Mutuality
David Winer's Scripting News has a post called "Chris Nolan says I'm stingy." Evidently Chris was complaining that David did not link to him often enough. I don't know their history so I can't explain how one person has the gall to make such a complaint! But I was taken by this part of David's response:
You didn't even point to me when you called me a name. At least then I would have seen you in my referrer log. And I'm like everyone else, I like flow and I like new readers. I have pointed to you Chris, many times. How many times have you pointed to me? You may be surprised that there are people whose sites I helped build by sending readers to them, who have never pointed back to me.
One of the first things we newbies discover is the hierarchical nature of the blogging "ecosystem" (as TTLB puts it) - descriptions like insignificant microbe make those on the lowly end feel it might be presumptuous to link to the greater beings.
As a properly humble person, having learned what a big macher David Winer is when I went to the NC BlogCon and saw the genuflections, I would have kept my head down and scurried away... it would not have seemed likely he'd appreciate recognition from the likes of me.
Well it appears that at least some of the greater ones like to be appreciated and like to see new URLs in their referrer logs. So let's remember to be mutual. Has somebody been generous with you? Have you thanked them? Link to those above you as well as those below! Otherwise they may start to feel like the rich guys who are always expected to pick up the tab at lunch.
I liked two other points David made in this post:
- If you call people names and expect them to link to you, well, don't. Didn't your mother teach you that when you were a kid? Don't stare and don't call the other kids names.
- If you've written something you want to be read by Scripting News readers, send me an email with a link. That's what I do when I want to be read by the readers of someone else's blog. I'm polite about it, I don't come out and ask for the link, I say something like "Thought you'd find this interesting" or "FYI" and leave it at that. If I don't get the pointer, no big deal. And I try not to do it too often, so it's seen as a welcome source of a link to the person I send it to, rather than some kind of obligation.
By the way, David's blog is generous, amiable, generous, informative, well written, and really easy on the eyes.
Technorati Tags: Blog, Mutuality
by melinama @ 7:45 AM
10 comments
A few of my daughter
Melina's great posts:
10 Comments:
This is something that worries me, sometimes, and recently I discovered that you're supposed to ping people when you link to them. The explanation made perfect sense at first - but I can't remember where I saw it. It was about trackback. "When you link someone, simply ping them so they know you've done it,"
Oh sure, simple. Except... HOW DO YOU PING SOMEONE?
(If you know, can you pleeeease explain? I'm sure it IS simple, but it isn't when you don't know.)
One of the first things we newbies discover is the hierarchical nature of the blogging "ecosystem" (as TTLB puts it) - descriptions like insignificant microbe make those on the lowly end feel it might be presumptuous to link to the greater beings.
I've tried to never have placed too much importance on those categories. Instead, I've based my judgements on what I've seen when I've landed on a person's blog. (You'll notice I purposely land here now).
I'm the same way in life..I carry the same philosophy over to the internet with me.
I started from nothing and whatever has happened to me has come from the value of my writing alone. I've never asked anyone to promote me.
Frankly, all this "point to you/point to me stuff gets tiring when 'the pointing's' not done from spontaneity and free will.
I don't know Dave W. He probably doesn't know me, either. It would be nice to meet him someday. Nonny thinks a lot of him.
BadAunt and Shelley, one certainly can ping from Blogger using the method I described - I have done it many times. Good luck, BadAunt.
Shelley,
1. Your snide tone is uncalled for. The fact that you, without knowing me at all, assume I have devious motives for what I've written says way more about you than it does about me.
2. Don't try to pull me into some petty war I have no part in.
3. It's petty to demand recognition from people. If you feel stolen from and can document it, then go ahead and sue. But right or wrong, from the outside it looks childish.
I was agreeing with the substance of what Dave said, not whether or not he lives by it himself; I have no way to know.
Jude, thanks for coming, and thanks for the supportive notes you've left me.
It's funny how in every endeavor one encounters people looking for ugly angles and others who are caring for their own gardens (to mix metaphors). Each generation spawns both kinds and they land in every precinct.
"went to the NC BlogCon and saw the genuflections"
LOL! I can see it now. Thanks for the chuckle.
If Dave Winer is responding to this
Ten Reasons for Too Few Women Bloggers
http://www.alternet.org/story/21516
Then, yeah, Chris Nolan is female and sticking up for us blogging womenfolk. If that's what Winer was on about, well, maybe he should link to more women. Atrios linked to "Shakespear's Sister" recently, I nearly fainted. This go round on where are the women bloggers has provoked a lot of us. I've been linking to a woman blogger every day for this month, every little bit helps. I linked to this blog today. I've been blogging for over two years and it does annoy me when some guy wants to know where the women bloggers are. And it annoys me even more when they get called on not linking to women bloggers and won't take it like a man, let alone a gentleman.
One of the beauties of blogging with comments is how enlightening they can be.
Yours in blogging.
Hi Ginger,
I obviously didn't know what I was getting into, witness the fact I didn't even know the Chris referenced in David's blog is a woman. In the course of just two months of blogging I've read many wonderful women's blogs and found men commenting on all of them. I now see there is a Mariana Trench full of grievances out there. I still think whining and kvetching for attention is undignified. And what is the prize, anyway, that's being withheld?
Melinama,
Prize? I can't speak for anyone else, but I just want the Big Guy Bloggers to either notice us, as we are many, or stop asking where we are.
On the other hand, maybe there is a prize; have you ever looked at the top ad rates at http://blogads.com? I'll save you a trip: KOS gets $3,000/week; Instapundit gets $1,000/week; and the list goes on. The first woman on it is Wonkette at $350/week, and Wonkette gets paid to blog; she's part of the Defamer/Gawker organization. The biggest guy bloggers are paid for it (I've never seen a receipt, but I understand Atrios has a deal with Media Matters and KOS took money from the Dean campaign [I hear KOS is a political consultant, well, okay, but would he have gotten this money if he didn't have a high profile blog?]), whereas the invisible girl bloggers, like me, work a day job and blog when we can. So when the Kev at PolAnimal wants to know where I am, this annoys me very much. Full disclosure: I read Kev when he was on Blogger in 2002 and he was obtuse then, too, such as not noticing, let alone acknowledging when anyone helped him by promoting his blog. We have a saying in Hollywood: be nice to the people on your way up because you'll meet them again on your way down. Kev does not know this saying.
This beef is mainly among the lefty political bloggers. I'd say part of it is prestige and money, but we women political bloggers must also ask what blogging voices are going to be heard? Who calls the tune? Whose interests are going to be promoted? If all the top bloggers are men in "the old boy network," who don't even acknowledge women bloggers, let alone the issues we raise (kids, sex, equal pay, access, social and economic justice, etc.) then blogworld is just skewed and screwed as what women are, have been and must continue to address in daily life. I read my fair share of them of political blogs by both men and women, but I also read non-political blogs as a balm. I like your blog for that reason. You strike me as more of a lover than a fighter, and that's fine. Shelley and I are fighting this battle in our various ways for reasons that our various experiences of life demand, and your experience of life does not demand. It's a big internet, room for all of us.
By the way, we have something aside from blogging in common; we're both musicians, http://gingermayerson.com And women in the LA music scene have another set of issues to deal with. Please notice how many of us get a full card screen credit as film composers on major motion pictures. It's "the old boy network" again, in music, which is why I know it when I see it in blogging.
All the best.
PS. Oh, and all this undignified "whining and kvetching for attention" is paying off: "Atrios" linked to "Shakespear's Sister" and "Juan Cole" linked to "Veiled4Allah" this very week. These two blogs by women are chock full of information the big guys tend to miss. Linkage is important; Alterman at "Altercation" linked to me once, and I had 26,000+ hits in one day. This led to selling one of my $15/month blogads. Hey, $15 (less commissions) is whatever's left of it.
Hey Ginger, thanks for taking the time to write such a comprehensive precis of the situation from your point of view. You're right, I'm not a fighter. At this point in my life, peace is my #1 priority. But I love scrappy women and wish you all the best!
Most Blogger people never bother to install trackbacks, but everyone checks themsleves on Technorati and the sources of hits on Sitemeter. Whenever I link to someone, it gets discovered by the linkee withing days, often hours, sometimes minutes!!! So, I still don't bother to trackback...
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