One of the things I missed during my Thanksgiving respite from blogging was the minor controversy that appears to have developed over the role that Open Trackback parties play in the widely-used TLLB Ecosystem.
The controversy started on Tuesday when Don Surber posted the contents of an email exchange he had with NZ Bear, keeper of the Ecosystem wherein NZ Bear confirmed that he had decided to change the Ecosystem code to not count open trackbacks. NZ Bear acknowledged this, and explained his reasons for the decision, in a post later on his own blog.
Almost immediately, other bloggers, especially those who have been heavily involved in the open trackback phenomenon, weighed in with their opinions and there were at least some accusations of elitism or “unfairness to new blogs” being leveled.
Nonsense.
The Ecosystem is intended to rank a blog’s popularity based upon the number of blogs that link to it. Since open trackbacks are entirely self-serving, they artificially inflate a blog’s popularity by making it appear that it is more widely linked, and read, than it actually is. I have participated in open trackback’s myself on more than one ocassion and noticed my ranking in the ecosystem climbing as a result, but I knew it was a phony indication of where I actually stand, especially when you look at the relatively small number of people who still visit here compared to people that was supposedly outranking.
Anyway, I didn’t participate in open trackbacks, or carnivals for that matter, because I thought it would game the Ecosystem. I’ve done it in an effort to try to make this blog more visible and more widely read. For that reason, I will probably continuing doing both even if it has no impact on whether, or when, I ever become a “Large Mammal” in my own right. And if I never make it to that 5000 visitor a day mark ? I really don’t care, I’m doing this because I enjoy writing and communicating about ideas.
How about you ?
