Blogroll
Anna Kushnir
Wednesday, 18 June 2008 16:35 UTC
I am feeling subversive this afternoon. NN, while I love it dearly, occasionally doesn’t cut it for me. I need a blog roll and I need it now, especially if I am to fulfill my new role as online community management intern (my job is cool, it’s true).
So here’s what I am going to do. I am going to fake a blog roll and hope that contributions from others (this means you) fill it out and keep it going.
Please add your own favorite science blogs. I will also write a blog post devoted to the list of blogs that I am reading and hopefully, the handy RSS feeds will keep people coming back to my list every time I update it. Please do the same. In doing so, maybe we can integrate the outside science blogging world into our own.
A Blog Around the Clock
Bug Girl’s Blog – Hilarious and painfully smart.
Cocktail Party Physics – My inability to achieve anything higher than a C in college physics doesn’t stop me from enjoying this blog.
Omics! Omics!
Pondering Pikaia
Skepchick
Terra Sigillata
The Daily Transcript
Updated 18 June 2008 16:38 UTC
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Eva’s experience, by the way, is exactly mine – on “my own blog”, that is, not my NPG ones.
I have very long blogrolls on there left over from when I first started blogging a few years ago, but don’t use them for anything. I read blogs through RSS (google reader), adding and subtracting regularly. Occasionally, another blogger will point out that I haven’t put them on my blogroll even though we are interacting on each other’s blogs, so I will go through and add a few, in the process removing a few defunct ones.
I have a link to my Google Reader shared items in my blogroll, but I am not sure if it is possible to add a direct link to my actual Google Reader RSS page — does anyone know (I am on IE7 and use a PC, so shoot me)? -
To roll or not to roll…
is getting interesting to as well as a bit confusing. May be this could be covered during London Science Blogging, perhaps during the session on how to improve you blog.
Those who want to appear more skimmed on their front page may want to have a link to an external full collection of other blogs.Mmmm
I am going to study Google Reader then.
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As someone who’s never had RSS or Google Reader and wouldn’t know where to begin, all I can say is that I’d prefer Blog Croissants. You know, those nice ones with almond paste in the middle, and a sprinkle of almonds and icing sugar on top.
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As someone who’s never had RSS…
Oh, so you’re not a midget then.
Um, OK. Perhaps we should get back to the cakes.
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I get the point you (Richard et al.) are making about blogrolls. I am not sure I agree, however. I think people can learn about you as a person by looking at the blogs you read. It’s kind of like looking through someone’s bookshelf at their home.
I also don’t think that NN needs to be so geographically/blogographically isolated. Half the beauty of blogging is the community built around it. While the community on NN is, in my humble opinion, one of the best around, I think it’s nice to interface with others and see what else is going on, what else is being discussed. Clicking through other people’s blogrolls is a way to get to those other communities.
Other than that, requests to be listed on people’s blogrolls is just in poor taste. You don’t (or shouldn’t) invite yourself to dinner at someone’s home, why should you request they modify their blog for you?
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I think people can learn about you as a person by looking at the blogs you read
Except that they don’t. They look at what you share. As for the isolation of Nature Network, that’s due to its design. It’s difficult to get stuff in and more importantly, out. Which is why we need that API.
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Google Reader is absurdly easy to use. It has to be, because I use it.
Henry, the principle is just like Connotea. GR is a web page, so bookmark it. It has one of those “subscribe” bookmarklet thingys that you can set in your favourites. Then you are off -every time you are in a blog you like, just click on that, and it gets “subscribed” to your Google Reader page in a list (the technical term is, I believe, a “tree”). Every time the blogger writes a new post, this is indicated in the list by a (1) by the blog’s title. This is known, I believe, as “refreshing the tree”.You can also very easily assign subjects/folders to your subscriptions, share favourite posts with friends, etc.
I would be happy to show anyone how to do this at science blogging 2008, but I am the “low tech, don’t know a line of code, IE using, intuitive user” end of the market, not the clever end like Neil, Euan and all those brilliant guys, so be warned.
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Neil – Why do you say that people don’t get to know the blogger from the blogroll? I think it’s easier to scan a blogroll than involve another website. They are more accessible, kind of like the first glimpse of a blogger’s personality. And yes, Nature Network is somewhat self contained. This has lots of pluses and minuses.
So… Time for a plug. You know a lot about all this stuff. Any chance you’ll be around London on August 30? You could help lead a How To Improve Your Blog session during the blogging conference!
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I was going to mention Women in Science as a blog I discovered fairly recently, and like. I forgot the URL though, so when I went to find it for you, I discovered that Peggy has just written a post about updating her blogroll, so my link here goes to that- – it lists several blogs she likes, plus some good sites (she says, have not checked them out yet) for building web communities, encouraging girls in science, etc.
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Henry, the principle is just like Connotea.
There. You’ve lost me already.
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