Question For Bloggers

How do you decide who is on your blogroll? Do you link everyone you read? Do you link only those you read and endorse? Do you link those you may not read but think you should read? Do you link those you know and like in real life, whether you read them or not? If your reading habits change, does your blogroll change?

I am unsatisfied with my blogroll. It is too haphazard. It includes blogs that I read everyday, blogs that I read sometimes, blogs that I love, blogs that I don't particularly like but somehow am curious about or loyal to the authors, blogs that I don't read but think I should read or want other people to think I read. And it doesn't include other blogs that I read and like, or don't like but read nonetheless, or don't read but wish people thought I read, etc. In other words, neither a reader who wants to learn about me by looking at what kind of blogs I like, nor a reader who is looking for an endorsement of some parts of the blog world, will get what he or she is looking for from my blogroll.

So I'm going to work on it. But thinking about it I realize it is fraught with all the social networking problems that David Weinberger likes to think about. Human relationships, which relationships among bloggers can be, are wonderfully ambiguous, and just by making explicit what the tie is can change the nature of the tie. (e.g. if I introduce you as my "acquaintance," rather than as my "friend," I've sent you a strong signal about the nature of our relationship that may change the relationship).

I certainly feel happy when someone adds me to his or her blogroll. I feel happier if the blogroll is a short one than if I am simply included on a laundry list of reciprocal links of every blog the author of the blogroll has ever seen. And I feel disappointed when I notice that someone who once linked to me has taken me off the blogroll. Does her or she not like me anymore? Has my writing gotten worse? Does he or she still read me but just doesn't want people to know about it? Silly, I guess, but I bet I'm not the only blogger who notices who is or isn't linking to me and wonders about why. And knowing that, and not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, it's hard to think about the criteria for inclusion on the blogroll.

Advice?

Comments

[Chris]

Definitely hard to say... I tend to use my blogroll more as a set of bookmarks for my favorite blogs, in a selfish sense really because I am not so concerned with what any reader of my blog thinks of my blogroll, its quite simply those people who I enjoy reading whether on a daily basis or just to pop in to read now and again. When I notice someone on the list who I haven't gone to visit in a while, I tend to pull em off the list, maybe to return later, maybe not, so it tends to morph alot..

I've been thinking lately that since my blogroll does change quite a bit, and there are a number of blogs that seem to come on and go off the list, it might be cooler to have a big collection of blogs in the blogroll and just to show a randow 20 or so of em when someone views my page... if I ever get a spare moment, I may code that up, since theres alot more blogs that I do pop in and read once in a blue moon that aren't on my blogroll on a permanent basis, but it would be neat if randomly they just showed up once in a while.

[pjm]

I read more than I list. (I don't like the term "blogroll," though; I think more of the people I link to than that.)

Aside from the top section, which you know about, I generally link people who (a) I enjoy reading, and (b) I think people who like what I write might also enjoy. Like Chris, I also use it as a personal guide to the ones I like who don't have a feed (or have a feed I can't read.)

It's not unlike "Now Playing," actually. By linking a site, I'm saying, "Try this, I recommend it." I've taken some off when I found I wasn't that impressed with them after a while. I'm small enough (relatively speaking) that I'm not sure anyone gives a damn.

[Dave!]

That's an easy one... My blogroll lists the blogs I have subscribed to in my newsreader. I make the exception for feeds like the NYT, etc. However, for personal blogs, why not just have the roll reflect your subscriptions? Then it's both an accurate reflection of what you are reading, and it changes as your subscriptions change.

[TPB, Esq.]

I advise using a blogrolling script that crashes so often that no one knows who is on your blogroll (as I do). You can't see it. I can't see it. I don't even know if I still have it. But I know I'm not offending anyone with my list. ;-)

[Dylan]

I've been thinking about this a lot and was coincidentally planning an exhaustive post on just this topic. I feel guilty about not linking everyone who links me, but I also try to read everyone on my blogroll. I can easily spend three and a half hours reading weblogs and news sites if I let myself. That's almost not pathetic when I'm bored out of my mind in class, but the rest of the time? Yikes. I probably need to pare it down.

[UCL]

After I changed my blog's format, I couldn't add my old blog roll without screwing everything up, and I'm too incompetent to edit the script to make a new blogroll look pretty. So for the record, that's the only reason I don't have a blogroll right now and why Stay of Execution is not featured on my blog as it once prominently was.

[Evan]

I like TPB's suggestion and am also looking forward to Dylan's "exhaustive post." As for me, I try to back-link to everyone who links to me, which I do in the "thanks" posts on my blog. These posts are then collected in the "thanks" category and have become a permanent record of . . . well, of something. I realize that some people find my back-linking obnoxious, but oh well. Meanwhile, in my blogroll proper (on the front page), I list the blogs I regularly read, which means I read them at least once a week. Some I read every day. Still other blogs that I regularly read aren't on my blogroll at all because they don't seem to fit anywhere (Wonkette, for example).

Like you, Scheherazade, I tend to overanalyze blogrolls, but I think the overanalyzation is justifiable on the grounds that blogroll links are considered by some blogosphere-participants to be very important. As you note, they can be a type of human relationship. Links can also mean readers, and most webloggers want readers. In fact, when considered in terms of readership, links can be viewed as a type of commerce or currency. And as you point out, links can give you feedback about how you're doing as a weblogger. (Someday, some enterprising sociologist will make tenure by analyzing blogrolls. In fact, I bet his or her dissertation is already half written.)

Anyway, I like the way your post cleverly puts your blogroll-linkees on notice that you're about to upset the apple cart. Perhaps you know already what you're going to do, and your call for "advice" was merely rhetorical. Is that a possibility?

[A. Rickey]

I have a tendency to link to the people I want to read, but that's because my blogroll is, for all intents and purposes, my RSS subscription. This leads to a few problems, though. For instance, I read a lot of Blogspot blogs, but because of their lack of RSS, they don't get blogrolled.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I need to update my list. Basically, I link to the blogs that I'm committed to reading consistently. That's why it isn't too long. There are several other blogs, including some that link to me, that I check out from time to time, but which I'm not ready to add to the list yet. To some extent, I want the blogs that I link to to be in the same vein as RWL. They don't have to be overtly funny -- your site is an example -- but I want them to demonstrate that lawyers think about things other than law and money. Hmmm? That sounds a little pompous. What I mean is that I link to sites that are trying to do something a little bit different than the run of the mill blog.

[qm]

Too much angst over blogrolls by half. I think that you just figure out what your blogroll represents and use it as per your policy. If it is the blogs you read daily, then great. If it is every blog you have ever taken notice of that you might be interested in, then that is great too. I tend to keep mine minimalist for the simple reason that I hardly use it for myself - I read blogs through bloglines. So it is just to acknowledge some blogs that I read on a daily basis but mostly to acknowledge people who link to me.

[bryan]

i absolutely hate my blogroll -- i'm currently using the exhaustive public list for show and return-the-favor links ... and a private list that no one can see of the blogs i actually read. which is childish and stupid, but hey, so are blogs.

[Kathy]

The best solution I've seen for this is the use of three separate blogrolls: daily reads, weekly reads, and occassional reads. It gives you the ability to highlight what you really like, while still linking to blogs that aren't on your hot list.