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Add Blog
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Adding A Blog
Sometimes, while surfing the internet, you will come accross a blog that is not currently in the BlogShares index. In that case, you may wish to add it, which you can do on the add blog page.
Before you do though, take a look at these requirements for adding blogs to the system.
What IS a Blog
Blog Description
Weblogs, called blogs for short, are generally online journals of some sort and can be used for an unlimited range of subjects and purposes.
Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs, and corporations, and from one occasional author to large communities of writers. The totality of weblogs or blog-related web pages is usually called the blogosphere.
The format of blogs varies nearly limitlessly, however, the following must be true for the blog to be considered valid for inclusion in the BlogShares index:
Blog Requirements
It is difficult to know just what is and what is not a blog suitable for inclusion in BlogShares. For the purposes of this game, blogs must fit the following criteria:
- The blog is authored by a clearly defined blogger, such as:
- a specific individual
- a specific individual posting as another
- parody blogs (fake celebrities)
- blogs written by someone's cat, dog, infant, etc.
- a group of individuals
- a specific organization
- a specific company
- Posts appear in reverse-chronological order, or at the very least, the most recent post appears first.
- Posts are individual and dated.
- Timestamps, while helpful, are not required.
- Individual posts have some sort of permanent URL (permalink) with which to link to them.
- Past posts are available in some sort of archive in the blog.
- Commenting and/or trackback capability is often enabled, but not a requirement.
- Blogs can feature any subject, be personal, non-personal, or business-related, and offer content unique to the blog with each new post.
- Blogs must be human edited. The following do not follow this guideline:
- Blogs posted to by automated scripts
- Blogs that are link or post aggregators
- Blogs that contain only feeds of other blogs.
- Blogs are only the main, 'home' page for the blog, and not:
- link pages
- archives
- individual posts
- intros
- summary pages
- profiles.
- Blogs must have at least one post in the last six months.
Special Cases
These are few special cases or common mistakes made about deciding what is and is not a blog.
- Two sites which are commonly and incorrectly assumed to be non-blogs are About.com and Flickr.
- Flickr category, collections, and group pages are not considered blogs.
- MSN Live Spaces Photo Albums are not considered blogs, only the blog module can be counted. If the blog module appears on the front page it is a blog.
- LiveJournal Communities are considered to be blogs, so long as they are publicly readable.
Social Network Blogs
The following are valid social network blogs, and should be added / linked as follows:
- Twitter Blogs
- URL by username. i.e. http://twitter.com/username
- Title is typically "Twitter / username"
- Only public twitter pages are valid for addition. Friends-only are invalid.
- Jaiku Blogs
- URL by username. i.e. http://username.jaiku.com/
- Title is typically "Jaiku : Display Name"
- Only Jaiku's with original content are valid. Those that only aggregate twitter / pownce / etc. posts are not valid.
- Plurk Blogs
- URL by username. i.e. http://www.plurk.com/user/username
- Title is typically "Display Name - Plurk.com", however is configurable by the user, and should be set accordingly.
- Plurk blogs do not properly pick up outgoing links at this time
- Kwippy Blogs
- URL by username, sent items only. i.e. http://www.kwippy.com/username/kwips/
- Title is typically "username's kwips page"
- Brightkite Blogs
- URL by username. i.e. http://brightkite.com/people/username
- Title is typically "Display Name (username) - brightkite.com"
- Tumblr Blogs
- URL by username, i.e. http://username.tumblr.com/
- Title is configured by user, set as displayed.
- Tumblr's must match above blog guidelines, as they are heavily user configurable.
- MeeMi Blogs
- URL by username, i.e. http://www.meemi.com/username
- Title is typically "www.meemi.com/username"
What is NOT a Blog
In BlogShares, there are many blogs that are not considered to be blogs, such as the following:
Non-Blogs
Non Blogs are web pages that do not conform to our definition of what a blog is. Often, they are a result of what was a blog no longer being one.
- Regular webpages.
- Blogs without dated posts.
- Blogs without archives.
Dead/Inaccessible Blogs
- A Blog not posted to in the last six months.
- A 404 (Not Found) error page.
- The blogger indicates that the blog is no longer being maintained or updated.
- Also known as the "Goodbye Cruel World" post.
Inaccessible Blogs
Inaccessible blogs are blogs that are either unreadable by a portion of the public, or unreadable by the site spiders.
- A Blog you must login to read.
- A Blog that requires a password to read.
- A Blog that requires you to verify your age, sex, location, etc else to read.
- A Blog that requires additional navigation (i.e. 'Click here for blog' links)
- A Blog that requires a specific browser to read.
Spam Blogs
Spam blogs are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings. The purpose of a spam blog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed. Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the spam blog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.
Note: Link farms, which contain no content posts, are considered spam. Blogs which link to many, many others do not fall into this category if they contain real content.
- Aggregators
- Standard Spam
- Commercial Spam
Forums
Forums are websites where users sign up to discuss various topics. Topics may be started by anyone, commented on by anyone, and taken completely off-topic by anyone.
Malware / Spyware
Spyware or Malware blogs are any blogs (or websites) that attempt to install any program on your computer without your consent. These should be considered dangerous, and removed from the index.
Additional Tips
These are "good practice" tips and practices that keep the index free of garbage.
- Do NOT add a blog that has not had at least one post within the past three months.
- Do NOT add blogs with only a single "test" post that is a more than a week or two old. Chances are, these blogs will never be actively posted to.