Monday, January 23, 2006

Link me up, Scottie

When I started blogging, one of my concerns was about linking. What if other people link me and I don't link them for one reason or another? Would they think I'm snooty or "one kind" for not reciprocating? Is it better to approach the blogroll with an attitude of the more the merrier?

What are we telling people by the blogroll on our sites? Are we informing the world who our online friends are? Who we like to be associated with? Do we remove a blog from the list when the blogger offends us? Or we don't want to be seen associating with that blogger?

These are the questions that played on my mind. Now after five months of blogging, I've come to this conclusion.

The blogroll is like an open reading list and address book. They are the blogs we read, so we keep their addresses handy. More than that, we're telling the world, "Hi people, if you care to, please step into these blogs, they're my online cronies." These are the blogs that we do not mind introducing to the world. The fact that some blogs don't make it into the blogroll also speaks volumes.

So who do we link? This may be pretty obvious but it's all up to the blogger, isn't it? Whether one has the policy of "you don't link me, I don't link you" or "everybody also link" or whatever shades in between. It is the blogger's prerogative no matter how others may read into his linking policy.

Some bloggers are quite judicious in their blogrolling in that they only link blogs which are similar to theirs and friends' blogs. Some adopt a freer policy, resulting in a mile-long blogroll. Some are more structured, divided into different categories for ease of reference.

I don't have a long list of blogroll because I find it so tedious to open up the blog template and insert the html code to link other blogs. Thanks to Blogrolling, linkage is now just a click away. I discovered this program while poking around eyeris's blog. It was also from his blog that I learnt how to index my entries into categories. This time round, the technophobe in me made me bug him for help before I could finally get the blogrolling to work. Thanks, eyeris.

My blogroll will be slowly expanding.

5 comments:

Kak Teh said...

Lydia, when i started, I linked those who came to me..and then when the link got longer, I decided to do the Sentraal Station page. Many bloggers also asked to be added and I do so when they asked. I am glad that in many blogs Sentraal Station is now a feature. And I am glad that some people get connected via Sentraal.

eyeris said...

your blogroll's font sizes seem to be a bit weird though... sekali besar, sekali kecik... heehee.

MY blogroll is made up of those blogs I usually visit, and those who I know have been visiting my blog from the beginning as well...

But basically, I update the blogrool now and then, discarding those old ones that have not been updating... :D

Lydia Teh said...

KT, Sentraal Station is a brilliant idea! Keep it up.

eyeris, very susah to control the font. Sometimes everything looks ok on Mozilla (the browser I'm using) but on IE, the font goes all haywire. I'm quite html challenged, next time I've got some time, I'll fiddle round with it some more. Sensible 'policy.'

ROYAL JESTER said...

I worry abt the same thing too. But a blog is a blog, its your blog, you can do what you want with it. This means linking or not. I linked urs. Really like your blog.

Lydia Teh said...

pu1pu3, thanks! At least I know I'm not the only one with such concerns.