The irony is that Atrios accused me of not having a blogroll on my front page, when in fact I do have one on the front page. He just missed it, I guess.

Anyway, my experience is that there's almost no way to talk about this subject that doesn't end up pissing someone off.

erm, i read your post as well and i too missed it...which is the heart of the problem. bloggers, hard core blog readers, they're not so concerned with a blogroll that is instant, clickthru, single column, etc. so we're probably the wrong folks to ask to design it.
personally, i like big blogrolls on separate pages. like what we have here. i don't mind clicking thru once. OTHO, i like long single column blogrolls, to look at, mind you, rarely to click thru. my bookmarks are highly "organized" in a way that reflects my reading habits. so part of me doesn't grok the emotions some people are investing in the issue.

which, as i said, i don't think is one of snark or "i'm better b/c i use this format." it's about eyeballs, and google weighting. which means more inclusive rolls are a plus, however designed or highlighted.

I know how to make widgets, but having user customizable, as opposed to site adminstrator customizable, widgets is another thing. The widget would also need a place to live.

And would everyone agree to use the widget? What's in it for the sites that want to control their own blogrolls?

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

If you agree with the premise that blogrolls are important for improving Google rankings and if Terrance has a point, then why do you think his post is "open to being mocked"? Everyone thought Atrios' Blogroll Amnesty Day was a swell idea until skippy and I criticized it (see link on my signature). Apparently, other bloggers are loathe to criticize Atrios for some reason even when he says that he would like to shoot a fellow liberal blogger in the face for having the temerity to disagree with him. However, I think your idea of every liberal blog marching in lockstep by having a single blogroll that would include only officially approved liberal blogs and exclude others is a great idea.

dirk: your comment had a fatal error (tag not closed) so i had to delete it.

jon:
If you agree with the premise that blogrolls are important for improving Google rankings and if Terrance has a point, I do, glad you caught that.

then why do you think his post is “open to being mocked”?

Is there anything that shouldn't be mocked? inform me.

Everyone thought Atrios’ Blogroll Amnesty Day was a swell idea until skippy and I criticized it (see link on my signature).

um, if you say so. some people- ha ha- have been speaking, writing, and thinking about this issue since...the 90s, before that even, on dead trees. but i'm glad skippy and atrios made it "real" for you.

Apparently, other bloggers are loathe to criticize Atrios for some reason even when he says that he would like to shoot a fellow liberal blogger in the face for having the temerity to disagree with him. However, I think your idea of every liberal blog marching in lockstep by having a single blogroll that would include only officially approved liberal blogs and exclude others is a great idea.

i never said " a single liberal blogroll." jeebus. i said, a technology which everyone can adopt, a way of making "blogroll" understood as the same format regardless of content. or maybe i didn't say exactly that, but that's what i meant. imagine everyone having a link labeled "blogroll" and each of them different but a click-thru away and in a similar format. is that so much to ask? that's what i'd pick.

Ya know. I'm almost sorry I brought it up. Almost.

As for the blogroll thing, I used to have every single link on my blogroll page on my homepage. My readers asked me to change it so that the blog would load faster. My host was after me to cut down on the server requests.

And the big issue taken with my entire post is that my blogroll was not prominent enough and is in the wrong format?

Anyway, if nothing else, at least some people understood what I was trying to say. So, I'm not completely crazy.

Honestly, I've long since stopped caring whose blogroll I'm on or not, or what Atrios, et all, do or don't do.

dirk: your comment had a fatal error (tag not closed) so i had to delete it.

that's ok. it was probably just whining anyway.

"Is there anything that shouldn’t be mocked?"

You realized there is a front page blogroll, therefore there is no irony.

Republic of T has no front page blogroll I can see. Let me put it really plainly - if you don't have a front page blogroll, your blogroll can be 2000 blogs large and it don't matter - no one's getting squat from it.

And frankly, if I somehow missed his blogroll, it's irrelevant - if someone who reads blogs for a living can't find your blogroll, it's nowhere useful.