Comments on: NBN 2.0

By: Nature Blog Network » A Most Mundane Post

Nature Blog Network » A Most Mundane Post — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:07:48 +0000

[...] As Mike posted in July, we’re going to delete blogs from the network which don’t show the NBN badge. New members will have two weeks after joining to add the badge. We’re in the process now of going through the list and verifying everyone is showing the network colors, that the links are good, and that there’s still a nature blog at the other end of the URL. We’re finding some duplicate entries and removing those as well. This is still in progress–I think about half of the inactive blogs have been removed at this point, the rest are still being reviewed. [...]

By: wren

wren — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:29:33 +0000

Great comments, everyone – thank you. We’re continuing to have those discussions and are open to the idea that the NBN may evolve over time as the community itself changes.

Greg, I wouldn’t let the opinion of one segment of members drive you out. That being said, I agree that the “ranking” promotes competition. The algorithm (as I understand it, and Mike can certainly jump in and clarify or correct) counts hits on the blog not readership or followers. One really good post or picture of wide interest can skew the stats, but any method we used would distort the stats in some way.

I appreciate your offer to explore how you can leverage your readership to the benefit of the network. That’s a good conversation for us to have.

Crista – I took a look at your blog, and you do have the logo and link installed so you’re good. You do need to change the category yourself.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:11:54 +0000

Building on Greg’s very helpful response, I wonder if at some point it might be possible to find a way to reach out to more general bloggers? I realize that this is the Nature Blog Network and not the Nature Blogging Network, and obviously the carnivals, which y’all do a great job of highlighting, already do provide one avenue for those with an interest in nature to find each other. I don’t have a specific suggestion here, either, just a general observation that bloggers should be wary of ghettoizing themselves. One reason I don’t just blog about nature all the time is because I want to reach a more general, literary and secular humanist audience, and slowly convert readers to a greater appreciation of nature. As one anecdotal measure of my success, two of my readers told me they’d bought subscriptions to Orion magazine ths year, one of whom used to be quite hostile toward environmentalism, and at least six different people have bought books by a nature-poet friend, Todd Davis, as a result of my featuring him on my blog.

Again, I’m not suggesting that the NBN toplist be opened up to more general blogs that happen to focus on nature once and a while (though perhaps you could clarify how many posts/week ought to focus on nature for a blog to qualify?). I’m just saying that, as time goes on, you might think of more ways to include and involve such bloggers — maybe simply by increasing the visibility of this blog.

By: Marvin Smith

Marvin Smith — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:42:14 +0000

Thank y’all for your continuing work and improvements.

By: Crista Cowan

Crista Cowan — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:58:41 +0000

Mike,

I was asking if it was up to us to re-categorize our own blog to match the new changes. If that is so how do we re-categoize our blog? I was also clarifying the NBN symbol to make sure I knew that I have it posted onto my blog. Sorry I wasn’t very clear earlier today

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:11:59 +0000

Nature blogger (and others)

I feel your pain. I blog on the same network as PZ Myers who’s blog gets as many hit as the rest of us put together.

I do not accept that there is one way to measure or characterize a blog. I write more nature posts than most nature bloggers. But since I post six to 12 items a day, the fact that I write 3 to 12 nature posts a week (depending on how many one defines as ‘nature’) is lost on the casual observer.

On the other hand, it is true that percentage wise, nature blogging is only part of what I do. So the complaint that I should not be considered as a nature blogger is totally valid from one perspective, and absolutely invalid from the other.

(Unless we say that one can only blog about nature to be a nature blogger, which I’m somewhat uncomfortable with. For one thing, if that logic was widely applied, bloggers who ‘specialize in diversity’ would not really be allowed on the internet.)

When I look at the top 10 posts listed I see a lot of blogs that are not really nature blogs by your definition but that are blogging about nature but happen to have a lot of hits. This suppresses the blogs that are more focused on nature blogging.

One solution is that me, Tetrapod Zoology, etc. simply get off the Nature Blog Network. But the down side to that is that the nature blog badge is seen much more widely because relatively high volume blogs carry it.

I have two very general suggestions.

1) The beauty contest style listing, which simply ranks people by hits, gets majorly adjusted. What is the point of this network??? Is it to highlight a diversity of nature blogs? To help define nature blogging? To get conversations going? Redefine how the front page works. Make the process more editorial and community oriented instead of just hit oriented. This way people like Nature Blogger do not have to feel resentful of blogs that happen to have high hit rates (perhaps for reasons other than their nature blogging) and people like me can feel comfortable here. (I certainly do not feel comfortable with people suggesting that leave, and I also don’t feel comfortable always being in the top five or so knowing that the reason I”m in the top five is because of my Congo blogging or my Linux blogging or my Skeptics blogging)

2) Tell us large volume bloggers what to do to leverage our exposure for the direct benefit of this network.

These are obviously not exclusive ideas.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:02:27 +0000

Firefly, did we catch you on a bad day?

Nature blogger, I hear what you’re saying but it’s challenging to identify who is and isn’t a nature blogger.

Crista, I’m not quite sure what you’re asking!

Thanks to everyone else for the positive comments and feedback. It’s gratifying to know that many of you value our community and are working with us to make it more useful and engaging.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:39:49 +0000

This is a great site – for me, mostly because of the blog. But thanks for introducing new categories to the toplist as well. That might really help it become a useful directory. The weeding sounds like an excellent idea as well. I don’t know what to suggest about people who don’t post about nature very often; I didn’t enroll my main blog, Via Negativa, because I knew I only blogged about nature there maybe a tenth of the time. In a toplist, it just wouldn’t seem fair to those who have less traffic in part because of their very dedication to niche-blogging on a topic as non-sexy as nature.

By: wren

wren — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:49:07 +0000

Marge, thank you so much. I’m sure that Mike, Nate, and Seabrooke would agree with me that this is a labor of love.

It’s nice to hear that you are getting a tangible benefit from participating. We’ll do better as a group as each of our blogs does better individually.

By: Marge

Marge — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:05:59 +0000

Dear NBN folks – goes to show you that no good deed goes unpunished! I thank you for your volunteer efforts in developing and running a free NBN – my participation here has resulted in many referals to my sites. I’ve learned about carnivals from you, and participated in a couple. I’ve found other interesting nature sites to review, made new friends, and learned new things (including, thanks to Mike, how to update my blog links myself). As I do on other sites that have a link to my blogs, I exercise the link weekly to ensure it is still working. Especially after the Google issues with forwarding, this is a good idea. Meanwhile, upward and onward with NBN, and thanks.