Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Another dozen

To our collection of independent British political bloggers, Max Farquar has added a further twenty four. With another twelve below, we are well on our way to the first hundred-mark:
Over on the IPB site Max has also started up a five-a-day series, highlighting five posts of interest ... not my choice, but then he's not me. That is the delight of independent bloggers ... we don't all do the same thing.  The invitation to join IPB stands - add your own selection.

The problem for all of us is the volume, and sorting the wheat from the chaff. You could easily spend the whole day touring the blogosphere and, while you would pick up some superb material, there would also be a lot of dross.

However, I am no great fan of the ranking system that Iain Dale used ... how do you rate one blog as better than another? But, I'm minded to look at grading, such as the star system, widely used elsewhere. Three criteria come to mind: writing (quality of); frequency; and presentation. A technical marking scheme should not be too hard to devise, with stars perhaps awarded by a panel of bloggers (peer approval?) on the basis of strict application of the agreed system.

Frequency seems easiest to rank, say: five stars for multiple entries per day; four stars for at least five daily entries in a week; three stars for at least weekly; two stars for at least monthly, and one star for less frequent.

Combine that with perhaps symbols to denote specialisms (economic; British party politics; Scottish politics; European politics; climate change; military ... etc., etc.), and there may be the germs of system that would help see off the likes of Huff-Puff and the MSM, which would like to take over the blogosphere, giving guidance to the readers who are, after all, the "customer".

What think you ... what say you? Forum is open for new registrations, or you can add a comment on the IPB site.

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