Let's Talk About Liblogs

I'm posting this with two aims:

1. To discuss the coming changes at the Liblogs aggregator service.

2. To provide a heads up to readers of mine who find me through that service that you might not be able to in the future.

On Thursday, Liblogs members received an e-mail from the owner of the list, Jason Cherniak, informing us that the site will soon be changing addresses and stating that he wanted to ensure that we displayed the entire list of sites using the service on our blogs.

I've been having an e-mail discussion with Jason because, as you can see, I don't list all of the Liblog bloggers on my site and, frankly, I don't plan to do so either mainly for this reason:

I only list blogs on my site that I personally approve of. Those on my blogroll have been vetted by me to ensure that they are consistently quality blogs that my readers might be interested in. In order to list all of the blogs available through Liblogs, I would have to take the time to check out each one to ensure the same standards. This is not a slight to any Liblogs members. I'm just not prepared to recommend blogs to my readers that I may not approve of.

As an example of how strongly I feel about this point, I recently dropped my display of headlines from this service after informing the list owner of a very sexist post by one of the other members of that list. I did not receive a response from the list owner but, as you can see, I am still on their list. That's fine with me, but I won't provide advertising for a service that backs a sexist by displaying their feed on my site.

As I said, Jason and have been discussing this matter and I want to make it clear that he has not yet made a decision about whether I can be exempted from placing the entire list on my blog while still maintaining my membership.

I understand, as Cherniak pointed out, that listing all blogs from an aggregator provides those blogs with greater exposure to readers and search engines. However, I don't list all blogs from any aggregator I belong to and don't want to start doing that now.

A slightly more nitpicky argument is that I also believe I should be able to maintain design control over what appears on my blog. I've visited numerous blogs that have so many blogs on their blogroll that they just become a blur. I don't know how that's helpful to the blogs that are listed. I much prefer to visit blogs linked from other sites that I know the blogger specifically endorses and finds very worthwhile.

I realize that I risk losing a lot of site traffic if I'm dropped from Liblogs - the vast majority of people who visit my site via Liblogs do so from the main site, not affiliates' links. So, this post serves as a warning that my posts may longer be available through that service depending on what Cherniak decides. I'd suggest, therefore, that anyone interested in reading my blog simply bookmark my site now just in case I disappear from that list.

I want to add that Cherniak has every right to place expectations on the bloggers who use his service since he owns Liblogs. That's not my beef. I hope he will not impose this rule on all of us, but if he does so I also have the right to stick with my principles so I'll respect his decision and bow out.

What do you think about all of this? Please let me know. Thanks.