Thursday, December 14, 2006
Linkin' Love
The Internet is not fundamentally known for fostering altruism. True, there are exceptions, but for every One Campaign or The Hunger Site, there are dozens of narcissistic and ultimately hollow webpages intended for either mindless entertainment or to fill up space "because it's there." This blog is a prime example of narcissism in its way, and I fully acknowledge that. Its primary (almost wrote "sole", but that is not precisely true) purpose is to provide me with a little patch of cyberspace upon which to post my rambling thoughts. Originally, it had more social relevance, and I do still try to post a little bit about Underwood High and the state of education. But as of right now, it serves as more of a public diary about the daily events in my life. And I hold no pretensions of it ever being anything much more.
And yet, despite the relative mediocrity of its subject matter, some people still choose to visit this site. The majority of these are friends and family, people that who have met me in person. But I've also gotten received some messages via the InvisiblE-mail from teachers across the country. Perhaps the epitome of this is the reciprocal blog link. The Invisible Blogroll, like all of its ilk, reflects a list of blogs that I read regularly. I've resisted the urge to reorganize it, either alphabetically or using some sort of arbitrary category list, principally to preserve the order in which I discovered the blogs in question. In that sense it's a sort of chronology reflecting who I knew and when I met them, or more accurately in the case of Interent-only acquaintances, discovered their online presence. A few blogs on the list actually linked to me before I discovered them, but upon discovery it seemed only fair to post a link in turn. After all, altruism may be a challenge on the Internet, but acts of reciprocal behavior are a dime a dozen. (By the way, if you're one of those unsung bloggers whose links to this site have gone by unnoticed and unreciprocated, PLEASE let me know. We'll fix that up right quick!)
However, as I was going through the Blogroll the other day, I discovered that there were several blogs that, despite previously linking to this one, had removed their link. I discount those using blogging services whose accounts do not allow for links outside that service (e.g. LiveJournal), but as for the rest, what's the rationale? The transaction was complete. You link to my blog, I link to yours. Nice and simple. Now what? The implications are straightforward enough, and in fairness if I only just now noticed the disappearing links, then I probably haven't been reading the blogs in question enough to really be offended at the gesture. Should I remove the link from my blog to demonstrate this? Granted, it seems rather petty, but such is life on the web. On the other hand, that would undermine the historical nature of the blogroll as a (partial) record of my Internet social network.
In any event, in the short term I think it best to let things be so far as previous links are concerned. However, if you are reading this post, check to see if your blog is on the BlogRoll. If it's not and you think it should be, let me know. If it is, and you aren't linking to it on your blog...why not? What's the downside? Foster good Internet karma and a post a link back here.
And just to prove I'm not above this proviso, I went and did a quick search on Technorati and discovered a few new sites to add to the blogroll. So, although this is probably long overdue, welcome to Educational Justice and Fifty Games You Can Play With a Mallet and a Barbie Doll . (This may be the first, last, and only time those two expressions are included in the same sentence.) Also, even if she doesn't choose to link back to this site, I would be terribly remiss if I did not link to my the blog of my girlfriend, who is, in case you were not aware, all three of the following: Teacher, Liberal, Artist .
One final random note, The French Connection appears to be officially dead, replaced by someone actually trying to post information about France. What the heck is up with that?
The Internet is not fundamentally known for fostering altruism. True, there are exceptions, but for every One Campaign or The Hunger Site, there are dozens of narcissistic and ultimately hollow webpages intended for either mindless entertainment or to fill up space "because it's there." This blog is a prime example of narcissism in its way, and I fully acknowledge that. Its primary (almost wrote "sole", but that is not precisely true) purpose is to provide me with a little patch of cyberspace upon which to post my rambling thoughts. Originally, it had more social relevance, and I do still try to post a little bit about Underwood High and the state of education. But as of right now, it serves as more of a public diary about the daily events in my life. And I hold no pretensions of it ever being anything much more.
And yet, despite the relative mediocrity of its subject matter, some people still choose to visit this site. The majority of these are friends and family, people that who have met me in person. But I've also gotten received some messages via the InvisiblE-mail from teachers across the country. Perhaps the epitome of this is the reciprocal blog link. The Invisible Blogroll, like all of its ilk, reflects a list of blogs that I read regularly. I've resisted the urge to reorganize it, either alphabetically or using some sort of arbitrary category list, principally to preserve the order in which I discovered the blogs in question. In that sense it's a sort of chronology reflecting who I knew and when I met them, or more accurately in the case of Interent-only acquaintances, discovered their online presence. A few blogs on the list actually linked to me before I discovered them, but upon discovery it seemed only fair to post a link in turn. After all, altruism may be a challenge on the Internet, but acts of reciprocal behavior are a dime a dozen. (By the way, if you're one of those unsung bloggers whose links to this site have gone by unnoticed and unreciprocated, PLEASE let me know. We'll fix that up right quick!)
However, as I was going through the Blogroll the other day, I discovered that there were several blogs that, despite previously linking to this one, had removed their link. I discount those using blogging services whose accounts do not allow for links outside that service (e.g. LiveJournal), but as for the rest, what's the rationale? The transaction was complete. You link to my blog, I link to yours. Nice and simple. Now what? The implications are straightforward enough, and in fairness if I only just now noticed the disappearing links, then I probably haven't been reading the blogs in question enough to really be offended at the gesture. Should I remove the link from my blog to demonstrate this? Granted, it seems rather petty, but such is life on the web. On the other hand, that would undermine the historical nature of the blogroll as a (partial) record of my Internet social network.
In any event, in the short term I think it best to let things be so far as previous links are concerned. However, if you are reading this post, check to see if your blog is on the BlogRoll. If it's not and you think it should be, let me know. If it is, and you aren't linking to it on your blog...why not? What's the downside? Foster good Internet karma and a post a link back here.
And just to prove I'm not above this proviso, I went and did a quick search on Technorati and discovered a few new sites to add to the blogroll. So, although this is probably long overdue, welcome to Educational Justice and Fifty Games You Can Play With a Mallet and a Barbie Doll . (This may be the first, last, and only time those two expressions are included in the same sentence.) Also, even if she doesn't choose to link back to this site, I would be terribly remiss if I did not link to my the blog of my girlfriend, who is, in case you were not aware, all three of the following: Teacher, Liberal, Artist .
One final random note, The French Connection appears to be officially dead, replaced by someone actually trying to post information about France. What the heck is up with that?
