I got a very nice email from Tre at 21st Century Paladin. He complimented me on my site, told me he had blogrolled me and asked me to look at his site to see if I liked it and maybe put him on my own blogroll if I did. Happy to oblige Tre.
But this got me to thinking about my blogroll. How do sites get on my blogroll? Well, I'll tell you.
But first, allow me to present my excuses. I am a terrible template updater. It's not in my genes. I'm in software QA because I like to break programs. I am an inherent danger any time I open a template. I am a destroyer of bytes, not a creator. What I'm saying is I don't update my blogroll very often.
Excuse number two is that although the blogs I read are the ones on my blogroll I don't read blogs with my blogroll. I use a newsreader. If a site doesn't have a feed the chances that it will ever get to my blogroll are pretty slim to non-existent. Oh, I know that there are loads of excellent sites out there without RSS feeds. My heart bleeds a little bit every time I think of all of the great stuff I'm missing. However, real life has shown that I seldom, if ever, remembered to (or bothered to if I did remember) actually go read blogs outside of the ones in my newsreader.
So what happens to a prospective blog is I'll put it in the newsreader and follow it for a while. If it bores me or pisses me off I delete it. If it's still there when I update my blogroll it becomes one of the elite and gets put in the correct alphabetic order.
Tre, you're up there in the pending section right now. So far, so good.
So, what you're saying is, I'm in peril of being dumped at any time. By Christ, I can't live with that kind of stress...
I'm working on a contract. I just feel that I need some certainty, you know?
What news reader do you prefer? I'm using bloglines, but always open to other ideas/suggestions.
Paul - Worry not. Once a blog is in the list it's there unless something spectacular happens.
RP - I use Sharpreader. It's a fine little program, light on the resources and it's free.
*whispers* Jim-I thought you also accepted bribes for blogrolling. Folks just need to name their price.
That's the word in the hood, anyway.
Sorta. What started out as a little joke over here has, through unintentional side effects, morphed into a way that people could buy their way onto my sidebar for a $1.
Other than that, well let's just say that everything is for sale, you just need to find the common price. ;-)
So what do bloggers do that pisses you off enough to delete their blogs from your newsreader?
I tend to drop tentative blogs that are angry, overly political, boring or mouthing Michael Moorisms.