Friday, February 04, 2011

My B.A.D.


Once again, Skippy and Blue Gal are carrying the torch and lighting the way for the four year old blogging tradition - Blogroll Amnesty Day. First observed on February 1, 2008, this year the celebration is a bit less festive. It is the first B.A.D. observance since co-founder Jon Swift/Al Wesiel passed last year.

I occasionally wonder why some of the blogs on my blogroll are um... on my blogroll. Then I recall it is a direct consequence of adopting Jon Swift's "liberal blogroll policy" during the 2009 B.A.D. celebration. For those unfamiliar with this notorious bit of blogging lore, I'll let Skippy explain:
"once again, it's time for our yearly celebration of blogroll amnesty day!

readers of this space know that b.a.d. is the holiday wherein we ask everyone in blogtopia (and yes, we coined that phrase) to link to 5 smaller blogs w/less traffic than theirs (no bad jokes about no blogs having less traffic than yours, please).

this way we all can introduce our readers to new voices in blogtopia (and yes, we coined that phrase)' as well as giving greater exposure to blogs which may otherwise go unnoticed.

of course, the impetus for this whole ordeal originated w/our dearly departed friend, the legendary jon swift, aka al weisel, who was quite upset by the original blogroll bloodbath and self-amnesty declaration by those big box blogs who shall not be named.

al, in his guise as conservative blogger jon swift, wondered why so-called liberal blogs would have the least liberal blogrolling policies. we here at skippy international joined al/jon in his mock self-righteousness, and thus, four years ago b.a.d. was born!"
Blue Gal adds some ground rules:
There's plenty of time to celebrate Blogroll Amnesty Day this year. As a tribute to the late Jon Swift, we are running it for a week. Old timers know that this holiday has a rather sullen history, but now it is a happy occasion: On February 3, bloggers are invited to post links to blogs you like, that have smaller traffic than your own. It's a great celebration and a time to discover new blogs and link them and stuff. As I have said in previous years, "not to get all mushy here, but do you know how fucking great it is to be here in the blogosphere? Take a moment. Take it in." Spread some linky love.

Small and newbie bloggers please be aware of the ironclad rule that you are not allowed to make "hey no blog is as small as mine" jokes regarding Blogroll Amnesty Day. The rule is, straight from the queen of the indy blogs herself (ahem), that you are not allowed to complain or mention your blog's low traffic until you have been posting daily for a year.
We cannot let this B.A.D. boy post without quoting Jon's original 2007 complaint:
"This past weekend Atrios, the proprietor of Eschaton, declared a Blogroll Amnesty Day, saying, "one of the big complaints by new bloggers is that it's impossible to get onto blogrolls because established bloggers tend not to add them." I thought that adding new lesser-known blogs to his blogroll would be a wonderful idea. Although for some inexplicable reason that I am at pains to discover, Atrios has never seen fit to link to me, I, nevertheless added Eschaton to my own blogroll and introduced myself to Atrios with a sincerely sycophantic email, since he is after all a blogging pioneer who deserves our respect.

But the more I learned about this Amnesty Day, the more I realized that it was a very strange amnesty indeed. The amnesty he granted turned out to be amnesty for himself. He wanted to assuage himself of the guilt he might feel at kicking blogs off his blogroll instead of granting amnesty to others to swarm across the border into his domain. "Everyone feels a wee bit guilty about removing blogs from their blogroll, so they're hesitant to add new ones to an ever-expanding list," he explained. So Atrios deleted his entire blogroll..."
I do wonder whether B.A.D. will ultimately be consigned to the dustbin of history, as it appears to this blogger that Twitter and Facebook are becoming more significant sources of traffic than the classic blogroll. No matter - Skippy is on the case with twitter hashtags for this year's celebration at #bad2011 and #jonswift2011!

If anyone is so inclined, feel free to follow me on twitter in lieu of adding DWSUWF to a blogroll. I have expanded Jon's liberal blogrolling policy to Twitter, and will follow anyone who will follow me. I now have 13 followers on Twitter although I have yet to send a single tweet and may never send one. I am just curious to see how many twitter followers I can get without tweeting. I'm not saying I'll never send one, just saying... well I don't know what I'm saying. I don't even know why I signed up for the damn thing. I just wish those kids would get off my lawn.

Anyway - some links to blogs that may or may not be smaller than me - just because they are reading and blogging about the same Cato Study that I'll be posting about over the weekend:



Divided and Balanced.™
Now that is fair.


2 comments:

Fran / Blue Gal said...

A very nice tribute. Thanks!

mw said...

Thanks to to both of you for organizing and coordinating this again this year. Happy to participate. Even if I disagree with 90% of what you both write. After all - that other 10% of the time you are spot on.