Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Personal

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Webrings are definitely a funny thing in the world of blog because i’m almost positive that they’re redundant. Way back in the day when i was running my fanfic site (which will be five years soon, and yes that makes me very scared) i joined a slew of webrings to drum up more traffic. Back then it was a great idea; sites with such specialized content were few and far between and even the very huge ones were relatively obscure because not everyone had such easily centralized domain names. A webring allowed you to join forces with a gaggle of like-minded people and to share the modest flow of traffic each one of you brought to the table. I honestly can’t tell you why i ever joined any webrings for this site; i honestly don’t even remember doing it; i suspect that i chose the three that looked the most familiar to me from my various misadventures in logging because i figured if the name was that familiar i must read plenty of sites in the ring. However, the nature of blogging is partially a matter of linking, whether it be to more of your own content or to news or to other blogs, so that any given view of my index page probably yeilds at least an hour of reading material (and a view of an archive page probably exponentially more). With plenty of relevant content plus my own collection of highly endorsed links (not to mention my own musical meanderings) available via the same sidebar as that lonely little webring link, i can’t image why anyone would click it. I certainly wouldn’t.

In short, if a reader is looking for like-minded loggers they would probably just read all of the sites i link – all of which have their own (larger) lists of linked sites. So, why take a chance on a random ring site? It seems to me rings would be more effective as enforced cliques of loggers, because that way the coherency is assured. Of course, i don’t really belong to any cliques at this point, so i’d be linkless. But, could it hurt? At least they’d serve a purpose then.


Oh well. So much for idle thought.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3865486/

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Perhaps this won’t seem especially ironic to you since my politics generally remain unremarked upon (though easily extrapolated from other details), but recently i’ve been getting a steady trickle of hits from this conservative political blog and i couldn’t figure out why. Occasionally sitemeter attributes referrals to sites that have no linkage to mine whatsoever, but every few hours i would see a hit from this self proclaimed “Big & Loud” politico and the regularity invited a more thorough investigation. Upon a more lengthy perusal of the site (including a bitter but fair appraisal of Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont) i discovered a link to “webloggers.” I’ve had a link to this blogging webring sitting on my sidebar for months now and i’ve honestly never clicked it, and never received more than a handful of hits per week from it (as is evidenced by the fact that i wasn’t expecting to see the link on this random log). Yet, by some magnificent irony-loving all-knowing god of blogging, the one site that actually delivers hits to me through the ring happens to be precisely the site that i’d least expect.


Well, for those of you just surfing in from B&L&F&R let me just say: Take that, poopyheads! We’ve got the Senate! Oh, yeah, and welcome to the neighborhood.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3865255/

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For a while there was a flicker of light reflected on my change jar that seemed just the right red and gold to be the reflection of a fire, but after a thorough examination of the room to ascertain that there was an absence of flame i realized it was sunlight flitting through the trees outside my bedroom window. Today i feel like a flicker of something; hoping that i’m not outrightly extinguished yet sometimes blooming full and hot. I was too distracted to sing during my lesson today, but then i focused for half a minute to produce two notes that Becky thinks were my best ever. Inconsistent. I don’t think i did much at work today, but no one seems to mind. Tonight the sky is turning from blue to blue with the tiniest band of green on the horizon, and my neighbors yellowed kitchen light is peering around my crimsony sheet draped across the window. Everything is colors, but the fire in this room has gone away and left it black and white and gray.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3864767/

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I have some links to blog. Run for the hills.

Track4 is a solidly constructed music review site run by SpaceKitten on her Uprush domain, and i don’t even think i knew it was there (smooth one, huh?). I Am Generic is a really nicely designed site without too much flash-bang, which is my favourite kind of design (via MuffBlog). And, speaking of people with patience and rock solid design skills (of which i possess neither), Zannah still has the same basic layout as she did when i first saw her page nearly a year ago. Maybe there were some inbetween steps that i missed, but colour me impressed. With a shade less patience, but with tons of primary color design skillz, perennial favourite Wockerjabby just got a massive redesign that you should lay your eyes on. And, finally, i dragged my lazy self over to Ahx this morning after a nearly week-long lapse in my reading to find him doing some damned great writing (compliments of me nonwithstanding, of course). More people should be hearing what he has to say.

Well, there you go. That’s enough excuses not to read me for a couple of hours, right? Good. Off you go.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3830588/

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Of all the beloved sites i’ve ever seen shut down, it’s always been the decision of the site administrator(s). Regular readers can leave and staff members can be bitchy and unhappy, but ultimately the admin makes the decision to pull the plug on the main page leaving everyone scrambling to talk to each other on the message boards before those too fade away or become completely irrelevant.

What is it about being the admin of a site that makes it so easy to shut everything down rather than just make a change? Is it that you’re tied to what the site was and not what it will be? Or, is it that you just get tired of making little fixes to what seems to you a large overall problem. Pulling the plug on a site, whether it be a treasured monument to e/n or the best Ani DiFranco site on the internet, seems like a hopelessly selfish choice. However, i suppose if you take on all the weight of maintaining a page yourself then you’re entitled to be selfish about it’s dissolution.

Bearing that in mind, is the solution to distribute both the joys of being a successful administrator as well as the sorrows? Does having a solid support staff make the difference between giving up on a page or just taking a much needed breather? Of course, having support staff presents nearly the same problem, as their collective vision sometimes strays from yours, leaving you either useless or annoyed. So, what’s the best formula for keeping a site going long enough that it becomes a mainstay in a community and not just a blip?

It seems to me that the easy answer is staying involved in the flow of your site, which is why so many solo blog-projects have become so consistent and venerable. It’s also why so many of them burn out and fail. If you don’t stay involved emotionally or scientifically or anything with your own writing, eventually what you’re creating means nothing and your page is just like the impression your head leaves on a pillow rather than a pillow with a real head on it. The same holds true for a group site … if you let yourself stray slowly from being an active poster to being a distanced administrator, your idea of fun is only based on reading the page as opposed to the real fun of writing it. This is not to say every administrator should be the center of attention – primadonna in their own specially constructed showcase. Instead, the point is that you have to occupy all of the positions at once: admin, staff, writer, and most importantly, fan.

Remind me about this post if i ever start bitching about any of this, if you would be so kind..

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/05/3829478/