologically disadvantaged, so blogrolls are how I find out that I might have something new to read and maybe bookmark. Maintain the Blogroll ! is the cry.
Blogrolls are not competitive; they are (or can be) inclusive--you can add as many links as you like to a blogroll. They function non-hierarchically;
I still disagree. Newcomers have to take the initiative to present their website to the so-called "powerful" bloggers in the first place, and then you get to decide who to link to such that your values are the ones that arbitrate who enters and who does not. The hierarchy has to do with the fact that those who have obtained rank -- as you note, early in the blogging game that was being recognized by male bloggers, i.e., perhaps being aggressive like themselves -- then have a tremendous amount of power over who enters later in the game. The heirarchy is not with the design of the lists themselves. The heirarchy is in the mechanisms of the selection process. At this stage in the game, competitive self-promotion is a primary factor.
Also, another factor, beyond initiative, is that women may not see the point in self-promotion while reading another person's blog (on which they might leave their calling card/homepage). Women are more likely to listen and respond, without saying "look at me, too." Or they may not have the time to go out promoting themselves on other blogs and leaving self-directing comments on other blogs. As you well know, it's a lot of work to run one's own blog, let alone commenting on other's. But one often must regularly comment on others in order to enter the system. There may simply not be enough time to self-promote, which is often true with myself.
This is different than the whole question of google rankings, Technorati, TTLB, and so forth.
Agian, I disagree. If google allowed new bloggers to be found through simple searches than blogrolls would not be so powerful. The requirement of links, particularly from powerful sites, means that new bloggers only get listed on google through self-promotion.
To answer Rob: based on my experience, in the past year, I have submitted websites to both google and yahoo simultaneously. One was an academic resource site, another a gripesite about a company, another a business site of a family member and then my blog site. With yahoo, all of the sites were listed within a week of submission. In fact, amazingly, they all were nearly immediately ranked near the top for some important keywords. And a great deal of traffic started flowing from yahoo for each of the sites. And all I did was submit them to the search engine. I did not use any of the so-called "optimization" techniques.
Meanwhile, Google ignored all of the websites completely. Even up until February of this year, until one of the sites was picked-up by a very powerful one on google, they were all in oblivion for months on end, entirely undetectable to anyone who was doing a google search. IInstead, during those months, the great majority of the traffic came from yahoo or those minor search engines that use yahoo's results.
It would seem that yahoo has some technical capacity to evaluate based upon content that is lacking with google's almost sole dependency on the linking system. But one doesn't discover this until you start building your own sites or blogs.
if you refuse to play the game, you end up sitting on the sidelines.
Not necessarily. One still writes and find audiences in non-virtual spaces. Or even online audiences that are not immersed in the blogging scene, as is sometimes the case with feedback I get from people who found me on yahoo.
Also, one can become so immersed in the "game" that they don't step back and examine the conditionality of the rules and the history of the rules.
By the way, I am an academic. I left my blogsite twice in your comments as my "homepage," and you ignored it. Then I said, forget it.
As someone above pointed out, they had to note on their site that they were a Ph.D. before you listed them. Not all of us do that or go around flashing the credentials on our sites, even in our topics.
Also, when you make "personal" a criteria, some entries may not be personal and others are personal. Surely you don't have the time to evaluate the entirety of every blog that appears in the homepage sections.
If I may also note, as an aside, all of those folks who have blogspot domains on the blogroll, should seriously consider getting their own domain names, apart from blogspot. They only cost about 5-7 dollars and can be easily forwarded or mapped onto a blogspot domain -- and then use a proxy system to remain anonymous (the whole package, including domain name, is only $13 at GD). Oftentimes people come up with interesting blogspot names that have never been registered as a domain name. But when you become popular, like this site, cybersquatters move in and claim the real .com domain, as someone has bitchphd. They often do this to capitalize off the traffic and newbies' tendency to type names into the address bar. If someone times in bitchphd without the "blogspot," it resolves to the .com version, unless previously bookmarked.
So, I would say that it's really important for bloggers to literally "own" their own domain name, if they still can. At least in some version .com, .net or .org.
Also, you're all doing a favor to google, the owner of blogspot, with the traffic. It may be free, but there are hidden benefits for google, as well.
FWIW, I first learned about Rox Populi and Feministe through your blogroll. I might never have found them otherwise, since I don't see many feminist links on the blogrolls of other weblogs I read, many of which are written by male bloggers.
a, I still disagree. Obviously I don't click through *every* homepage that's listed on *every* comment, nor does someone have to have a phd to be listed on my blogroll; I don't claim my blogroll is all-inclusive, merely that I try, however imperfectly, to include personal-type academic blogs (and some fairly impersonal ones as well)--along with other stuff.
As to the self-promotion thing, I find it odd that you say you asked your site to be listed on yahoo and google; is that not self-promotion? More to the point, I thought about this self-promotion thing and I think that yeah, women tend not to do it--and we should do it more, frankly. And some men should learn to wait until they're asked. But just because women tend not to do something doesn't mean they can't, or won't, or shouldn't (and vice-versa).
And you're also recommending that people should host their own domains--well, not everyone can afford that. Frankly, I can't.
Anyway, I don't see what the point of trying to bring down google is, really. Yes, popularity is an imperfect way of ranking things. No, lack of popularity doesn't mean something is bad, nor does popularity mean something is good. But I don't think that playing the popularity game is inherently masculine or feminine; I think it's inherently human.
wow. My head hurts. Kinda like having a hangover without the benefit of the party the night before.
Okay. So, based on comments here and at the homeplace, I've decided to keep mine, primarily because people are using my blogroll to discover new voices. As I originally stated, I had an idea that people were doing that and now I know they are. Cool.
Hey Roxanne, sorry for the headache. Can I fix you a drink?
I've never even thought of using google or yahoo to find a blog. The library analogy is great: google makes me feel like the librarian is glaring and saying "The recommended books are over there." Wandering through the links is much more fun. It exposes me to ideas and opinions that stretch my brain (or cause me to sandblast my eyeballs...)
I do not agree that the blogrolls promote exclusion, I find the opposite among the better blogs. At rough count, I have over 30 beginning / non-mainstream blogs bookmarked: all came from blogrolls.
Mutual admiration societies in blogging have a limited shelflife - fairly soon any intelligent readership moves on, tired of the "yeah, what he said" circular back patting.
A site with its comments turned off tells me I'm not welcome - they are there to pontificate, no other viewpoints allowed, thank you very much. No blogroll somehow smacks of the same; the blogger has no interest in pointing me towards others that might enhance my view of the issue.
Thanks for the offer, B. Actually, I'm drying out after my holiday orgy. Should be ready for a cold one, though, in a couple of days.
Yeah, everyone probably already said what I wanted to say (I did start skimming the comments at some point), but I have found many blogs through yours, though in a sort of casual way, and I get more hits coming off your blogroll than any other source, I think.
And I found you from becca's blogroll. Also a post she did that linked to you, but I still sometimes click over here from there because...well...I don't use bookmarks.
OK, so that was just a "what they all said" post. Sorry.
Just to note for information purposes, you don't have to host your own domain name since you can have it mapped or redirected to your blogspot address. The recommendation to have your own domain name goes out to even people who pay for typepad, etc. Not only am I noting the benefits to google through blogspot, but also the issue of potential financial capital, the control and the permanence that comes with having a high-trafficked blog/site. It's like officially marking one's brand/style. If one is going to accept the game for what it is, then why not fully play the game by owning your own space?
And 5 dollars for a domain name is not much more than the cost of one magazine, as I rationalize it. Hosting at GD is only $3 to $4 per month -- even less at other places like dreamhost (see fatwallet for coupons & discounts) -- again, not much more than the cost of a single magazine. That's how I rationalize it.
As for self-promotion, I have to force myself to do it. Like many women, it's not something that comes naturally when one has been socialized into being the listener all of the time. Also, submitting to yahoo & to google is anonymous. It's not like interjecting yourself into a conversation and asking for attention from real people immersed in that conversation. When submitting sites to a search engine, it's not like having to wave your hand in the air and say, ooh, look at me.
Anyway, I don't see what the point of trying to bring down google is, really.
Well, google is becoming a behemoth and too much control over the flow of information has its understandable dangers. Not to mention that Google rank can make or break an online business. Here's a source for you:
http://www.google-watch.org/
And many European universities are understandably upset with the ethnocentricity of this:
http://chronicle.com/free/2004/
0...2004040901n.htm
jdt: some people temporarily turn their blog comments off for a variety of reasons -- temporary busy-ness at critical times of the year, no time to monitor for spam & trolls, no time to responsibly respond to comments. No doubt, it takes a lot of work to run a blog, as bitchphd does (so kudos to her).
And to point out, popular blogs like Wonkette & Talking Points Memo don't have comments turned on -- they just have prior real-world connections and are based in connected, powerful cities. Yet they are blogrolled all the time.
Didn't read all 75 comments, so maybe someone already said this. Dr. B has never linked to my blog, but I'm on the blogroll. I get 3-4 clicks a week from Dr. B's blogroll.
Maybe those other blogs don't have such inclusive rolls, and for that reason they believe that they are some sort of bizarro barrier. md
a - I do understand that comments are turned off by necessity some times, or are not enabled at all for the reasons you mention. That I have no problem with.
My point (it's here somewhere, really) is that as a reader from a fairly isolated area, I don't always have the background to understand some of the issues I read in the blogs. I'm pretty much self-educated, and the skills and experience to separate the wheat from the chaff aren't always there. That's when I rely on bloggers that have comments and blogrolls - there is usually a range of opinions expressed in both, and that enables me to read more critically and understand more of what I'm reading.
I really hate to see either resource curtailed.
Shorter version of something I posted over at Pharyngula on this topic:
I'm concerned that there seems to be an undercurrent of "what blogs _should_ be / what bloggers _should_ do" running through this discussion. Blogs are a _tool_ for expression, much in the same way a book is. So it strikes me as odd that there should be any sort of call for blogs to "be" a certain way.
Moreover, this is the sort of thing that arises in what should be recognized is a _subset_ of the overall blogging phenomenon, that is, blogs with a political or activist agenda (as defined widely). This is not the sort of conversation that occurs on knit blogs, for example, or music blogs, or food blogs, or in LiveJournal circles. Yet all of those seem as qualified to be labeled "blogs" as those that use the blog format for activism and the distribution of politicized information.
To argue that blogrolls _in general_ are "bad" for blogging is to argue that blogging is "for" a particular purpose -- and I would argue vehemently that this is _not_ the case.
If it were, all of us who use our blogs to share silly quizzes, post pictures of our pets and craft projects, natter away about our day to day activities, and the like, alongside our more "important" posts, are in danger of being considered something other than "real" bloggers.
That I find far more chilling a prospect than one group of B-list bloggers not getting props from another group of B-listers. If you want blogging diversity, stop trying to define (and thereby limit) the ways one "ought" to blog.
I like my blog and my blogroll as they are, and I deeply resent anyone who claims that I'm doing it "wrong" just because the way I do it doesn't jibe with their particular agenda -- no matter what that agenda may be.
Rana
I agree with Rana. However, my attempt to say the same thing at the original post resulted in getting my head bitten off and being told that because I have only had my blog for around 6 months my views didn't count, without any attempt to deal with why people might object in the first place.
Oh well, I'll just stick to reading and blogrolling reasonable and openminded bloggers like BPhd instead :D
being told that because I have only had my blog for around 6 months my views didn't count
See, that's exactly the sort of thing that irritates me about all this. Way to promote diversity, folks!
Rarely do people discover new webloggers through blogrolls [...]
Washington Monthly (blogroll) -> Crooked Timber (blogroll) -> BitchPhD and here I am, one little datapoint.
Where is the evidence backing up the statement (above) that precipitated this whole exercise?
I'm a blog newbie less than two months old, so per Shelley I don't count...I found this blog by reccommendation of a fellow reader, used it's blogroll to find others etc, etc.
I could give a flying fig about rankings being one of the invisible people already. (invisible=disabled)
It's just nice to be able to speak one's piece and find others who are like minded by doing what I loved when I was in school---research. If people comment, great, if they don't I still get to put my words out there. I respect whoever wants to remove their blogroll, but I'll use as many as I can to find interesting persons to peruse.
Maybe this has been thought of before, but I had an idea about a possible, at least partial solution to this blogroll dilemma, at least insofar as it pertains to not being able to find new blogs.
While I don't possess the technical expertise, I do have a really cool, prime feminist domain name, registered several months ago, that could potentially be used either as an open directory of *all* feminist blogs or even a search engine specifically geered to include any and all feminist/female blogs.
Again, I don't have the technical expertise beyond basic webpage design but I was wondering if anybody thought this was feasible. I know it sounds segregationist but at least it's a potential solution to enable new and low-totem blogs to be more visible and accessible without having to compete for attention.
a, I don't see why it's any less feasible than the existing site trackers. It could even be done on a wiki-like basis, with people adding links to blogs themselves.
Just for the record, I think many have been completely dismissive of Shelley's assertions (made in two more recent posts) about the nature of the rankings systems and the emotional aspects of linking. One must read the comments in these posts as well, as they are just as vital to her position as the initial post that I and Prof B linked to.
And regarding all this business about "diversity," "open-mindedness," and "how one should blog," doesn't anyone find the irony in Shelly and me being told that the only proper way to maintain a blog is to maintain a blogroll? Is there not room in this community for hardlined stances on issues other than the news bits of the day?
Anyhow, I've issued a mea culpa of sorts, but I must say that so many of the comments surrounding the issue at hand have been so entirely unfair and emotionally loaded that I wonder if Shelley is right.
Rana. Okay, the wiki idea sounds good.
Only now I am trying to recall why I proposed something new when I don't have the time for another project right now.
If someone or some people wanted to set it up, I would have a domain to donate -- feministo (yes, .com), perhaps as in feminist "o"pen directory. It's just a blank white page right now, completely undeveloped. Though, hosting might be another issue.
That few people find their way to new blogs via blogrolls is a truly bizarre argument to me. This is how I've found the majority of blogs I read (and, although my readership is rather small, as I just started a new blog after having stopped for two years, I think I get most of my readers through appearing on others' lists) . A link within a post may say, "This person wrote an interesting post," but it doesn't necessarily mean the writer is a huge fan of the blog in general. A sidebar link or blogroll, otoh, says one of two things: "I read this site regularly and want to share it," or, "I occasionally check in here and think this might be of interest to my readers."
Otoh, plenty of my favorite bloggers post things every day that I enjoy reading but I wouldn't necessarily create a new post just to link to their recent post because I might not have anything to add to what they've said, or it might not be totally relevant to my blog's theme.
I understand the issues of the old-boys network, and I do agree that the Ecosystem thing is crap, but I'm not sure how not having a blogroll would eliminate that; it would just remove one more way for people to find you so that they could internally link to you anyway. Plus, when I see a blog--especially one I've found through someone else's blogroll--that has no sidebar links, I tend to think it's kind of rude. I don't think people should feel expected to reciprocally link or anything, but I think that not linking to ANYONE suggests that the blogger thinks he or she is so great there's no need to give back.
And, mostly from a selfish perspective, I'd be sad if people stopped blogrolling, because I love "browsing" for blogs. I'm completely floored that this is even an issue. (Otoh, I find it most helpful when people divide their rolls up into topical subgroups: someday, I hope to hit more of your links, but mostly they're just overwhelming in their long list with no breakdown of content).
Lauren, fwiw, I have no problems with your decisions regarding your blogroll, or, indeed, any other aspect of your site. I hope I didn't give that impression.
See, this is _exactly_ the point I wanted to make: blogging is as varied and as idiosyncratic as the people who create and visit blogs -- and that is a good thing -- at least in my own not so humble opinion.
I will admit that someone wanting to pick a fight could read that as me being hypocritical -- I'm offering my own vision of what blogs "should" be -- but I'd respond that there is a difference between saying, "Here's what I'm going to do on my own blog" (and adding an explanation is a nice thing to do, but I'd argue not formally necessary either) and saying "If you do "X" on your blog, you are a bad blogger." Shelley, unfortunately, began with the first stance and then turned it into the latter when she asserted that people who use blogrolls are "hurting" blogging.
It's especially irritating to see such admonitions coming from a sector of the blogosphere that (a) claims a vested interest in promoting blogging diversity, and (b) is heavily focused on topical blogging within a particular agenda -- in other words, from blogs that by their nature are inimical to posts on a wide array of topics.
If you're a blogger who posts on a diverse range of subjects, and who has little interest in being on someone's ranking list, it is easy to feel patronized when someone else claims that the way you go about your business is destructive -- even though you weren't part of their agenda in the first place. It is also annoying to hear someone asserting or implying that their definition of "blogging" is the best or true way to blog.
(Which would include some of your critics, Lauren, and even some of Shelley's.)
Of course, I am someone who finds the whole notion of using blogrolls as a way to play favorites and pull in eyeballs somewhat incomprehensible. I am happy with the quantity and quality of readers I currently have, and I don't want more just for the sake of numbers. Nor do I link to people just to send them traffic. My blogroll is for me -- if other people find it useful, that's great, but somewhat beside the point. Yet I do find my blogroll to be an essential part of my blogging experience -- so to be told otherwise says to me that Shelley has a much different vision of blogging than I do.
And that's okay -- so long as she doesn't attack my version as an inferior or destructive form. That's where I draw the line, and that's where I get annoyed.
You didn't do this as best I can recall, Lauren. I'm not angry at you in the slightest, and I'm grieved that some people were.
I only came across this subject tonight but I wrote a little about my own blogroll perspective here a few days ago.
I use my blogroll(s) mostly as a list of sites currently of interest to me. I'm relatively slow to explore new blogs because I have limited focus. Every month or two, I evaluate my blogroll, cull some out I no longer visit and add some new ones.
However I find great value in blogrolls of some sites (yours included.) Some blogrolls are excellent resources. But. Not all blogrolls are such great resources. It could be argued that all blogs have value, all are communications to a broader community. Not all of them are of interest to ME, though. This is why I prefer my blogroll to be more of a reflection of my interests rather than a broader network. That's just me and I don't expect other bloggers to follow MY standard. That's the beauty of blogs: they can be as individual as anyone wants. [end soapbox rant]
I can't even say how I got here, but it was almost certainly through a blogroll. (Of course, once I got here I was hooked.) I visit some of the "A-listers" like Atrios and AmericaBlog because I most always find the commentary spot on, but the fact that they are "A-listers" does not in and of itself impress me.
From each site I visit I draw some wisdom, some strength, some encouragement that I am not alone. I would never have found them without the blogrolls, wouldn't have know HOW to find them without the blogrolls. So I guess I don't get the whole debate.
self-defeating indeed - exactly what I thought...
http://www.watermelonpunch.com/b...ives/
004200.php
Never heard of blog rankings, but I guess they might by useless anyway because I'm not interested in "mainstream".
I got into the blogosphere via blogroll, but I often look at new blogs via previous comments.
I did learn about your blog from a comment, forgot where. Once here, I've dipped into your blogroll as I've had time.
Don't drop them!
They are lifesavers when I forget some interesting blog, but can't remember the URL.
I commented on this over at Scribblingwoman. My own take on it is, "who cares?" Seriously. I'm not in this for the rankings, I'm in it for the community. I kind of like that we self-select and that I don't get regular traffic from 'just anyone'!
I am definitely one of those who blogroll hops, and from such surfing finds a blog I love and want to read again and again.
I've discovered a lot of great blogs through blogrolls. Thanks to the blogroll at Eschaton I discovered Steve Gilliard, Fafblog!, and many other sites I visit every day.
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