A Nip and a Tuck
Friday March 17, 2006
I’m just making a few more changes to the thinkBuddha site. Gone are many of those blog site logos that were cluttering the sidebar. I don’t really know what half of them were doing there, to be honest. There was one that had a little number on it that went up and down. I think it was my “ranking” for that particular site. And I noticed that whenever the number went up (closer to no. 1 in this case), I felt a little frisson of joy, and whenever it went down, I felt a stab of sorrow in my heart. No matter that I had no idea what this number represented, that it seemingly bore no relation to anything else. I still had this same reaction to the rise and fall of the little blue number on the logo, endless frissons of joy and stabs of sorrow, day in and day out.
The world of blogging and blog ranking and so on is a curious one. There’s even a site out there called blogshares, which claims to be a “fantasy stock market”. I have no idea how this works either, but thinkBuddha is listed on the site. I have no idea why. According to the blogshares site, thinkBuddha shares peaked in early Feb. at B$243, whatever that means. And by the 18th of the month they had slumped to B$60. What all of this has to do with anything at all is completely beyond me.
So I’ve mercilessly culled most of these links. I’ve left the technorati link (because it’s useful to see who is linking here), the various newsfeed links (useful to those of you who use news aggregators), and the wikablog link (because wikablog seems like a nice, quiet, civilized place for nice, quiet, civilized folks). And I’ve also left the Buddhist Blog webring link at the bottom of the screen, because that’s a friendly thing to do. But the others have all gone.
In place of these, I’ve added a list of recent comments, so you can see which posts on the site are currently under discussion. This seems to me to be much more useful. So if a new comment is posted to an old post, that pops up here, and those interested can go and pay the post a visit.
Will, I’ve been away far too long. You have such a nice weblog, it really is my loss. The changes you describe are good. I like to see the recent comments, and the streamlined look is elegant and easy to read. All in all very inviting and pleasant Will.
I noticed that you also keep a list of blogs, and that you list mine in a very kind way. Thank you, you are kind indeed – but of course, remember that such is not necessary and that impermanence rules!
Lots of stuff out there in the world of blogs that seems just cluttery no? I go through stages of accumulation of some of that stuff and then stop and clean house. I need to do some Spring Cleaning with my blog. As soon as the Spring Break comes I might get started on that. Then again, I have writing to do and reading of papers.
Thanks again Will. Thanks for the comprehensive posts and the wonderful site.
N
Hi, Nacho,
Good to hear from you. Thanks for your kind words!
All the best,
Will
