He Just Doesn't Get It

Stacy McCain has responded to my post. I see Smitty is being a bit of a dope, too. Evidently, they can't stop long enough to figure this out.

And, yes, for readers, I know this is all inside blogging, but it isn't as though I devote much time to it, as these conjugal link trollers do. Call it half a day off for housekeeping and administration, of sorts. So, forgive me and let me lay out some things in a slightly different way and re-visit this one last time before giving up and just ignoring them.

Stacy is actually one of the most resourceful, intelligent and well-schooled bloggers on the Right. It isn't as if I want to see him fail at all. He carries my praise of him in his sidebar. But he is squandering his value away as he doesn't understand how the system actually works.

I'd like nothing better than to link to Stacy more often. But I see too much mindless crap to bother reading him much anymore. But this is not about my particular sensibilities, videos of naked women, or constant cross-blogger snark. It is about what really works out here for a blogger and what does not. Many newer bloggers are hurting themselves and other newer bloggers with what they are doing due to Stacy's misguided advice. And they don't understand that because they don't fully understand how the system really works.

A link from blogger A does not carry the same weight from blogger B. The value of a link is measured by the blog that links in's own blog authority, or weight. So, a bunch of relatively new, still lower-weighted bloggers linking to one another does not impact the scale for established bloggers who built their rankings over time. And none of them really throw off enough unique traffic on an average day to be of note.

But all that nonsense blogging turns off many more established blogs, which means, they become increasingly less likely to throw said bloggers more higher value links that would actually take their rankings up to wherever they might want to be. Stacy is an exception, because as he engages in all this silliness, he is also mostly at it full time and gathering higher weighted links from some established blogs for the fine work and kiss ass stuff we all know he can do. And there's nothing wrong with all that, including the sucking up, by the way - provided it suits one. Still, a little subtlety never hurt anyone in that regard.

But the link fest crap is not what is adding to his count in any real measure. He is earning it just as any blogger should - with his content on some fewer number of solid posts. And few if any of the other newer blogs playing the game are getting that bump. Stacy will continue to separate himself from that pack until he finally abandons them for his own benefit. That's not meant to be harsh, it's just common sense.

I had to do it to some minor degree to a few folks years ago, simply because my objectives were different than theirs. It wasn't a value judgment of them on my part.

Now, imagine were he producing even more of his solid work with all this time he is frittering away? He would generate even more links from higher ranked blogs taking his ranking up far faster and higher than all this silly link scam nonsense can ever do.

And for the other smaller, newer blogs who don't have Stacy's time or talent on their hands - all they succeed in doing is turning off more established blogs from ever reading and linking to them at all.

This all makes sense if one genuinely understands the algorithms involved beyond the superficial understanding these folks have of how it works. But obviously a great number of newer or smaller blogs don't understand that. So, they are hurting themselves, more than they are helping themselves over the longer haul.

Now, given that I was posting more outlandish, over the top crap than any of these folks will ever do years ago when it didn't matter all that much, as so many of us were new and no one important in a media sense was even looking in, and they are misinterpreting what I am saying as being "uppity," and somehow better than all that - they seem to be headed for this myopic and uninformed position that it's Dan who has a big stick up his butt. Too bad, though in the final analysis I don't care all that much, as I've never cared about what most anyone thinks of me out here except for a few that are highly respected and uniquely valued by me to start.

I'm not a prude. Outrageous, or sexual crap doesn't bother me in the least. Some bloggers who do it all the time are actually very good at and known for that. And I respect and value that far more than this silly hybrid attempt by some to be both. You can't. You are either serious and credible with an infrequent break now and again for shits and giggles, or you are not. That isn't my opinion. That's just how the world now looking in comes to judge you - and rather quickly, at that.

The market doesn't allow you to be Gawker and Malkin all in one blog. It just doesn't work. And if you want to be a Gawker, good on you. You'll get far more traffic and make far more money than political content will ever provide. I - don't - care what choice you make. Both have their place. Still, you only get one brand out here. Screwing it up by trying to be both just leaves you on the short end of the stick on both accounts.

Now, you all go on and do whatever you want. I'm moving on. You want to judge me because you think I'm wrong? Go for it. I won't lose a bit of sleep, or do anything but ignore you from here on out. But at least try and understand I've been trying to teach you something you were never around here to learn when we were all discussing it openly across our blogs every day, as the Sphere was just bloggers then and no one else really gave a damn.

And, to be blunt, none of the players here mean that much to me purely in a blog sense because they don't mean that much when it comes to me getting to where I want to go. And the misguided approach they have seized upon will only succeed in getting them branded as rank amateurs in the blogging world until they walk away from what won't work and have to re-invent themselves from scratch once more. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt if you get my drift. And I don't intend to have to do it, again.

Ciao!

Comments

[David R. Graham]

Dan,

Too much "I don't care." The protest itself is caring, just as opposition is a form of affirmation. You do care, you care very much, rightly IMO, not because of this or any issue but because caring is the fundamental human capacity and character. Who says "I do not care." in any of its myriad of versions is trying to dehumanize, and that does not work, or it works to self-destruction. A man's friends go with him where he goes.

Moreover, the ambiguity of life drives every human to go with every other human wherever they go whether they like them or not, friends or not. This is the reality that drives us to have satisfaction with some things and dissatisfaction with others. In this condition, which is universal, inevitable and inescapable, caring is what we do, from birth to death, omni-directionally. We cannot abjure caring and "do protest too much" if we try because the protest itself is caring.

IMO the three of you, Dan, Stacy and Smitty, are men of honor, skill and selfless service, despite usually mock-serious counter-protests regarding the latter from you and Stacy. (Smitty knows from his training and impulses that selfless service -- aka caring -- is a man's highest calling and deepest nature, inalienable.)

Let the surging vitality of life find its courses. Who controls the rains, who knows the ways of the rivers? Who harnesses the winds? They find their own ways, of course we know that. And they are all salutary if not enjoyable, including the evil ones. And there is the advice of Gamaliel to consider.

You do care, so do I. And thank you for caring.

Respectfully, A Resident Theologian

[Stogie]

Dan, you have expressed opinions that I only felt but did not verbalize: that all of this linkfest going on with lower tier bloggers and McCain were futile in building a strong readership.

I thought it unseemly the way some of my blogger friends lavished saliva on the McCain derriere, hoping to be linked or made Blog of the Week. The whole McCainiac thing seemed like an incestuous orgy of me-tooism, a new form of Charles Johnson's Lizard Army. I went with my instincts and avoided joining up. However, I sometimes link to a McCain article because (1) he's a good writer and reporter and (2) some of his posts contain a lot of substance. Smitty is also a good guy.

I think you have made a good point: there is no shortcut to success in blogging. It requires a lot of substantive posts over time. Donald Douglas was well on his way to success until he got sidetracked with all of this Rule 5 stuff. Don't give up on him just yet; he means well and his heart is in the right place. On the right, that is.