#MMONBI post 3 - Supporting other bloggers - is there a blogroll etiquette?

Showing support for other bloggers is something that any blogger who wants to be read should do - after all, no blogger is an island!  Hmm, perhaps not a good analogy... No blogger is an island with no airport!  You need flight paths between you and the other islands so that you will get the visitors that you want - can't just rely on tourist brochures (google) after all!

LOL, OK, maybe I do bad analogies!

Showing support for other bloggers can come in a number of forms:

1. Retweeting their posts on Twitter.  Spread the reading love around!
2. Linking them in your posts.  So your traffic will become their traffic.
3. Adding them to your blogroll so your readers can become familiar with them.

Blogrolls can be a source of angst as well!  And is there an etiquette to follow?  Do you have to ask someone before you add them?  Or do you have to add someone who's added you?

Firstly, remember, it's your blog, and a blogroll merely lets your readers know what you read, and is also a good way to keep track of what people are writing about.  What you decide to do with your blogroll beyond that is entirely personal.  I can't speak for every blogger, but I will tell you how I decide who is on my blogroll.

I am a big fan of organised blogrolls.  You have 30 blogs on your blogroll?  How is your reader going to know which ones they want to read?  So maybe you can help them out by sorting them out somehow.

Maybe you can sort them by class.  Or maybe you can sort them by subject.  Whatever you decide to do, it will help your reader and the people on your blogroll connect to what they want to read.

For small time bloggers like myself, if I see myself on someone's blogroll, I get really excited.  I find it such an honour that someone reads me, and even puts me on their page that I can't help but add them to my own page. But imagine those big time bloggers who must be on 100s of people's blogrolls.  It's crazy to think they can add  you if their blogrolls are already chockablock!  So don't be offended if they don't add you, or don't even know you exist.  Remember, if they think you're good, they will add you.  If they don't... well don't be disheartened.  One day you might be famous like that, and can't add people to your blogroll because it's already full.  But this is a reminder to big famous bloggers, that small time bloggers do feel left out if not linked or blogrolled, so imagine how you would feel if that was you, with no link love from your own blogroll.

But what if you don't want to add someone to your blogroll because... well, you don't like them?  You don't like their blog?  Just don't add them, easy!  Do you worry about offending them?  Like, is it your best friend from high school or something?  That's the funny thing isn't it - sometimes a blogroll can be like Facebook, and people get upset when you get that friend request and you don't add them to your friends.  How do you deal with that?  In those situations, handle your blogroll like you handle your Facebook friends :)  If you don't want to offend anyone, add everyone!  Or add no-one, so nobody can get offended.  If you don't care about those sorts of things and only want to add what you want to, then do that!  Just make sure you have a thick skin if you have to deal with people who get offended.

Somebody actually coined something called Blogroll Amnesty Day.  What is that, I hear you wonder? Well, Atrios at Eschaton blog said:

...one of the big complaints by new bloggers is that it's impossible to get onto blogrolls because established bloggers tend not to add them. They're right. A big reason for that is that everyone feels a wee bit guilty about removing blogs from their blogroll, so they're hesitant to add new ones to an ever-expanding list...

Which is an interesting statement.  What Atrios did was delete his entire blogroll and repopulate it, but there was criticism that he repopulated it with what was already there instead of putting new people on there, small blogs.  A lot of bloggers followed suit and so the end result of Atrios' Amnesty Day was to make some blogrolls smaller and even more exclusive than they already were.  So it wasn't really originally a good exercise, but since then, a lot of people have taken up the movement to make it easier for the small person to be heard.  The offical Blogroll Amnesty Day (B.A.D.) is February 4.

So as part of my final post in the #MMONBI series, this is what I would like people to do. Look in your blogroll for 2 people, who have less traffic than you (Ok, this can be hard to gauge, because I don't REALLY know how much traffic someone gets), and give them some link love in your next post.  Yes, I know it is not B.A.D. but I missed it so I'm making  up for it and it IS NBI after all!

So here are my two bloggers:

• BikesBabesBytes - Sounds kinda sexy but it's actually got a lot of WoW in it, but this is the only guildie of mine who has a blog!  Mabaho is a RL mate as well as a guildie, and like me, has 2 young kids, works, and somehow fits WoW in.  His blog has a lot about solo playing and playing WoW with limited time.
• Pint-Sized Paladin - I first noticed Cate because she was visiting my blog.  Cate really loves all those other things in WoW, much like me!  She loves transmog, pets, mounts and achievements.  I love reading about people who love those little things in WoW, just like me!