This Blog Is Full Of Crap

It looks like the idea of Ten And Only Ten is catching on slowly.

It's also mutating slightly - the call for readers to challenge the list-writer to either replace a blog on the list or explain why they won't add it has gone from active to passive, since comments appear to be open on both of these specimens to allow people to discuss the links selected or ask why not some other links. However, those that have taken the ball and run with this meme are significantly less confrontational and prone to fits of uncivil blog-behavior as I am.

Of course, the meme's also detached from its roots like all memes do:

Steve Rubel has started a new meme listing his top 10 blogs.

Heh. And I find this fascinating, not frustrating as the originator. It's always interesting to see where a meme starts, amplifies, disconnects, and the moment when it sparks and takes on a life of its own.

Try doing the exercise yourself. Look down your entire blogroll and tell yourself "I can only read ten blogs" and pick those ten.

It's not easy. Some questions you end up asking yourself:

• Why am I doing this?
• Do I put these in order, or do I just post the ten as a group?
• Do X and Y post similar material?
• If I pick X over Y, how will Y react?
• If I pick X over Y, how will X react?
• I chose X, but it's still not on my blogroll. Why?
• I didn't choose X, but it's still on my blogroll. Why?
• If I do this again in 3 months and leave X off my list this time, how will X react?
• If I pick X and Y asks why not Y, can I articulate my decision-making process?

Or did you ask yourself other questions?

If you find that this is an easy process, I don't think you've done it right. If you're comfortable with your list, you're not reading and enjoying enough blogs - this exercise should make you uncomfortable and force you to both choose and eventually challenge your decision-making processes.

It got really hard for me when I got down to 23, and I was asking myself "Which one can I remove from my list and lose the least amount of blog-enjoyability?"

This time around, I swapped quite a few around until I felt the least uncomfortable about the list.

One of the recent 10bloggers has started a technorati tag of 10blogs to collect up additional examples of this difficult meme.

Now, Technorati says they'll tag things based on categories. However, I'm tempted to kludge something up to use my Keywords field, but I'd have to roll up my sleeves on find the right code for "If it's empty, don't print the Technorati tag" because I'm such a stickler for neatness. Or the right plug-in.