10 November 2006

Rethinking Blogrolls

When I first started this blog, I decided to link to the Kenilworthian Blogroll. This was for reasons I noted in my first post on the subject, A Note About Blogrolls.

As things evolved, it was not a clever strategy. That particular blogroll does not appear to have been updated since I first linked to it. For example, it still lists blogs that were once on Modblog.com, a service that disappeared around the beginning of 2006. As most people who maintain lists of web links eventually discover, they are easy to initiate -- you merge the links from several existing sources and eliminate the duplicates -- but difficult to maintain. You have to check the existing links periodically to see if they are still alive, while adding new links when you become aware of new resources.

When I started writing monthly about the chess blogosphere in Chess Blog Tripping, I developed the habit of refreshing my list of blogs as the first step to preparing a new article. Why not publish that monthly list? I decided to do that and to keep the lists on my personal site...

Index of /cfaa/blogroll
http://www.mark-weeks.com/cfaa/blogroll/

...using the filename BYYYY-MM.HTM, which should be self-explanatory. It's not an elegant solution, but it has the advantage of keeping an ongoing history of blog activity.

Along with the blog name and domain, the list indicates if it was flagged as a top blog ('*') on About Chess, gives the date of the last post on the day I ran through all blogs, and shows a count of the number of posts made by that blog during the month covered by the list. I drop blogs from the list after they have been inactive for six months.

9 comments:

David Glickman said...

Mark - Why not send them my way? No one maintains as comprehensive or as up-to-date listings of chess blogs as BCC Weblog.

Mark Weeks said...

No, problem; just take it. I compared your list to mine a few months ago and resolved the differences. I'll probably do the same again at some time in the future. I don't see any need to be more formal than that. - Mark

David Glickman said...

Sorry, I guess I didn't make my point clearly. By "them", I meant your readers who are looking for a comprehensive list of chess blogs.

Blue Devil Knight said...

Excellent. Posting the number of entries is a great idea. How hard would it be to include a direct link to the most current list of blogs?

Mark Weeks said...

The most recent file under...

Other Chess Blogs
http://www.mark-weeks.com/cfaa/blogroll/

...is the most current list. I update it once a month. - Mark

Blue Devil Knight said...

Mark: yes, I got that (it brings you to a scary-looking index page that you can click on the latest update). I was wondering how hard it would be to have a dynamic link to the most recent update (I'd like to link to it on my sidebar but not update the link every month!).

Mark Weeks said...

OK, I understand now. I'll keep a copy of the current list in...

http://www.mark-weeks.com/cfaa/blogroll/$current.htm

...If you link to that, you'll always have the most recent list. I give no guarantee on how long I will maintain the list. Chess blogs are a growth industry and it might become too much of a burden. - Mark

Blue Devil Knight said...

Cool! Thanks a lot. I'll add it next time I update my sidebar.

transformation said...

wonderful Mark. i have followed your work for years, and glad to see you have me shown active--i am--at your blogroll.

similar to blueDevil, i will add you next time i update my sidebar.

bravo! wondfull work. i love your work on world chess championships.

do you know Yasser at all? he is a good friend of mine. warm regards from Seattle, USA David K