Monday, April 16, 2007

The Asbury Bloggers' Blogroll and Blogrolling as a Communtarian Activity

I started a syndicated blogroll for Asbury people a year and a half ago. It currently stands at thirteen people. I had hoped that it would grow faster, but it has been about this number for several months.

The difficulty, I find, is that many Asbury bloggers would like to be listed on this blogroll, but balk at the idea of linking to other bloggers in return. The only rule of the blogroll is that members must have at least five other members listed in their own blogrolls. This, apparently, is too demanding a requirement.

It is a perspective that I cannot understand.

What is bothersome about this effort is that several bloggers have agreed to join, but then won't add the five member blogs to their own blogrolls. I have sent reminders, which are either ignored, or are met with promises to get around to the task. After a few weeks of sponging off this free traffic, I have deleted these members -- all because they wouldn't list other members in their own blogrolls. Rinse, lather, repeat.

This is not a problem among the Florida Campus members, nor the alumni, but exclusively Wilmore-based Asbury bloggers. I had hoped that after student Chad Brooks launched an initiative to promote blogging at the seminary that this would change, but ironically, I had to delete him as well when he would not add a mere three more blogs to his blogroll for the required number of five.

There are bloggers who do not read other blogs, do not leave comments elsewhere, do not link to other blogs, nor maintain a blogroll. They fundamentally fail to understand the communitarian nature of blogging, and consequently never succeed. It is, I suspect, this attitude which is responsible for the languishing of blogging at Asbury in general, and the Asbury Bloggers' Blogroll in particular.

UPDATE: Matt comments:

I'm an Asbury alumni (Wilmore) and a blogger. I have seen this blogroll on your site, but hadn't known how to get on it or the history behind it.

An unfortunate oversight on my part. I have now added a link in my sidebar below the Asbury Blogroll to the information post.

11 comments:

Matt said...

This is interesting John. I'm an Asbury alumni (Wilmore) and a blogger. I have seen this blogroll on your site, but hadn't known how to get on it or the history behind it.

Sorry to hear about your troubles and frustration with it.

Mark said...

John,

I agree with your assessment of blogging as a communitarian activity. I felt like I already knew you before I actually met you, face-to-face, at the Congress on Evangelism. I have prayed for other bloggers and friendships have been forged. There have also been invitations to share financial resources on the Methoblogosphere. Sounds suspiciously like church, huh?

Anonymous said...

Is the code in java script? do you have a feed to it? Wordpress doesn't do java script.

Anonymous said...

interesting to label an entire geography of people based on our limited florida experience, john...

John said...

Jim, I'm just pointing to the data, not drawing any conclusions.

I have no idea how to feed it in WordPress. Do any WP users know?

John said...

By the way Jim, is the data inaccurate, or are you just in a complaining mood?

Anonymous said...

I think the data may be a little generalized, but really no complaint. Some people blog, some people don't. Anyway, it's fun to pick on you. I'm sure I'll get my fair share of payback! :) Much love, truly, Rev.

Art said...

"They fundamentally fail to understand the communitarian nature of blogging" - amen! It's the same in the blogosphere at large.

John said...

Read the post, Jim. I wrote about ATS bloggers, not all ATS folk. Did you notice that?

John said...

It's the same in the blogosphere at large.

Indeed. And much of the huge growth of your own blog must be attributed to your practice of reading, commenting, and linking to other people -- engaging in community.

Anonymous said...

I use Word Press. I have added Asbury bloggers manually to my links section. This is easily done and would only require a couple of minutes to add the required 5.