I do not have the ability to check my right side friends feed, there are only four items on the feed list at one time, so by the time I get to that list some friends posts have come and gone. I have enough friends that it takes time, sometimes time I do not have, to go through every friend every night and see if they have posted.
I just want to be sure that people who are in no way blogwhoring do not get the idea from her post that they are.
So, I hope that isn't "comment whoring", but who knows? Posts like ePriddy's always get a lot of comments and climb up there in the cover lists, so it does accomplish something, but not blogwhoring.
You remember grade school, don't you? We were more civilized then and sent each other little scribbled notes saying, "Would you be my friend?" They worked. We meant it and if the addressed person didn't want to be a friend, well, they had yet to learn the social graces and would say something vague, like "NO!"
So when someone puts me on their friends list I take it seriously and I add them to my list. When I read someone whose work I like and can tell a bit that I like them, and that often comes in comments, not unlike this one, and I would like them as a friend I revert to my childhood ways and I ASK them if they would like to be MUTUAL friends. I know how odd that sounds since friendship is defined as mutual everywhere on earth except here on OS.
Then we both add each other to our friends list. In that request I also say that given the warp speed of the feed these days that I AND all the friends on my friends list feel free to send a short PM announcing a new post. And I ask my new friend to please let me know when they post. I always tell my friends that if they do not want me to announce my postings to them, just tell me. However, I wonder what kind of friend it is who does not want to get a simple notice about what his/her friends write.
So, if we are talking about blogwhoring by friends on our list if it were my list I would prune my list! Why would people on your friends list not be friends? And if they all are friends why would it be a problem? If you are talking about people who are just flooding OS with notices to ill defined "friends" who do not even know they are on that person’s list then I totally agree with ePriddy's concern.
To me a friend is someone I find things in common with, and are people who write well (well some do not write so well but they mean well and they have compassionate hearts) and their writing gives me pleasure.
So I take the time to read their stuff, to encourage and support them, to give criticism in a humane way, to stick up for them when some troll comes in dropping bombs (something that is increasing here exponentially) and hope for the same from them. This system works for me and the people on my friends list. So none of my friends, nor I, are blogwhores.
There seem to be at least two different ways things work around here on OS about friends. If your friends list is really a "people I like to read on OS" then it isn't actually a friends list. I have people like that that are not my friends yet, and maybe I think they never will be. But I like to read them. Think George Will or David Brooks. I keep their blog addresses in a folder on my browser.
I agree that there should be no blogwhoring. But there should be no feed bumping and mis-titling of posts to entice readers, You know: "The streaming truth of sex starved politico" for a story about a congressman who slipped and broke his arm getting out of a sauna. But there is no blogwhoring when friends send short PMs alerting each other of their new posts.
Take care,
Monte
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