it's that time again

i guess it comes every other winter. ye olde tymers of this site will remember of the winter of ought-four-ought-five. back in those dark tymes there was a brief hubbub about the so-called blog aristocracy in december and a redux a couple of months later.¹

anyway, we weathered the storm back in ye olde tymes and personally, i thought the blogroll aristocracy issue was a thing of the past. but with two years ticking by and a (rather late) chill in the air, the controversy is back. and like those days of yore, i am still somewhat mystified by the resurgent pissyness.

i think the basic problem comes down to differing conceptions of what a blogroll is for. and the frustration of some bloggers with the blogrolls of others really is due to a lack of recognition that other people don't necessarily share your blogrolling philosophy. i think this comment from xanthippas cut to the chase rather well:

I suppose a blogroll could mean several different things to the blogger it belongs to. It could mean
1. "I read these blogs."
2. "I recommend these blogs."
3. "I link to these blogs out of courtesy."

Or a combination of all three.

my philosophy is basically #1, and that seems to be atrios' philosophy as well (i bring him up because he always ends up being the focus of the anti-aristocracy folks). i realize that a lot of other bloggers have different blogroll philosophies, and that's their right. but it's rather ridiculous for others to insist that everyone follow their way of building a blogroll. and that's what this complaining seems to always be about.

so color me unsympathetic. why can't people do whatever the fuck they want with their blogroll? why does everyone need to have a blogroll reciprocity policy? since i first set up this taco stand many, if not most, of the blogs that i linked to never linked to me back. (including, ironically skippy) but so what? i've said before that i never will hold it against anyone if they don't link to me or decide to drop me from their blogroll and i stand by that. personally i think the whole phenomenon of "retaliatory link cutting" is rather silly as it presumes that everyone will see the deletion the same way. considering the diversity of views of what linkage and de-linkage means, blogroll edits are a rather bad way of sending someone a message.

(thanks to mr. swift for emailing me a link to his post)

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1-most of the critical links to other sites in my 2004-05 posts are now dead. but i think you get the general idea.