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Wednesday, December 21, 2005

RIP AB

Mr Bhatnagar has called it a day. He has unblogged himself from the blogosphere to focus on real life instead.

Four things I shall miss:
  • Wildly partisan rants on the failings of the left bloc on the Auckland City Council.

  • Messianic adulation of whoever is the current leader of the National Party.

  • Leaks and sundry speculation that was so often the good oil.

  • The unwarranted and electorally damaging criticism of the Act Party


  • In my survey of the Aotearoa Blogocracy (nearing completion) I had Bhatnagar's blog at No. 9 - based purely on inter-links. This table, apart from now having an extra place now, will be Farrar-esque in magnitude and the directory to end all directories.

    In the course of this survey I have realised what bloggers have probably always thought: that DPF is Lord of The Blog because he links to everyone and every links to him. Everyone that is except About Town. After the petty spat (variously described as a "war" or "conceptual art project") between AT and The Whig DPF de-linked - and AT similarly. This is a tear in the space-blog continuum. Mr Farrar, whether people have noticed or not, by having an open inclusion policy has created the premier source of links for political blogging in this country/polity. He is a gate-keeper of sorts, a type of Registrar-General of Blogs. The Aotearoa Blogocracy will improve upon this situation.

    Funny how much detailed work you get done on everything else when there's a deadline around the corner?

    2 Comments:

    At 21/12/05 5:54 pm, Blogger T said...

    thanks tim

    we havent noticed any decline in traffic after being cast out by the lord of the blog. We decided to delink david because he doesnt love us anymore :(

     
    At 22/12/05 4:55 am, Blogger David Farrar said...

    The timing is unfortunate but my delinking was not at all related to the spat with The Whig. It was earlier incidents.

    I've never actually sought to be the definitive guide to NZ blogs, and there are many I do not link to.

    People should remember that every single blog listed on my blogroll is there for one reason only - because I read it. My bloglines subs are automatically my blogroll. So yes I read all those NZ blogs because I find them interesting. If you are not listed, it is because I don't read that blog.

    Not that I want it to be a major thing, but for the record the main reasons I stopped reading AT was I found myself unable to be sure if what I was reading was real or not. After Tristam posted his 40 thoughts, and then Kate deleted it, and then someone else set up a new blog, and people cried foul play, I wondered whether this was just another AT hoax.

    I them felt somewhat ashamed that I would be so disbelieving, but that made me realise that there is a problem if I was not so skeptical about what I can believe, so I decided the obvious answer was to not have to worry about such stuff and stop reading.

    I had no issue about Tristam banning Graham. A blog owner has total liberty to ban who they want.

     

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