Keith Devens .com

Anatomy of a linkblog

It should:

1. be specific to a day, and not just a running thing of links that possibly expires (like Charles' does)
2. be closely associated with my weblog, so if you go to a day's archive on my weblog you get the linkblog too. It shouldn't have its own archive section (like Jeremy's and Simon's do)

But should:

1. each link be able to have its own category (like del.icio.us does)?
2. or have link-specific comments (like Kottke does)?

If either of the last two, then each "blogmark" needs to:

1. have its own record in a table
2. be separate from my normal weblog table

If not, then each blogmark can really just be part of a daily stream, which is what I really kind of want. If I do it this way:

1. a "stream" post would simply have a name within the day like "stream" or "links", and would get its own special category. Currently I use my Random category for things like this.
2. each "stream" post could be identified by my blogging software according to the post name or the post category and be shown differently. Really, this logic can be completely at the template level.

Now, there's a Type A linkblog where each day's linkblog is just a normal weblog post with a specific name and/or category, and a Type B linkblog where each link can have its own comments and/or categories.

Benefits of Type A:

1. Much simpler to implement:
   1. fits right in the main RSS feed (and of course, works fine as a category specific feed if your site offers those - my software doesn't yet, but I plan to implement that)
   2. automatically has its own category page to serve as the linkblog page (no need for a separate linkblog archive)
   3. it will work right now with no extra programming required. I can change the template logic later to actually make it display differently.

Benefits of Type B:

1. More features
2. Potentially easier to find links later since they can each be categorized
3. With sites like "del.icio.us" around, I think there's a chance at having distributed linkblogs. With distributed linkblogs, you can do neat things like easily see how popular a given link is, like del.icio.us already does for people using its system (which is very cool). Having a linkblog with each link as a distinct entity would allow this type of crossmogrification.

Downside to Type A:

1. Fewer features
2. Having a bunch of links without the ability to specifically comment on one might preclude someone from commenting when he or she otherwise would. What do you think? OTOH, if you get a bunch of comment threads going on different links, that would get confusing.

Downside to Type B:

1. Lots of extra work and complexity, with questionable payoff. Are the extra features worth it?
2. Less amenable to change. With a "stream" type of linkblog, if you want to make a larger post out of something that started as part of the stream (such as this pontification on linkblogs), you can easily cut it out and paste it into its own post. Dave does this all the time. OTOH, with a Type B linkblog, each link is its own record which would have to be deleted, or renumbered somehow if you wanted to reorder the links within the day.
3. Less room for freeform information

Obviously I'm leaning heavily towards the Type A for now. The only question involves change and ordering. If you modify something that's already been somewhere in the linkblog, the change might be missed. But if that's where the change logically goes, that's where it should be. As for ordering... I'm leaning towards a "new stuff goes at the bottom" format, though I'm not completely sure. I think it tends to be easier to mentally scroll down until you get to what you haven't seen than to start at the top and stop when you get to something you have seen. Unless you do a neat thing like Simon and strikethrough visited links on your linkblog.

Finally, for RSS readers, would it be annoying if the same post kept changing throughout the day?

One more thing. A linkblog makes you draw the line between what's "just a link" and what's worth a whole post. If you have a "Type A" linkblog, then it can be a kind-of important question because there's no way to comment on individual links. Also, with a Type A, links will have a tendency to sometimes grow into more than just a link -- sometime's you'll go back to it and add some comments. So then maybe it should have been a whole post to itself in the first place.

Though really, if I could just post faster then I wouldn't need a linkblog. Though, I don't think I'd really want 30+ separate posts to handle each of the links I put in this post (before I moved this part out into its own post).

Update: Here are a couple updates to this post.