What BULLshit! I've had her bookmarked since Weiner first mentioned her. If she goes straight - well, she will obviously reject us both for a better offer, but I get to be presented first.
I bet you don't even LIKE Gilmore Girls.
Maybe I should try and hit on her and steal her from you both.
(Yes, Moira, two internet losers are about to fight over you, despite the fact that one of them, since learning that you're half-Mexican, now fears that he'd have to say, "I'm in love with you, I just can't date you.")
Since Weiner first mentioned her? When was that, chump? I linked to snark attack back in August.
And I've never even HEARD of Gilmore Girls. So what??
Um, two losers and one hard-ass bitch. Who is herself una poquita pocha, vato.
1. Gilmore Girls and Moira's strange love for them: http://snarkiness.typepad.com/snarkattack/2005/03/dr_feel_okay.html
(I've forgotten the link code).
2. Back of guera; I'm not without my own bit of knowledge.
3. Somehow I missed or forgot that her name was Moira, so take that for what it's worth.
I blogged that post. You forgot her name and now you're trying to claim "first in line?" Can I get some real competition here, please?
Hey, vato, let's take it outside.
Anyway, you can't hack chat, and you can't spell. And you have a penis. So I win.
But we were all sad you left. :(
I gotcher competition right here, buddy.
BPhD:
I really don't see how you guys chat; I can't follow a thing, I can't type fast enough to comment in turn, and the stress of trying to do both makes my head hurt.
I am now going to check if my hair is falling out from age.
:(
So sad. We're all taking our clothes off now.
And you have a penis.
I love that this has become an insult. Blog on ...
Not so much an insult as an acknowledgement that they are trying to pick up a lesbian, and are unlikely to succeed.
Whereas they're going to do just great picking up the straight girls who hang around here.
But what I want to say is--WTF? Adding someone to your blogroll does not necessarily mean you want to have sex with them. And it's free! So where's the respect?
Also, the link to Delong has an extra "http" in it and for that reason is broken (though this computer is crap, so maybe it works on ordnry ones). IA has become a comment spam site but still worth linking for the archives, I guess. And you should look at the tip that pops up when you mouse over Yglesias (I just noticed those--nice) and take it to heart.
Ah, Matt, the blogroll is already unconscionably long, and I've been trying to think of ways to pare it down, so how can I add the fabulous and magnificent Opiniatrety without dropping someone (and also without adding Kotsko and w-lfs-n, while I'm at it)?
Matt, in my case, I sincerely doubt that.
You could drop Insty. It's not like unf would notice. (Plus, "unconscionably long"? Have you seen, say, bitch's? You're not even in the same order of magnitude.)
Right, and I just ignore blogrolls that are so long, whereas shorter ones can serve as something of a representative map of the kinds of things the blog is interested in. I publish my OPML file for a more comprehensive view (though that, again, is out of date, I think).
Yes. (He only recently started updating again.)
B, that's why I said necessarily. Of course in your case it does.
Speaking of which, I realized that I can circumvent my stated reason for not blogrolling you by listing you as "Professor B." I'll get on that.
Hm, b, I interpreted you as responding to this
Adding someone to your blogroll does not necessarily mean you want to have sex with them.
rather than the (already sarcastic) this
Whereas they're going to do just great picking up the straight girls who hang around here.
Hm.
You got it backwards. I was being snippy.
I see ogged's pt. here. Unfogged's blogroll might be the only one I use to look at new blogs, and I think that's b/c it is short enough to be neither daunting nor indiscriminate. But given all the Mineshaft jokes here and ogged's preoccupation with shoes and such, I'd think that if you started panty-blogging, you could get some serious link-love. From the Mineshaft.
Me? Fuck no. Pgrrrrl's an exhibitionist, so she enjoys it for its own sake; me, if I'm gonna whore myself, I want to get paid.
And I have this silly theory in my head that people want to hear what I say, not just pretend to in order to get into my pants.
BPhD:
I was actually responding to Weiner. Hence the references to ogged's strange shoe love and the ubiquitous Mineshaft reference.
Oh, beg pardon. Of course, I was making it all about me.
Anyway, off to foam at the mouth some more and insult people o. likes.
I want to hear what you say, so long as it is insulting to people ogged likes.
Well then come on over. I have beer in the fridge.
Oh. My. God. (Posted right after I read the update about dropping Bitch PhD.)
What, seriously? Like CT and Insty don't get plenty of bloglove elsewhere.
Umm. This sounds like a family squabble, but FWIW and IMHO... What Ben said! I mean its your Blog an all, but still consistency, man.
Um . . . and eschaton and Kevin Drum and Matt and 90% of your blogroll are blogs that are linked from all over. Whatever.
Plus you link to one blog that basically doesn't exist anymore. Just putting that out there.
I don't find the tone of her blog congenial.
In the good old days, you could just turn her over your knee and then tell her to get supper on the table.
Yes but Adam, it contains valuable links to horse pussy and sports betting.
Hey, if I did some tighty-whitey blogging, would you link to me?
There's no expectation of dating if you did link to me, is there?
Ahhh I get it.
B? Did you refuse a date, or something?
The real problem is that B has been getting too sentimental lately. (Sorry, but the secret's out.)
And IA is still worth linking to. The more people who find that site, the more money the spammers make the better.
I linked Unfogged a long time ago, and I did eventually get a date out of the deal (with both Unf and Ogged, and a bonus helping of Ben w-lfs-n).
"A" date with all three? At the Mineshaft, obviously.
Actually I think Unf, Adam and I had a date with ogged. I mean, he payed. (And slipped Unf a little extra!)
First, the idea of "tighty-whitey blogging" is genius, and you, PZ, should try to get grant money from someone for this. Women in underwear are (at least on the Interweb) commonplace and, to the losers who use words like "Interweb", probably slightly intimidating. But men are never so embarrassingly de minimus as in tighty-whiteys. A clear "subvert the hierarchy" project.
Second, the whole blogrolling deal-eo seems sort of silly. I've used Unfogged's blogroll, but I've gone to many more blogs b/c I've clicked through the commenter's name. I'm pretty sure that 's how I first visited both Weiner and BPhD's blogs. Hell, I used one of BPhD's comments to click through to her blog just yesterday. So there doesn't seem to be any real injury here.
Anyway, the blogroll is always consistent - it's a collection of blogs that the site owners regularly visit, isn't it? (w-lfs-n, there must be a Stanford word for this sort of thing). Ogged said, "I don't find the tone of her blog congenial," which suggests that he doesn't regularly visit it. (Come to that, I don't regularly visit BPhD or PG, b/c I don't groove to the diary format, or Weiner or Holbo b/c they're pro philosophers who write regularly about philosophy; now that w-lfs-n's blog is operating again, I won't regularly visit his unless he offers up definitive proof that either (a) his girlfriend is a shrew, or (b) he lied about getting an offer from Stanford PhD). Weiner's out on aesthetics and fairness (and probably on preemptive cock-blocking grounds). This is like the blog version of the Seinfeld episode where he gets in a fight with the step mom of his girlfriend over pride of place on the speed dial. (Which I note is consistent with my claim that Ogged is a total girl. A very hirsute girl).
Finally ... hello... cock jokes? Anyone? Jeebus, does no one care about tradition anymore?
I call that Link-pimping.
But hey, we're all liberals, right?
re: the update, what everyone else said. And, you find Insty's tone congenial? It's your blogg, whatevs.
Weiner or Holbo b/c they're pro philosophers who write regularly about philosophy;
1. You're missing out not going to J&BHAB.
2. Would it be acceptable if they were amateurs? What's the problem here?
now that w-lfs-n's blog is operating again, I won't regularly visit his unless he offers up definitive proof that either (a) his girlfriend is a shrew, or (b) he lied about getting an offer from Stanford PhD
What would constitute proof of either (a) or (b)? Not that I'm desperate for hits or anything, but I'm not sure how I could really prove either of those. A scan of a rejection letter for b could work, I guess.
congenial? isn't that for the girls who don't talk back?
oh, she's not invisible. right. so now you can make her invisible on your blog. brilliant.
the blogroll is always consistent - it's a collection of blogs that the site owners regularly visit, isn't it
Not necessarily. I'm not sure I've ever regularly visited some of the blogs on my roll. One of the links is there just to thank the guy who set up the site for me. The role can be symbolic. (Which is why I think dropping someone, as opposed to not adding them, might be construed as a slap in the face.)
Oh good, a scrap.
*Sits back, lights pipe, waits*
oh, she's not invisible. right. so now you can make her invisible on your blog. brilliant.
Whatever else falls under this category on this thread, I definitely think this counts as a misconstrual, unless ogged's also banned her, which would be very surprising.
No, he hasn't banned me. But I do feel unwelcome now. Wouldn't you? If that's a misconstrual, he can say so. Otherwise, I thank you guys for what you've said.
We pretty much know that ogged's blogroll isn't a list of blogs he reads regularly, because he uses a wossname for that—hence is reference to his OPML file.
w-lfs-n: Pro philosophers fuck with my already tattered sense of reality; amateurs (one hopes) make simple mistakes that allow me to dismiss their claims out of hand. As to the second issue, if I've understood the typology of fields of philosophy correctly, I think I should hand that off to Weiner.
Weiner: might be construed as a slap in the face. Might be, but need not be; given ogged's demonstrated virtual temperament, I'd bet against that reading. Also, please get back to us on adequate proofs that w-lfs-n's girlfriend is a shrew.
BPhD: Maybe, but probably more chastened but bewildered, or irritated (that he didn't love your blog sufficiently) than anything else. Ogged doesn't strike me as shy about expressing himself; if he'd meant overmuch by it, I assume he'd let you know. Whatever - I'm crap at guessing intentions. Anyway, you'd (obviously) be missed in the haus if you stopped coming.
Whatever on the blogroll controversy, but what's up with Unspam? That's a worthless link.
I can't seem to find a name on "w-lfs-n's blog." How do I know it's really his?
what's up with Unspam
Unspam is pure quid pro quo, I admit. The site would have never gone up if Matthew Prince, who runs Unspam, hadn't pretty much taught me HTML from scratch. But I should change the mouseover, because, at this point, I really don't know if it works or not.
eb, you'll just have to take ogged's word for it, I guess.
BPhD: No, somehow i dont thing it's sanctioning. This place is teeming with tough love.
Wasn't I initiated a month ago with all the mineshaft stuff? i thought that came with a link...
That just meant we were going to be nice to you. Or not nice to you in a friendly way. I can't quite remember. Don't you have, like, five times as much traffic as we do?
Are you really not going to say one further word about bphd?
I think that everyone's going to end up siding with Bitch PhD in this particular breakup.
Now now, no fighting about this unless it includes funny cock jokes.
Adam speaks for me. I think this really is on its face an insult to b given that she's a regular commentor, and given that she's already said that it makes her feel unwelcome, and that I think this is a reasonably warranted construal, if Ogged doesn't want to make b feel unwelcome he ought to do something (not necessarily on the blog) to fix the misconstrual. If, as I say, he wants to make her feel not unwelcome.
Ok, I care enough not to seem like a complete ass, so I will say that b and I have been corresponding for at least a week about issues related to this, so I don't think it came out of the blue to her as much as it did to everyone else.
Actually, it did.
But I hardly feel like I can explain what I think, since our correspondence was private and I have no idea what the specific catalyst for this was. I found out only because someone sent me the link. Last I knew, we'd patched things up and it was all hunky-dory, and I thought the original difference was over my comments here, not what I write on my own blog. I don't even know if I should say that much, since you've chosen not to. It's your business to explain, or not, not mine.
I'm sort of over the barrel here. It's your blog. If I complain, I'm being petulant; if I try to explain, I'm defensive and/or misconstruing and/or violating some boundary. Saying nothing is hard. But I don't see that there is anything for me to say.
So...these two cocks walk into a rabbi...
...the rabbi says, "gentlemen, you look tired"...
ogged and bphd had better make up before my cock crows three times.
...and I said, "Do you think I asked for a twelve-inch duck?"
My Gmail notifier isn't working. Just thought I'd let you know.
Maybe you just aren't getting any email.
Bitch PhD won't be commenting here anymore. Given that I de-linked her, and notwithstanding the fact that many of you want her to stay, she no longer felt welcome, and I couldn't try to disabuse her in good faith.
I have nothing more to say about this.
As I said repeatedly, it wasn't the delinking, it was the insult.
Sorry to comment again, but I don't want to be misrepresented.
None of my business, I guess, but what a pity.
Well this isn't going to be good for anyone.
Damn, but I really should read this blog more often.
High school never really ends, it just changes location.
Hey, you're right! All through high school, I was the nerdy kid with his nose in a book and not a clue about what was going on around him, and here I am again!
Although...I thought it was all my fellow geeks in the A/V club and the chess club and the model rocket club who had migrated to this blogging thing. What's with all the popular kids doing it now?
I just meant that frustrated geeks who can't get laid take it out on those who can.
I don't know about Timothy Burke, but this is my least favorite blogspat ever (and not just because I don't know what the hell happened and so there's no voyeuristic thrill involved in watching the scrap unfold).
Anyway, I miss BitchPhD around hereparts, but then again, it will prod me to visit her blog more often than has been my custom in the past (lucky her, eh?)
And Mithras: I much admire the skillfulness of that last barb, but also, damn, that's harsh!
But wait, who is Mithras taking a shot at? 'Cause I've had sex before. No, SERIOUSLY, I have. With a person. A LIVE person. I swear.
Y'know, probably not. At Pandagon, my traffic probably smashed yours, but it's hard to make blog readers change their habits -- I've gone from 10,000-12,000 a day to a bit over 2,500. Funny thing is though, I like it better. Fewer trolls, better comment threads; it's more homey, somehow. And, weirdly, I get way more links that I did on on the big P. The internets are weird.
I don't think this has much to do with linking. This thread got off on the wrong foot and got worse and although, as a recent guest here, one realises that one's rights of criticism are limited, I have to say that it all seems unnecessarily ugly.
I was pleased at having found this place as a dive where tolerant, intelligent, witty, passionate and profane people engage one another.
I am sorry, but taken on sum of the evidence available, a member of your group has been wronged. That makes me sad.
Huh -- I must've tabbed out before I hit return. Anyway, continuing on:
But the deal with traffic in the blogs seems to be best summed up by a book I recently read called "Linked". Basically, networks form in such a way that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Pandagon, which had been around for a long time and enjoyed a following already, could grow easily. A new and enormously talented site cannot. Brad Plumer, who I tend to think is one of the most encyclopedically knowledgeable bloggers out there (though I'd like to cage match him and Yglesias to find out), can't seem to grow his traffic. he doesn't want to, so realize this is my obsession, but despite being plugged mercilessly at Pandagon, being promoted by Yglesias, and being a guest-poster at The Washington Monthly, his hits barely top 250. Worse, they haven't changed since the initial round of plugging at my place and Matts. For reasons I don't understand, it seems impossible to grow his site.
My place, at 2,500, can only do that because I had a preexisting traffic base. Maybe it'll grow, maybe it won't, but if I started out today, I'd probably never get anywhere hits-wise. Unfogged, which is one of my three favorite blogs, should, by all rights, tower over me. Why you (though I wouldn't be surprised if you beat me) and Brad Plumer don't makes no sense. And the more I read about how the Networks form, and the more I watch Kos and Atrios easily hit new traffic highs while awesome blogs beneath don't see their sitemeter skyrocket, the less impressed I am with this new "blogging" thing. We're not a meritocracy and we offer little room for advancement. Kinda sucky to think that most all of the success here is dictated by when you entered the game...
So there's a long-ass meditation on traffic you weren't expecting, huh?
High school never really ends
Yeah, in high school, I was known for my giant mullet and penis jokes and now I'm known for... Jesus Christ, am I really 36 years old? This can't be good.
I feel like Jason Lee in Chasing Amy. "Look, Ogged, and Bitch, just go ahead and do the mommy and daddy dance already and everything will be fine." But then Bitch would tell me she loves me but she's not my whore (and slap me) and Ogged would say he and I don't really talk any more and it's complicated and, well, you see where it's all headed. Next thing you know, w-lfs-n is the gaffer, Mitch is the best boy, Weiner is the key grip, and my shoes are sticking to the floor.
Kiss and make up, kids. It's just a bunch of people trying to sound clever, not anything that matters.
Apo'er! I made the Beavis penis joke above b/c I wasn't sure where you were.
I commented on this over at Bitch's blog. So go there and read the comments (it was in response to one of the "Where are all the women blogger" rebuttals she had). Basically, I see it as everyone starts off reading one or two blogs, and then maybe find 3 or 4 more to read regularly. But after a while, they stop remembering to go to new blogs, because with the rest of this thing we call a life, there just isn't enough time. So they may go read Brad's blog, but they aren't going to read it regularly, because there just aren't enough hours in the day, and a list of blog bookmarks scrolling off the page means that only the top 4-5 get looked at. I've found that when people read links I've trackbacked, they read that link and nothing else. Whether I'm talented is another question (with an answer of no), but people will usually read just the one post, and then move on. I'm trying to figure out a new blog format to have the posts similar to The Register, because I hate having posts scoll off the page. But yes, things do tend to get lost in the blogosphere.
Ezra, I admit I'm fascinated by issues of blog traffic. 2500 is about what we get too, and I think you're right for the most part about date of entry being very important. But there is something else. It's possible to start a blog and become very popular, but only if the blog is doing something other blogs aren't doing, or is distinctive in some way. That is to say, Plumer is great, and I read him sometimes, but, like you say, what he does and what Yglesias does aren't very different, and I already read Yglesias. Similarly, Julie Saltman is very smart, and she has a great blog, but I already see most of the stuff she links to elsewhere, so there isn't much motivation for me to read her regularly. On the other side, you have a site like Fafblog, which is a pretty new blog, and gets a lot of traffic, because there's nothing like it. Same with the Poor Man, who's been around, but suddenly got noticed by a lot of people last year.
But, also like you say, 2500 is better than 10000 in a lot of ways, and people should think about different kinds of blogs doing different kinds of things. When we started this blog, I wanted to get as much traffic as possible, both because I thought it would make me feel important, but also because I was nacissistic enough to think that people should hear what *I* have to say. But I realized that there are plenty of smart people saying what needs to be said, and that what I enjoy is the community--exchanging thoughts with a crowd that knows where I'm coming from and has very smart things to say. Now, I worry about getting too much traffic, and I notice that right at the 2500 visits/day level, the community starts to break down a bit, and it's harder to have a conversation.
I'm not quite as down on the network as you seem to be. I find that if I have something to say that other people aren't saying, or that I've said particularly well, it tends to get linked. That doesn't happen until you get some of the major bloggers reading you, but our early link-whoring helped with that.
It's just a bunch of people trying to sound clever, not anything that matters.
Too late. The sausage party crasher must be dealt with.
All good points. In some ways, that's a shame, because the real world rarely rewards the idiosyncratic among us -- there's a market for the Yglesias/Plumer/Drum model, less so for the Fafblog! model. Which, in its way is unfair, but it also leads to a lot more people wanting to do the former, and so the majority of new entries into the blog field find their chosen "genre" filled.
I agree that the network works for those with a place in it. When I write well, it does get the links and trackbacks that I hoped. I'm just worried that others won't have that opportunity. The amazing thing to me about the blogs was that I could succeed in them. I mean, I'm 20, it'll be another two months before I can drink legally. And yet, I've been invited to cover conventions, booked on television shows, published in nationwide magazines, and have a regular audience in the thousands who comes to hear what I have to say. It's enormously gratifying and humbling and I really feel lucky to have it. That said, there's no good reason it should be me, rather than a similarly talented guy/girl like Daniel Munz or Shakespeare's Sister or Plumer or...
That'd be fine if it seemed that they could climb the rungs. But I fear that, at this point, the ladder's so crowded that new talent, unless it finds a niche, is squeezed out. That sucks. It's not that i know how to rectify it -- I'm not sure I could even read more sites than I do. But it really does seem that only a Rude Pundit or Fafblog! or Berube can advance nowadays, and in that entrenchment of a certain set of voices, I think something is lost. The blogs have evolved into our very own punditocracy, and I'm unsure that that's a good thing.
Yeah, I read Linked, too. As I understand it, it's all about the power laws.
One of these days I'm going to finally take some time to figure out what a power law is.
W/r/t to traffic to my blog, I've found the same thing: people following a link to a specific post rarely read more than that one post. When I go to a blog through a link like that, I tend to click over to the main page as well and skim the recent posts too. But I've now subscribed to so many feeds I just can't keep up.
In one sense you're right: there are finite readers with finite time, so there are bound to be great blogs that get less traffic than they deserve. What's difficult to watch is that this all happened so quickly; in a few years you've seen it go from a wide open field to a stratifed, more static system. But it was the wide open field that was anomalous, not the current system, which was inevitable. (I think this is what they call "cold comfort".)
That said, I think group blogs can help in two ways. First, you've got situations like Pandagon recruiting Amanda. Very good new blogger gets a much bigger audience at an established blog. Kos does this on a larger scale. I imagine we'll see even more of it.
Second, a bunch of good smaller bloggers can get together and pool their readers to approach something like the critical mass necessary to be noticed. This is what Crooked Timber did.
Of course, the main way that established bloggers can help keep the field open for new talent is to link. Glenn Reynolds is great about this. Matt Yglesias is also very good on this score. As is Brad DeLong.
Overall, I guess I'm not quite as worried about the system as you seem to be. I trust that if someone is really good, eventually they'll be noticed, and even if they can't ever get the number of readers the established bloggers get, their important posts will bubble up.
eb, what I noticed after we were linked early on by Insty and Kaus is that traffic would eventually settle down, but always with just a few more regular readers. Those add up after a while.
A similar thing has been happening on my blog, but on a much, much smaller scale (my blog's only a month old). Every now and then when I get a referral from a bigger blog, a few more people come back in the following days. The referrals that really seem to help the most are the ones that link to both a post and the blog itself. But since my statcounter/sitemeter only keeps the past 100 visits, I can't really chart it as well as I'd like.
I actually wouldn't mind never getting Instalanched or anything like that - I'd rather have a reasonably-sized community of regular readers. But I would like to get a Slate link just once - just to see how many people come over from the mainstream media.
just to see how many people come over from the mainstream media.
That depends a lot on how the link is presented. If it's a sexy topic and the person who links to you does something like "Wow, look at those titties!" You'll get a lot of readers (who probably won't stay or com back). If it's more like, "eb says---long excerpt--I think..." not many people will click through.
Anyway, last year we got a link from Kaus (about titties, as it happens), and I think it got us somewhere between 3000-5000 visitors. I'm pretty sure there have been more from Insty and Atrios. Also, some blogs seem to have "clickier" readers than others.
It all depends, is what I'm sayin'.
Of course you're exactly right. I was thinking of a Slate link from something more like a regular article than whatever it is Kaus does (I stopped reading him a while ago).
I just remember that last fall someone got a link (from Surfergirl, I think) after the Jon Stewart/Crossfire showdown and he ended up diabling comments after a while because the traffic became so overwhelming. (I assume few of those readers came back, though - I don't even remember what his blog was about.)
I've gotten a few links from the new Slate blog round-up thing...there are almost no click-throughs. I've gotten others from more normal sources within the site, and they drive mad traffic. It all depends.
I was wondering about that new "today's blogs" feature. I never click through there either, not least because everything comes summarized. The only time I clicked through was when they linked to the blog of a guy who dropped out of my graduate program. I had no idea that he blogged.
I suppose it should be odd that the most blog-oriented features generate the least blog traffic, but for some reason that doesn't seem all that surprising.
I've actually gotten a few click-throughs from this comment thread. I wonder if Ogged's #105 had anything to do with it. Probably the mention of titties.
Sorry to disappoint everyone, but you'll find none on my site.
Huh. This thread has turned into a discussion of links and traffic?
Just to throw some confusion into it, I agree with Ezra that there's a lot of randomness in who gets the traffic. Earlier today I was surprised to learn that Gary Farber gets much, much less traffic than I do. Gary Farber! Jeez, the guy is practically a blogging legend, and I'm always surprised at the breadth of what he writes about. And now I learn here that I also get more traffic than Unfogged. I recall finding this place way back when I was just getting started, thinking it was nifty, and making it one of the first links in my initially tiny blogroll.
I've seen a fairly steady progression of traffic in the past year, with a few new people trickling into the stream of regulars every week. There have been few sudden surges -- I've only been linked to by Atrios once, for instance, and never by Instapundit or Kaus (heh, that would be a shock for them to find anything they liked on my site) -- and mine isn't the kind of weblog everybody suddenly starts talking about. I keep expecting the traffic to plateau or start dropping. And I'm certainly not in any kind of unique class like Fafblog or Rudepundit or Berube.
So there does seem to be some way to grow a blog. Heck if I know what the magic formula is, though. Patience? Luck? Cephalopod sex?
It's actually pretty clear in your case, isn't it PZ? If I may pigeonhole you, you're the fiesty liberal biologist. Biology intersects with evolution and politics, and you've got yourself a very nice niche. That, and the fact that your blog is in fact very good, account for your traffic. Don't mean to sound so sure; that's just my guess.
You know, my own subjective opinion of my blog is that it could use a lot of improvement, and it's the failings I see most. Failings I'm reluctant to correct, since I might break my lucky streak so far.
But that is a good point, that I have a weird little niche. A nearly empty niche of my very own.
Maybe that's the problem with people like Brad Plumer, mentioned above. Not that there's anything wrong with him, or that he isn't the best of all possible bloggers in his category, but that his particular category is so thickly populated that it's impossible to draw a significant fraction of the readership that would appreciate his stuff.
And Fafblog and Berube and Rude Pundit are unique enough in their mode of expression that they created their own special place. It's all about niche construction, to use a major buzzword in evolutionary biology.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at in the first paragraph of 98. I should have just said "niche."
Remind me to come back tomorrow if I don't, cuz there are a number of things here I'd like to comment on, but I'm too tired to do so this evening.
Thanks awfully for the nice words, though, PZ; I may add them to my Roll Of Wise Judgments about Me, Me, Me, on the bottom left of my blog.
"...the breadth of what he writes about."
Extremely flattering of you, but, really, I tend to think that I largely limit myself to, I dunno, maybe twenty or so topics, generally, in which I flatter myself that I at least have some small grasp of what I'm talking about. The number of public issues, and topics, I rarely or never venture into is simply huge. I've yet to even comment on my experiences as a mommy.
On the other hand, generally speaking, niche blogging is one key to popularity, and since I don't really have any single pigeonhole to be dropped into, I figger that's part of why I tend to be fairly popular with other bloggers, but not hardly so much with a large number of readers. Apparently I'm a "blogger's blogger," in the usual sense in which that construction generally applies. Which is something I greatly, greatly, appreciate, but after we flip the pancake, more readers (and commenters!) would be very nice, too. (Regular readers, that is, not just the folks who show up when nice people link to me.) (Which is why I pimp myself out from time to time, like every few hours or so.)
More on the morrow, with luck.
Trivial point: when I wrote my above comment, the previous two comments, emphasizing niche blogging, hadn't yet shown up on my browser.
This thread has turned into a discussion of links and traffic?
Well, we'd already determined that it's really hard to find good female commenters these days.
One of the main points I got from reading Linked was that while it's possible to predict what the structure of a network (the distribution of hubs and links, etc.) will eventually look like at an aggregate level, it's extremely difficult to figure out what particular things - in this case blogs - will fill which roles (large or small hub, not a hub at all). I guess at a certain point established niches become so crowded and organized into such stable hierarchies that you really need to create your own to break into the top ranks.
I don't know if this would have been considered link-whoring, but once I put up my first substantive post I made it a point to comment on well-established blogs in the history community (since my blog is mainly history) in the hopes that someone would click through from a comment. That ended up working out far better than I thought it would, as I got a referral from Early Modern Notes that led to referrals from both Cliopatria and Inside Higher Ed.
Sorry if this seems too narcissistic. All I'm saying is that it is possible to apply some of these ideas about networks in order to get off the ground floor of blogging. How to build a site from that point, though, I don't know.
There was also a good post on this a while back, which was linked in a comment on Crooked Timber, but since that site is down I don't know if I can find it.
Commenting is definitely one of the best ways to get your blog linked. (We haven't mentioned already being famous, which is the very best way.) I've said before that I always click through when I see a new commenter with a blog URL. And I do so without the awkwardness of having someone send me a link, because so often even if the blog is good, I don't necessarily see something I want to link to.
But more important than the blogger are the other readers. One of the main reasons people only read the post that's linked and don't stick around at a blog is that, without putting in a lot of time, it's hard to get a sense of the blogger's voice and identity, and much of the appeal of blogs is that the good ones have distinctive voices. But if you comment and people get to know you, they'll come to your blog with a sense of who you are, and they'll feel more comfortable staying. Now that I think about this, it strikes me as one of the underappreciated facts about blogging: I think a lot people (and new bloggers) think that blogs are about "points" as in making a point, having points, etc. But they're more about voice. Points are thick on the ground, what people want to read are points made in a way that they find congenial, easy to follow, trustworthy, interesting, etc.
That's interesting, I hadn't thought about it in terms of building up a commenting profile at a single site/within a community. But now that you mention it, I've noticed recently that more people at a couple of sites (here included) where I've commented before are clicking through from my comments.
And I realize that I've been unconsciously doing a similar thing. While I always click through on comments on my blog, on other blogs I usually read a few comments from someone first before deciding to check out the URL.
I always click through on those rare comments that are spectacularly brilliant, though.
Yeah, let me third the comment on blogs idea. Best way to get a name by far. Also, too many young bloggers go straight to the top, the Matts and Kevins and Duncans of the world, when trying to promote. Work through blogs bigger than you, of course, but the giants are deluged with people asking for promotion, finding places where your e-mail won't find itself on a pile of similar ones is generally a better way to begin your audience.
Thanks to the magic of google's cache, I managed to dig through the Crooked Timber archives to find the link to this post on blog popularity.
And now I really need to go to sleep.
Regularity of updates is, I would guess, a huge factor in readership -- if I don't see new content on a blog daily, I'm very likely to forget about it (unless it's in the irritating category of blogs that's guaranteed interesting when there's something new, and has something new at least, usually, once a week or so. Those, I check every so often, but I find maddening.)
That, more than anything else, is why I don't blog -- I have periods where I have a lot of time and interest for this stuff, and periods where I don't. Even on the offchance I built up any kind of readership, I'd lose it by going dark for three weeks every month or two.
Yeah, me too to LB's second para.
Yeah w-lfs-n, that's why you have no readers.
I'm living such a circumstance right now.
It has, historically, been the case.
LB, yes, frequent updates matter a lot, but not as much as they used to, before everyone stared using RSS readers (it sounds like you aren't. Get over to Bloglines). Now, if I read something really good, I can just drop a blog into my reader and I don't need to remember to check back.
Man, I start commenting on your blog and I get homework assignments?
(Actually, I do use Bloglines -- I just don't like my list of feeds getting too long, so I don't add new blogs unless I'm fairly sure they get updated regularly. And I get cranky with irregular updaters every time I see them on my list of feeds. The universe owes me free political commentary on a regular basis, goddamit! I am entitled!!)
Hmm. I confess I don't get it. If you have a bunch of blogs in your reader, even if they aren't updated regularly, there's always something new to read.
Yeah, isn't the point of RSS to abstract away those concerns?
I'm not claiming to be reasonable here (very few people would call me that) but like you said above, it's about voice. If I like someone's writing enough to read their blog, then regardless of whether I have other, more regularly updated blogs to read, it annoys me that I don't have more of that blog, daily, when I want it.
Making Light, e.g., is on my list of feeds -- it gets updated, probably, on average, twice a week, and there are a lot of weeks with nothing. Every time I see the link on my list, I have a moment of disappointment: "No TNH today. Drat." Unless I really like your writing a lot, it's not worth it to me to have that daily dose of "No free ice cream today, at least not this flavor." Unless you update regularly, I don't want to know you.
Wow, that is a rather strong sense of entitlement, isn't it? I'm always grateful for an update. Hell, when I was young, we didn't even have blogs, missy.
Dude, when I was young, we didn't even have color TV. (Well, my family, personally, didn't. I understand the quality did.)
And I yield to none in my sense of entitlement.
I'm curious about the few people who would call you reasonable.
And then there's Timothy Burke's blog, which seems not to have an RSS feed at all.
Right, you're the one whose sister is 6'1". Stands to reason.
eb, yes, he seems to be without one. I remember Tim saying months ago that Swarthmore was setting up Movable Type for the faculty, but that seems not to have happened.
Ogged:
When I hit your front page, I don't get the updated comments section: i.e., the most recent comment listed is Jaspar Emerson. Is that at my end or at your end? Is it happening to anyone else? Why do you hate me so much, Ogged? WHY?!!!
Why do you hate me so much, Ogged? WHY?!!!
Let's not get into that. I think it's on your end. Try a refresh. And you might want to clear your cache occasionally!!!
LB, you're only a few years older than ogged.
w-lfs-n, how many times do you have to be reminded that my age is Top Secret?
Oh, and Tim, are you sure you're bringing up the main page, and not the archive link?
I'm younger than both of them (I'm pretty sure I can say that), but when I was even younger, I remember having black-and-white TV.
Ok, so it was my grandmother's old TV and the other TV in the house was color, but still...
I didn't reveal your age, and only someone with my Amazing Skills would be able to determine LB's age.
I think you'll have to remind me at most two more times.
You have amazing skills? Pretty full of yourself for a whippersnapper, aren't you?
(Actually, if you do know how old I am, I'm impressed. I don't think I've posted it under this pseud.)
Aw, c'mon, I can see how old you are too. I assume he's using college graduation date as his measure.
Hey Ben, my age is Top Secret.
I have sent you an email, Ms Breath.
What was that, sonny? I swear, my hearing gets worse and worse with each passing year.
I'll bet she's married to Dragonbreath. You're toast.
Ogged, I had assumed that her age was Top Secret and didn't want to reveal my methodologies on public fora! I'm very sensitive to these things. Also, I was under the impression that "Ms." was an acceptable salutation for both married and unmarried women, and that in fact it was devised precisely so there would be a single salutation regardless of marital status or perceived marriageability.
I didn't mean you used the wrong salutation. I meant that your attempt to ingratiate yourself with the (surely) lovely Ms. Breath was sure to be futile.
The problem with RSS traffic is that it doesn't show up in SiteMeter.
I feel very happy, in an evil way, that I get as much traffic as the guy who guest-blogs at The Washington Monthly.
The longest break I've ever taken from blogging is shorter than a week. I saw this movie once, where the guy said, "It seems like doing something every day, even something stupid like just pouring a cup of water down the toilet, is going to change something." And it's true -- just the mechanical act of blogging every day, putting myself out there every day, has created some very interesting stuff. For instance, one of my co-bloggers recently had Rick Perlstein wearing his "Scott McLemee Fan Club" t-shirt. I also tracked down some bibliographical stuff that would have been virtually impossible to do without help from a Frenchman, simply because I blogged about my problem.
The traffic is a good ego-booster, though. I really wish that I could have kept growing at the rate I did before the election, but it just totally crashed after that -- what with the depression, then the holidays.
Oh, I dunno, she's gone on record as enjoying eyeing young legal assistants.
I'll leave comments about briefs, etc for someone else to make (where's Fontana been lately?).
Ah, you're right, I'd forgotten that. And now we know that she probably feels entitled to all the men she wants. Ok, I'll get out of your way.
I'll accept hitting on a married woman with kids as proof that your girlfriend is a shrew, w-lfs-n. Though I should probably note that I debated asking ogged if he'd accept my prior claim of a blogcrush on LB if I gave way on the Moira thing. Lesbian vs. married woman with kids - both unavailable electronic personalities, and equally likely to find the lot of us vapid and pointless; seemed like a fair trade.
Hey, I'm always open to ingratiation, and while I can't check the email I post on blogs from work, I did figure out what I've posted that would be a tip-off -- Julie Eisenberg, right? Nothing top-secret about my age, I just don't usually post anything that would be personally identifying, so I was a bit surprised.
That wasn't it—I don't know how old Eisenberg is (and actually if I'm right about your age, I would have thought she was younger). Anyway, you may want to take a look at [deleted by ogged] and then reevaluate how much you post that's personally identifying.
You have got to be kidding, LB. w-lfs-n, I hope you send her an e-mail explaining how she might evade your and ogged's (and others) notice down the line.
w-lfs-n, once again divulging the secret. What is it with you and crossing those boundaries, Ben? Note how circumspect Tim was. Note how circumspect I was in the comment I'd written before I previewed (now deleted). Anyway LB, it's pretty easy to see who you are.
Oh, and Tim, I'd make that trade. (Now they're trading women!) (Actually, they're trading the rights to blogcrushes, but never mind.)
Duh. Again, no big deal -- I have no particular need for anonymity; I simply hadn't thought anyone would bother.
Feel free to delete 158 if you want to, ogged, in that case.
I simply hadn't thought anyone would bother.
Hahahahha!
I read 147 as w-lfs-n being circumspect about it. Maybe I assumed too much?
Don't get too down on w-lfs-n, Ogged. He's a mere child (as said by Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief). That, LB, is why it is bootless to "sin in one's heart" over smooth young boys. If I might channel Clubber Lang for the moment, you should be "sinning in your heart" over a real man.
(60 oz of coffee so far, baby).
A lot of women like a bearded young man (i.e., not necessarily "smooth"). Something (else) to tug on.
Kudos to SCMT for using "bootless", though even better would have been "it boots not".
At my last job, I had the choice between discreetly eyeing the youthful paralegals who were making my job easier by doing annoying clerical tasks I didn't want to do, or the fat old men who were making me work 16 hour days -- under those circumstances, who would you lust after? I defend my proclivities as perfectly rational.
On the other hand, there is something compelling about a man who can hold his caffeine...
Note that Tim didn't mention how many times he had gone to the bathroom. Is that because he's been there once for each ounce of coffee he's had, or because he prefers to piss his pants? Tim?
I really hate to admit it when w-lfs-n is funny...
Who was it who compared long threads to a keg party (i.e. when a woman shows up at the tap, suddenly everyone livens up)?
I hereby nominate SCMT in the category of "Best Commenter" for the upcoming Unfoggie Awards (not necessarily for that particular comment, but for the sustained high quality of his comments in general).
(I'm your wingman, SCMT, although I must admit that for me it's more about foiling w-lfs-n than about helping you specifically).
Impressive that they got Carroll to discuss the privatization plan on the record -- it's good seeing a story with no anonymous sources.
Very kind, Mitch, but, excepting w-lfs-n (who deserves a comeuppance) I think you forget the first truth of Unfogged's comments section: there is no cock-jokester but the one cock-jokester, and Apostropher is his name.
the one cock-jokester
Sometimes, I'm a two-cock-jokester.
eb, yes, he seems to be without one. I remember Tim saying months ago that Swarthmore was setting up Movable Type for the faculty, but that seems not to have happened.
*Someone's* set up an RSS feed for Easily Distracted: http://www.molehill.org/~jtl/rss/www_swarthmore_edu_SocSci_tburke1.rss
It doesn't always pick up new posts immediately, but it's better than nothing.
there is no cock-jokester but the one cock-jokester, and Apostropher is his name.
Oh, Bestest and Mostest Cock Jokes is a separate category. And yep, there's no competition there, it's apostropher by a mile, although cw's comment here was one of the all time great unfogged cock jokes.
Why do I deserve comeuppance?
Because unf is a prick? I don't follow.
But you've already copped to it. And #182 is just confirmation.
Since FL and I were talking about it awhile back, and I don't have nearly enough readers, I have a post up responding to this weekend's Ethicist column. If Gary Farber isn't embarassed to pimp his posts, why should I be?
If Gary Farber isn't embarassed to pimp his posts, why should I be?
That's gotta be the lowest hanging fruit I've seen around here in a long time.
Nice answer: are you a blogging legend?
My whole point was that if a blogging legend isn't embarassed to do that, it seems to me that indicates lack of a community norm against it.
I think you misunderstand the way the exceptional exception works. It is, in general, wrong for your friend to hit on your wife. But if your friend is a young Julio Iglesias, who hit the masculine cycle (handsome, goalie for Real Madrid, law student (arguably smart), singer, and successful), not only may he hit on your wife, you may be obligated to encourage her to go off with him.
I think it's the same for Gary.
I'm quite embarrassed, sometimes, at pimping posts, but even more when I whine like this and no one links. But it's overcome by my needy feelings of insufficient wuv and attention and comments and links and hits and lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
If I'm such a blogging legend, howcum if I'm not getting specific links from Big Names (like, you know, "Ogged"), my average number of hits per day, in recent and many times, is measurable in two digits, counting jillions of search hits?
I'm still trying to parse SomeCallMeTim's comment for what role I'm being cast in. Just don't ask me to sing.
I think Bob needs his pipe in that picture, apostropher.
Incidentally, does an above comment mean that LizardBreath was [delted by ogged]? If so, impressive resume.
Maybe I should do a post all about LizardBreath?
Does she have an [deleted by ogged], a [deleted by ogged], a [deleted by ogged], and a [deleted by ogged], ya think?
Hmm. The new blog game: what trivial details from someone's offline life can you find to try to surprise them with, and which is the moment when you've crossed over into stalking?
Re 185: the real low-hanging fruit there is the spelling of "embarrassed".
which is the moment when you've crossed over into stalking?
That would be the moment just before your finger hit the "Post" button, I think.
re: 195
Now that I'm willing to be contrite about.
Speaking of low-hanging fruit, there seems to be a tense problem here.
I need to ask my sister if she's seen those circles; she lives within walking distance of that beach.
All right, moderately uncomfortable now.
Right. Let's not play that game anymore.
Sorry, then, LizardBreath. It's all on the first pages of Googling your names, though, so you might want to switch your e-mail address if you're uncomfortable with what Google says.
But I'm very sorry for making you uncomfortable in the slightest: my apologies.
No harm, no foul. And, yes, I'll be changing the address I use.
I just went back and read this - curious about the creepy/non-creepy crushes everyone seems to have on LB.
Sorry, LB, for inadvertently providing more information about you, indirectly. I don't seem to care too much about this stuff for myself, because there are many people with my name in the world.
You know, I bet ogged could do some sort of search and replace on your old e-mail to your new one.
Now I have to go looking for what you said about Julie Eisenberg...
It's no big thing -- I just waste a lot of time when I should be working, and don't want to be immediately visible to anyone who knows me professionally. Also, my birth name was google-proof like yours -- there were thousands of me -- and even after seven years I'm not totally used to the fact that anyone with my exact last name is a member of my nuclear family.
I was thinking about her the other day, in connection with a story I was telling about the lead singer of the Toasters.