Well that poll got a reasonable response and it shows clearly the balance of opinion of the regulars here.
The stats are interesting but hardly unexpected: 55% majority in favour of the axe... 85% of voters are UK-based... the 10% of voters in favour of maintaining the status quo are from Finland or Germany...
I'll start by thinning-out the undergrowth 😉
So, you've got yourself a blog and you've made yourself a blogroll. You might link to other blogs because you like them, you might link because you'd recommend the places to others, you might link because of a reciprocal arrangement. In short, it's up to you, and you draw the line.
I've had a fairly comprehensive and (I think) reasonably well-organised blogroll sitting there in the sidebar for many years now, I try to keep it updated and I add a few more links now and again.
When the original single list got too long I brought in drop-downs to make it more manageable, but of late it's been getting more unwieldy and so I've been reviewing my qualifying criteria. I've been thinking of fair ways to cut it down a bit, to redraw the line, to get rid of the dross.
I'd like to start by dealing with blogs which make money via my blog (when visitors from my blog click their affiliate links, say) but whose owners can't be arsed to link back to mine. Don't get me wrong, I've nowt against folk making a buck out of blogging, but to make it with my help without the courtesy of providing a readily-accessible backlink is a tad rum IMHO.
I'd value your opinions before I start chopping so here's a poll for you to play with. If you want me to add any more options it can be arranged.
I'll run the poll (and keep this post "sticky") for a week while I sharpen the axe, you have until the end of Sunday 13th May 2012 to tick yer box.
You could call it "A Week in Review"...
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This post by Martin prompted me to update my "GOTO" blogrolls to include a few more blogs and sites that I've bookmarked over the last few weeks.
Links added so far this year include:
They take the total to over 200 links, all supplied free-of-charge, none of them conditional on the target site having a reciprocal link.
I think I'll be having a links sort-out sometime soon - some of the dropdowns are dropping down a bit too much, so they need recategorising rather than culling. If you've any suggestions as to how to do this in a meaningful and useful way, feel free to let me know.
Anyway, feel free to have a mooch through the links - there may be a few that you've not seen before. If you find any errors or omissions, just holler and I'll get it sorted out.
Thanks for the heads-up, Martin 😎
OK, I've given in. I've started using Google Reader.
Yes, I know that I said that I wouldn't, but the number of blogs that I follow has reached a level where visiting each one via a traditional blogroll link is getting too time-consuming. I'll still be blogrolling the sites that I follow, and I'll still visit each site when there's new stuff to see/read, so I'll only be using GR as a finder of new content. I still maintain that relying solely on GR is a way of missing out on the artistic content of a lot of fine blogs out there - some folk go to great lengths to make their spaces on the web into comfy places to spend a few minutes, rather than repositories for text and a few pics.
On the subject of blogroll links, I've added a fair few more to mine over the last couple of weeks - I'm convinced that this whole outdoors-blogging malarkey is snowballing. Recent additions include:
And of course there's the link to the social experimenter's "secret blog"...
Have a mooch around and see if there's anything that piques your interest.
The blog's now well out-of-date, so it's time to do a bit of catching up. Luckily for you lot, I'm not a stats-whore, so I'll keep things brief and cram everything into one or two posts so that there's not a pile of individual entries to wade through. Now, where to begin...?
Well, that's all for now. There's more, but it'll have to wait for later.
