Creek Running North

I’m not a heavy duty blog reader, but I would say that most of the other blogs I’ve linked to from yours were by clicking on the name of a commenter whose comments I found interesting and followed the links to their websites.

Next would most likely be the links in a post.

Last would be the blog roll. I don’t usually go to those unless I’m specifically searching for something new to read.

One of the things I like about your blog is its tendency to wander around many subjects.

I go to blogs less often for politics, more often for science, nature, and dogs. We subscribe to a couple of science magazines and I like the annual anthologies of nature and science writing as well.

Natalie

One of the things I like about your blog is its tendency to wander around many subjects.

Often in the same sentence!

Also a big fan of Loren Eisley, Lewis Thomas, and John McPhee. The first Loren Eisley I read was an essay about pigeons under the New York elevated train and a mouse in his houseplant and sense of place… I was hooked.

McPhee is certainly not as poetic as Eisley or you but I like the way he can take a simple subject and write a fascinating book about it, about oranges, for example. Plus I like all the geology topics.

By the way, can you suggest a good place to take an old dog with arthritis in the Clayton area? I’m going to have some time to kill there with our boy Chris end of next week. I know it’s near Mt. Diablo. He needs short walks only.

I love reading blogs. Found yours, I think, through
the journal, but I may have been looking for information on science and nature and frogs, or
maybe it was that politics thing.
Anyway, a “B”?  No way. Your writing is up there
with the best of them.
I used the blogrolls at first, to find out what was out there.

I’m far more likely to follow a link in the text of a post. And I’m far more likely to want to link to your blog in a post as well. My sense is that those links are more valuable.

That is how I see it also.  Plus, links within a post aren’t just what I prefer as a reader; they’re what I prefer to receive as a blogger.  I would much rather be linked that way than be on a blogroll.

I don’t think many people use blogrolls anymore, especially not in these days of RSS, and very few bloggers benefit significantly, long-term, from being present on one.

I get 2-3 hits a day from Feministing’s blogroll.  I appreciate it, but I also feel guilty, because I don’t need to be there.  Some more dedicated, serving-it-up-daily style feminist blogger needs to be there, because that’s what a reader of a frequently updated site like Feministing is probably looking for--more news, less “I bought this horrible slipcover, wanna see?”

And I’m an ingrate, too, because I don’t value hits.  I value readers, especially readers willing to comment.  One of the things I enjoyed so much about receiving a link from Twisty is that she sent people who stuck around for more than 1 minute 24 seconds.  She sent READERS.  I’ve had links from bigger traffic sites that didn’t send me readers; they sent me clickers.  There’s a huge difference.  Clickers look around and either don’t find what they’re looking for and move on, or they don’t read what I wrote but feel compelled to leave me a comment explaining how much it sucks anyway.  Clickers can suck my left tit.

That’s why I’m not keen on blogrolls.  That, and things like “You link to a very bad person, so I’m not going to link you anymore.” The high school politics of blogrolls, that’s what I really hate.

Now then:  Who’s this Atrios guy you keep going on about, huh?  Should I have heard of him?

Sent you an email, N., but yes, Clayton is near Mount Diablo. Unfortunately, Mount Diablo has a somewhat restrictive policy re: dog walking on trails: they don’t allow it. I generally favor that for wildlife purposes, but it’s a shame for Chris because the Mitchell Canyon trail would be a wonderful Old Dog trail were Old Dogs allowed.

Morgan Territory is not exactly nearby, but not far, and it’s completely off-leash.

Actually, walking along Mitchell Canyon Road toward the Mount Diablo state park gate would be pretty nice, seems to me. It’s a mile and a half from the intersection with Clayton Road to the gate, and it’s about half leafy suburb and about half rolling green/brown open space. With a gravel quarry on one side, true, so walk on the east side of the road. You could park in the suburbs and walk in the open space.

Or you could try the dog park if he’s the sociable type, and i understand the other city parks allow dogs on leash.

The closest East Bay Regional Park other than Morgan Territory would be Black Diamond Mines; I haven’t been but Becky says there are old-dog hikes there.

I hardly ever find blogs through blogrolls but I do maintain one. Why ? I feel like my blogroll is a public declaration of other bloggers I read and admire.

I find new blogs through recommendations of blogging friends and in posts and most often through carnivals that I follow or participate in.

I don’t care so much about hits (although I would like to make a little bit of dosh even if it’s just enough to pay for internet services) What I do care about is readers and keeping a good discussion going on the issues I cover.

It is a point of pride being on your blogroll and on blogrolls of other people I admire. That means much more to me than hits.

The only reason I’ve ever used a blog roll is where I’m looking for information on a specific topic: blogs about flying will tend to link to other blogs about flying. I’m much more likely to react to a link in the text. I found your blog by following a link in another blog which described a specific post of yours. I have no idea if you are on blogrolls or not but it wouldn’t have helped me find you.

:)

Hadn’t heard of of BAD before this. You’re on *my* blogroll. That’s the only way I would have heard of this. I don’t read any “A-list” blogs. I don’t have the time.

I’ve started to pare back my feeds just because I can’t keep up. I’m down to 300 right now. I need to cut back even more. Not all of them are blogs; some are news feeds and such.

I keep them in categories: news, Brooklyn, Humor, and so on. I only publish two categories on my blog: Gardening, and Nature, which is how I’ve categorized this blog. Those two categories combined comprise only about a third of the feeds. It’s more like a “what I’m reading now” kind of list. I’ve thought of adding my Brooklyn category. I like the idea of keeping the blogrolls on a separate page, just because right now they take up real estate in the sidebar. I don’t know the best way to do that with Blogger, other than keeping it as a separate post.

I’m a Z-list blogger. I’m more interested in the patterns of visits and navigation than raw numbers of readers. Do people seem to be finding what they’re looking for? Do they follow links to related content? Are they coming back?

While Google searches are the largest single category of incoming visits, it’s not even half the traffic. There are roughly 100 other referring sources, many/most of them other blogs. Some of those might be blogrolls. Some of them are from comments I’ve left on other blogs. Some of them are content links.

My blog has a very long tail. Only about a quarter of the page hits are for the home page, and it trails off sharply from there. Only a third of the traffic is for stuff I’ve written in the past month. The rest of it reaches back to the earliest posts. Specific posts remain relatively “popular”, months after I wrote them. This tells me I should keep writing good posts, not try to drive traffic to my site.

I generally don’t pay much attention to blogrolls.  Most of the blogs that I read tend to be more or less natural history-related.  I’ve found most of them through links in text of other blogs that I read.  I’ve also found a number that I like through carnivals such as Circus of the Spineless.  I also follow links back to the blogs of those who leave comments on my blog, or on blogs that I also read. 

As for your blog, I very much enjoy the mix of topics.  Your natural history writing never fails to blow me away, but so do your posts on many other topics.  I’d like to hear that you’re writing books, or putting together an anthology of your blog writings - or perhaps something that grows out of them.

On blog traffic, this has been my experience in case it’s of any interest:
Most of the incoming links to my blog come from references within the text of other natural history blogs, or from the carnivals in which I participate.  I seem to have picked up a number of steady readers through hosting several different carnivals.  A lot of people have come from the links to my blog that I put on my online nature photo galleries (my galleries receive anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000 hits a day—the highest number being in summer when people are trying to ID spiders, wasps, etc).  I’m on a couple of natural history listserves and have my blog address in my signature line and that has brought in quite a few readers as well.  I haven’t tried to monetize my blog in any way and probably never will. 
Although I actually get quite a bit of traffic per day, what I most value is being part of the community of naturalists who blog—it’s good to know that there are others out there who share a similar interest in the natural world.  I live a very solitary life, so I do value the type of communication that is possible using blogs.  It’s a great way to share information, compare notes, find answers, and retain some connection to others.

I think blogrolls have become somewhat passé but I’d still cry if you dropped me!

I follow links in posts and recommendations by people whose taste I trust. I link to stuff I like, and stuff I actually read, and I write what I’m interested in, without spending much energy worrying about how many incoming links I have, though I used to do that. My own blogroll desperately needs pruning and updating, but it has always only contained blogs i actually read.

The whole thing feels like it’s changed a lot over the past four years; we all aren’t in breathless discovery-mode as we once were, I think, and political blogging has become something I see as quite separate from so-called literary blogging. It depends what you want, but I don’t think the blogroll necessarily indicates much any more, other than the taste of the blogger.

Thanks much for the ideas Chris!

Natalie

hi kids,

well, i can’t say i was pleased, but i was more righteously indignant than hurt, considering the history of my blogging career (i started the same time those other guys, including markos, and, to a lesser extent, duncan, did) and the actual real world changes my blog had participated in.

but, more to the point, and i have to keep going around correcting this misconception (so i guess my whining really does obfuscate the point), the purging of blogrolls hurts left blogtopia (and yes, i coined that phrase) in general.

if anyone is interested in the techie side of things, here’s a piece i wrote (and a follow up) explaining how blogroll purges destroys google search hierarchy ranking.  that is to say, if i get dumped from kos and atrios, my chances of my blog showing up on a google search for any given story gets drastically reduced.

again, the use of “my” in the example misdirects the reader away from the problem which i’m having with the purges. 

it’s all the lefty blogs in general who were dumped that now will not show up on a random google search.

ergo, the left side of any issue gets drastically under-represented in any random google search.

ask yourselves this:  why do all the right blogs, big and small, have huge, all-inclusive rolls, and why does the right have such a competent well-oiled meme reproduction infrastructure?  could they be related?

ok, i admit, i’m feeling left out because the big box blogs have decided that many of us who work hard at analysis and punditry as well as actual investigation and action alerts are suddenly not invited to the table any more.

even worse, i maintain it’s incredibly hypocritical of markos to have made his reputation as an important blogger on the backs of the “little people can take back their government by participation” meme, and then turn his back on the little people.  what is he, huey long with a blog?

anyway, i hope that explains my position a little better.  it’s not so personal for me (well, ok, it is) but it reflects a disconnect on a higher level for all of the left side of blogtopia and yes, i coined that phrase, that i don’t think we either need at this juncture in history, or actually reflects the supposed basic tennents of a liberal philosophy.

but what do i know, i’m just a guy w/a blog.

ps two things:  pz myers didn’t participate in blogroll amnesty day, at least not in the way the others did.  pz in fact will link to anybody who asks.  i don’t have a link to his post saying so, but if you write him i bet he will accomodate you.

i, on the other hand, will link to any blog that links to skippy.  i got yer amnesty day right here.

Thanks for the clarification, skippy: I knew that’s what you meant but I may well have expressed myself unclearly here.

In any event, I agree 100 percent with yer criticism of the big box blogs. The current FDL Griles coverage, in which FDL commenters had to fulfill the blog’’s moral obligation of at least mentioning Wampum as the go-to for Griles stuff, is a case in point.

I don’t use blog rolls either.  I usually find a new blog through links.  Some I keep, such as yours, and others - I move on.  I like the variety of your blog because I am a plant and animal lover and I like your style of writing.  I always check here a couple of times a day and have passed a link to your blog to my daughter also.

The high school politics of blogrolls, that’s what I really hate.

bang. i don’t even hate it. i just find it boring as hell.

ps chris, i could have sworn i had creek running north on my roll, and i am sure i did, but i guess it fell off on one of my spring cleaning/template transfers.  i apologize.

i will put crn back on, and i believe i will put it under “science blogs” which is a shorter, and more exclusive category than general “politcal blogs.”

again, my apologies.

I don’t use blogrolls unless I want to read X and have forgotten to bookmark it.  Then I go over to a blog that I suspect has it on it’s rolls and jump on over. 

But skippy’s analysis is on the money.  This purging pushes the smaller left blogs out to the periphery of the conversations in left-blogtopia, deliberately (?) setting the boundaries for important/not-so-important, relevant/not-so-relevant.  It’s an exercise of power and weakens our side of the discourse.

But why do I complain?  It’s not like I read Kos these days.

What was most surprising to me when I first wrote about Blogroll Amnesty Day was how everyone in the liberal blogosphere seemed to think it was such a great idea to kick blogs off their blogrolls and narrow them down to a select few. No one objected until skippy and I wrote about it and noted the elitism and Orwellian irony of the whole enterprise. Even now there are many who see nothing wrong with Atrios writing posts like “Why Your Blog Sucks.” Anyone who finds such posts insulting is dubbed by the Atriots to be a whiner.

I have had a “liberal” blogrolling policy—that is, I will link to anyone who links to me—for quite a while. I thought it was the polite thing to do to link to blogs that linked to me and I thought it would be mutually beneficial. I also thought it was ironic that most major liberal blogs had a very conservative and elitist blogrolling policy, while conservatives are much more likely to have long blogrolls with many smaller blogs.

As I explained in my original piece, as a practical matter the more links someone has the higher they come up in search engines. So liberal blogs are hurting themselves and others when they don’t link to each other. But blogrolls also create a sense of community. When a big blog links to a small blog they are saying that they consider that blog to be a part of the community. The fact that many major liberal blogrolls only include a select few, which often leaves out bloggers of color, feminist blogs, gay blogs and more specialized blogs in favor of the usual suspects reinforces the idea that certain blogs are not part of the elite and are not valued members of the community. It seems to go against all the rhetoric about inclusion that liberals are supposed to believe in and creates an inpenetrable blog class system. How odd that a conservative blogger like myself should have a more diverse blogroll than many liberals.

By the way, I realize that I didn’t have Creek Running North on my blogroll even though I am a frequent visitor so I have rectified that oversight. I hope that you will decide to expand your blogroll and that at some point you will find my modest blog worthy of inclusion. Whether you do or not, it is an honor to have you as a member of my motley community.

I don’t think blogrolls are supposed to be used to help find blogs.  I’ve *never* clicked on a link in someone else’s blogroll. 

I use my own blogroll to find blogs that I want to read, but I also put the ones in there that I want to help get more traffic via google (that said, I may want to remove a couple of the crazies from my blogroll...).

No apologies necessary, skippy. Thanks for adding me to the roll, and you too Mr. Swift.

I am rethinking my blogroll strategy based on the excellent points re: google juice.

I think you’re just describing the dynamics of the ”Long Tail” phenomenon, in almost precisely the terms in which Clay Shirky popularized that phrase.

If you have wide exposure, you simply cannot blogroll as many people as blogroll you. There may be a small number of blogs that get most of your personal traffic, and there will be a small number of those who blogroll you who send you a lot of incoming traffic - but the bulk of your traffic will come in sparse clumps from people who are interested enough to blogroll you but who only click through occasionally. Those are the “long tail” of your traffic source/volume distribution.

In deciding how to set up your own blogroll, you have a couple of obvious choices: you can blogroll the ones you’re particularly interested in, to highlight them, or you can blogroll the ones who send you the most traffic, to reward them. But it’s hardly possible, and hardly makes sense, to blogroll every blog in your long tail - you don’t have room, and, even though it’s a compliment to be blogrolled by them, there isn’t really enough traffic going in either direction to get excited about. So I think widely-read blogs inherently wind up with a seemingly exclusive blogroll - it contains far fewer listed blogs than they have incoming links, no matter what their criterion for inclusion is, simply because it has to.

I don’t think that’s bad. It would help if people would desist in taking it personally (checking for reciprocal blogrolling is like looking up your name in the index of a colleague’s book, and equally childish).  But either way, it’s a natural result of the asymmetry between outgoing links (usually to “must-read” blogs) and incoming links (potentially from any blog that likes you). If you’re a “must-read” blogger (and you, Chris, are) you’re going to get lots of links, and if you’re a run-of-the-mill blogger you’re not going to be getting many; this means that must-read bloggers get links from bloggers who don’t “deserve” (as it were) links in return - and the blogrolls of both bloggers will reflect that.

I look through blogrolls if I’m looking for something new, especially when the blogs are divided up by categories, but I don’t often become a regular reader that way.  I found this blog through an in-text link at Pharyngula.

As for my own blogroll, I put blogs there that I enjoy reading, so that I can find them easily.

Speaking strictly as a “series of tubes” consumer, not publisher:

Blogs?  Blogrolls?  Is that a new kind of fusion sushi?

I read you, and PZ.  Sometimes I follow a link in one of your posts.  And, I’ll read the blog of an author I like who says he has one - like this one.  I think I got to you originally by a Google search for Earth Island.  Don’t think I’ve ever looked at your blogroll.  I’m pretty much stuck in the old world of print media, when I can be.  I don’t follow blogwars at all.  I prefer the real world, which you write about eloquently.  That makes me want to go outside.  Looks like a nice day out.  TGIF!  Time to go for a hike.