KC - it’s been a week of freaky coincidences, things turning inside of themselves and computers not working. Is Mercury retrograde or something?

Come to think of it, I did remember reading your TTLB post, which is where I probably first heard of SB. I’ve nothing against her or Mr. Big (hi!) personally; it was just a huge letdown to have my specially-bookmarked blog listed with a bunch of moribund links.

And Robert, thanks for piping up. All geeks, smart and stupid, welcome here. Although most of the smart ones give it a wide berth. (Me, I’m still trying to figure out this permalink-porting nightmare…)

Absolutely love your random meanderings, because that’s pretty much what I do on my blog, too - except I’m so tech-laced that I manage to keep my readership really low. They come for the gadgets only :(

Anyway, just wanted to say Hi!

I remember that back in August. I was the one whom posted the hello back :)

Just so others have a bit of background on TTLB (for those who care), the reference is to OTA, or the Open Trackback Alliance. It’s not intended to game the system but used as a method for smaller bloggers to promote articles on other bloggers site (i.e. a method to get noticed). It *had* the side effect of directly raising the ranks of those whom participated in the TTLB.

NZ Bear used it as an example as some people were using it effectively an instruction manual on how to game the system. I have communicated to NZ Bear about the issue and proposed to him the rel=”nofollow” trick to prevent those whom would game it (which he is now using).

Also, Sam was in the top of the large mamals long before OTA so her rank is not gamed and NZ Bear now discounts those kinds of links so they should no longer be a factor in the scoring. Just wanted to clarify - not that anyone probably cares much ;)

And yes, Sam’s blog is fairly new. She does the writing and I do the technical stuff to keep her blog running (and add those features like the random blogroll)

Mr. big
(Sam’s technical Igor)

http://www.truthlaidbear.com/archives/2005/11/23/open_posts_inline_trackbacks.php

(I forget, can commenters use HTML on your blog?)

(Excerpt: I believe the Ecosystem has created at least part of the motivation to do open trackbacks, and this troubles me. My goal has always been to reflect, as accurately as possible, what is truly popular and interesting in the ’sphere — not distort it by creating bogus incentives for blogs to create automatic links to each other with no real meaning. If you don’t believe me about creating the incentive, check out the Open Trackback Alliance.)

By pure serendipity, I linked to her back in August when she was at 14855 (Flippery Fish). I’m not sure what she’s done different from anyone else except figure out how to game the system. My link:

http://newsonthemarch.blogspot.com/2005/08/people-spouting-howdy-neighbor.html

pfft. wrong again, colleen. you can easily repay me with quickie and a shot of cuervo. hell, i’ll settle for the tequila and knee to the groin.

debt. repaid.

besides, mentioning me in the same breath with michael and neil? i think it is i who owe you.

so what’ll it be? knee to the groin and a vodka bull?

My call remains unanswered.