Stardate 20040411.1740

(Captain's log): I tend to look at my refers a fair amount, partly because it is harmless vanity but also because it's my primary way of discovering when others have written responses to my posts. (If I think they're worthwhile, I add a backlink as an update.)

I found this comment thread by following back a refer, and found a pretty classic example of trolling by someone using the anonymous handle "post-it". But I also found a clever response to him posted by George Turner:

I am the very model of a modern left wing democrat.
I vent my spleen and prattle in forums on the internet.
I can’t hold long a single thought. I need to take my Ritalin.
Now what was that you asked of me? Did I just take my vitamin?
I cannot lose an argument, so why don’t you get used to it.
I won’t concede a single point, even if there’s no truth in it.
No matter what you say to me, I’ll post back an ad-homenim.
Regardless of the things you do, you’re all BushHitler’s supermen
They call me Post-It Note’s bleat boy, and I post crap like it was true.
On all the countless websites that my drivel is cross-posted to.

Chorus:
We call him Post-It Note’s bleat boy, and he posts crap like it was true.
On all the countless weblogs that his drivel is cross-posted to.
On all the countless weblogs that his drivel is cross-posted to.

Your weblog I will litter with my often posted snivelling
And you all have to pay the bill, supporting all my drivelling.
My posts sum up in six bad lines of mindless dreck and scribbling,
But lots of carps and doodoo too, plump out my posts with twiddling.
Impossible to penetrate much less on which to cogitate
I don’t see how you can relate, to my simplistic mental state.
I will flame you with invective till you yield to my perspective.
Of socialist utopia when we join the big collective.
My whole outlook is progressive my belief is so obsessive
All your taxes are regressive cause with stuff we are possessive.

Chorus:
His whole outlook is progressive his belief is so obsessive
All our taxes are regressive cause with stuff they are possessive.
All our taxes are regressive cause with stuff they are possessive.

I’m ignorant of simple facts, both social and historical.
So don’t confuse me with your lies, just argue metaphorical.
No matter what you say to me, I’ll argue opposite you see.
If provably you show I’m wrong I’ll change the question joyfully.
My facts are bad, conclusions too, my arguments erroneous,
You’ll be crying oh “boo hoo”, cause I’m so sanctimonious.
My learning is extensive but is nothing more than Chomskyia,
Designed to fan my hatred of the Empire called Amerika,
Your ruler soon is coming down, we'll crush him like a big ass clown
John Kerry soon will wear the crown, so I don't care if you all drown.
I am the very model of a left wing personality.
I intersperse mendacity with vacuous opacity.

Chorus:
He is the very model of a left wing personality.
He’ll intersperse mendacity with vacuous opacity.
He’ll intersperse mendacity with vacuous opacity.

I've always admired people who can write that kind of thing, especially at a moment's notice when inspired. I can crank out readable prose (sometimes to excess) but I cannot do that.

I took a look at his blog, and he seems to be turning out a lot of material. He's pugnacious and his writing has an edge, but all good sites have some sort of editorial voice. Seems as if he probably deserves a bit of exposure, and a chance to build up a larger audience.

Which brings me to the fact that it's been four months since I last changed the sidebar, and time to do it again. Here's a curtain call for the graduating class:

Being American in T.O.
Belmont Club
Bleeding Brain
Cobb
For the ride...
Freedom's Fidelity
Healing Iraq
Hour Eleven
Ilyka Damen
JunkYardBlog
Latif's Cavern
Magic in the Baghdad Cafe
Photon Courier
Raising Sand
Rising Nucleotides
SCSUScholars
Tabula Rasa
The Laughing Wolf

It's time for them to make room for a new batch.

How do I pick them? Intuition, whimsy, dice rolling? Some of that, I guess. Whenever I encounter a blog that looks like a potential choice, I add it to a special "candidates" folder. When time comes to replace the sidebar list, I go through it and pick a certain number of the entries. But I don't keep track of how I stumbled on them in the first place.

I don't make any deliberate attempt to select them based on ideology or subject matter, but there is a tendency for them to be more "conservative" (i.e. liberal) than "liberal" (i.e. elitist/socialist) if they write about politics at all, because my browsing habits are more likely to make me encounter "conservative" bloggers.

There are two specific criteria they all satisfy. First, all of them seem to produce original material and to do so at a pretty consistent rate. Second, none of them asked to be included on the list, or made me the victim of any form of link-whoring or lobbying or targeted attempts to gain publicity for their sites.

As regards the first criterion, it's a bit soft and I sometimes bend it. But the second criterion is utterly unbending.

That second criterion is there because I want to discourage people from trying to make me the target of that kind of lobbying or publicity. (In extreme cases, people who do that have ended up in my Bozo Bin.)

That's also why I will not explain how I find the sites I put on my sidebar, nor how I choose them. I don't want to encourage anyone to try to game the process in hopes of getting themselves included on the list the next time I change it.

The sites I link to owe me nothing (i.e. they have no obligation to give me a reciprocal link). Like those before them, they'll get four months in the sun, and in August a new group will replace them. When I did this last July, I explained it this way:

The basic idea is to try to give several months of concentrated exposure to a small number of blogs which I think deserve far more attention than they get. With any luck, during that time they'll build up a large enough regular readership that their traffic can continue to grow on its own thereafter. So periodically I replace the list with another group to try to do the same for them.

Why do I do this? Mostly because it's what I wish someone had done for me, back when I first started out.

I can't change the world, and I can't prevent the formation of power law distributions, let alone preventing the operation of other social mechanisms. I can't solve every problem, or shine a light on every site that deserves it. But I can help a few people out, and that's what I'm trying to do.