June 12, 2003
The communism of weblogs

If I see another entry on another weblog referencing to the "A-list bloggers" I'll commit a violent act. Of some sort.. not sure what yet..

No, really, it's quite tiring to keep reading the bitter, sarcastic, often humour-less references to some sort of "A-list". It saddens me that such is human nature.. always categorize into "good", "better", "more important", "more this.. ", "more that..". It reminds me of the time in fith grade when the girls divided themselves into two groups.. the "A-list" and the "B-list".. gee, sound familiar? It ended with parental intervention and a long discussion on "equality between friends".

Get over it people.. some weblogs are more popular than others.. Bitterness won't help it.. neither will sarcastic remarks and poorly worded humour with a pointy edge. In the grand scheme of things.. does it really matter who is popular who isn't? If I talked to any of my Real Life friends about how high (or low, as may be the case) my weblog ranks on some sort of "ecosystem" of useless statisics they would probably think I've gone nuts.. They would be right.

In other words.. it's boring, annoying and not productive. So get over it already and write about something that matters.

Posted June 12, 2003 10:46 AM in Blogging
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.unix-girl.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/735
Comments
On June 12, 2003 11:11 AM Ben Langhinrichs added:

I agree completely. After all, if fame is what you're after, sitting around writing weblogs is hardly the way to go about it. Do it if you feel motivated, but don't grumble if "too few" people read your blog. Thanks for posting.

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On June 12, 2003 01:27 PM Steve Friedl added:

Seems to me that the best way to get on the "A" list is to be *interersting*

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On June 12, 2003 01:46 PM brandt added:

i have a feeling my blog is "A-listed" by the FBI. hahaha.

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On June 12, 2003 03:19 PM mike added:

personally I dont care about how popular my blog is. I use it for what it is.. a web log. keeps track of cool links, things i do, things that are important to me. Plus by not being popular, I save bandwidth, and my server is happy with its 0.03 load average.

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On June 12, 2003 04:43 PM Noel D. Jackson added:

100% right you are. I think most importantly a lot of people forget the reason that weblog exist, for writing.

I like how you put it... "...get over it already and write about something that matters."

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On June 12, 2003 10:05 PM Dan Isaacs added:

In the Grand Scheme™ of things, it doesn't matter that you or I exist. And I'd rather not live my life in a context where my life doesn't matter. So I'll ignore the Grand Scheme™ of things, if that's Ok.

My subset of the Grand Scheme™ needs his diaper changed now.

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On June 12, 2003 10:31 PM Techie2000 added:

{Brown Nosing}
Well your blog can always be on my A-List of weblogs, along with Jeremy's and Steve's...
{/Brown Nosing}

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On June 12, 2003 11:52 PM joat added:

Care to guess who the number one reader of my blog is? Ans: Me! I store stuff in the blog so that I can read it from work or wherever, when I need it. Yes, it's nice that people stop by and comment but I think I peaked last week with four comments.

My blog is definitely NOT anywhere near mainstream blogging, let alone mainstream Internet. I don't want that sort of fame either as my free host would boot me caused his rates would jump.

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On June 13, 2003 02:41 AM Jeremy Zawodny added:

Yup.

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On June 13, 2003 02:42 AM Jeremy Zawodny added:

Wow, nobody has registered bloggers-suck.com

I'm so tempted. :-)

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On June 13, 2003 11:12 AM Darren added:

I'm just waiting for the A-list backlash, then us Z-listers can get a little action. :-)

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On June 13, 2003 03:09 PM Techie2000 added:

w00t! Blogwar!

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On June 14, 2003 07:18 AM Neezee added:

I did a little reasearch. I do read a lot of blogs (feeds to be precise, i don't read blogs without feeds) but haven't seen this term anywhere. Perhaps I only read 'a-list-bloggers'? Maybe this is different to me because I am not a native speaker in english.

I am far away from being a nice person. (Normally if I am nice to people the usual reaction is "What do you want? Or are you ill??"). But I would not see it in this hard way. What do I see there?

Mainly the fact, that the people a) want to give a hint to the popular gang, of course but b) the people are still building their repertoire of 'common words for the new medium blog'.

In social life, there are groups and persons you like to say hello to and listen to. In mailinglists and newsgroups there are regulars. But how can you be regular in the www, in the blogging scene? You can be regular if everyone is seeing you - but you don't see every blog. How do you call then the bunch of bloggers every one more or less knows? Thinks they are a must read?

Perhaps you - as a 'A list blogger' *grin* could see this in two different terms. One: "A list bloggers" - this is for the guys who are not cool but want to be "cool by assoziation" and one to let other people describe what they want to - giving a reference to a persons blog which is not only known in the community of bloggers but has something they like.

But how to call such a person? I'll give you an example of what I mean with this. I know a guy by chat which does post in several of my usual usenetgroups. I read his postings with very much joy cause they are alway wellformed, good in style of writing and quality of contents. I would really like to give this person a 'thank you for making this net a better place' (which he does) but I can't without being intrusive. I am very sorry about that. Ok, his ego would even go bigger so perhaps this is not so bad at all ;o)

You don't know me, I am a person somewhere on this earthball but there are parts on the net where I *am* a 'a list whatever' (sadly enough, some parts of this are still based on the fact that I am a woman). I feel uncomfortable with this too - but I would always agree if someone would try to use a term which describes me as "person who says things more or less often with a kind of quality which *I* as a reader not only like but appreciate very much. So much that I would like to share this fact with this person without being not nice or intrusive."

Everyone would like such. And everyone saying he would not is a liar in my eyes.

You will always have the kids who like to be popular. But there a lot of people, grown ups, who still would like to share with the world what is good. Don't you give links to other pages which you like? Which you not only like because on this special event but a lot of times? But - I can't always write this long sentence. Give me a short term which give this with the context of blogging. I'm waiting for suggestions :o)

Nicole

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On June 14, 2003 03:34 PM senor sean added:

What?
No sarcasm or humour with a pointy edge?

Hell...that's my whole repertoire.

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