A Sicilian testimonial

I have made Sicily Scene my blog of the week and the subject of another Blogpower testimonial over at the Last Ditch.

HTML Blogroll

Some time ago, we promised to bring you an HTML blogroll, for those of you who want to customise the roll in ways that the automatically updated list does not allow. There have been no new arrivals or departures for a while now, so this list is, as far as I can tell, accurate as of today, and includes everyone who currently carries the Blogpower banner (plus one or two who don't. We don't ask much from Blogpower members; is it too much to ask whether maybe you could at least see your way to having the banner? If you have technical issues, please ask either via the comments or e-mail.) If you notice any omissions,please let me know.

I have provided the HTML in the form of an unordered list in alphabetical order, which seems a time-honoured way of carrying link lists. Cut and paste the code into your template, and voila. If you prefer a different format, it is fairly simple to cut-and-paste the list into Word or similar, and use find-and-replace to add or alter tags. But don't save the list as HTML in Word, because it will add a whole heap of unnecessary and very difficult to edit extra code. Just cut-and-paste back into your text editor of choice. Don't forget, the code for the scrollable box is available here.

I make no promises, but I will try and keep this list updated in this post - look for the date in the heading below - and we will alter the sidebar link to point to this post. I will also endeavour to announce any further changes to the roll in individual posts here at DTB, to help make maintaining your own HTML roll easier.

List updated: 8 July 2007

<!-- Blogpower HTML blogroll begins -->
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/">A Conservative Blogs</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.a-young-conservative.blogspot.com/">A Young Conservative</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://adelaidegreenporridgecafe.blogspot.com/">Adelaide Green Porridge</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://fakeconsultant.blogspot.com/">Advice from a Fake Consultant</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href=http://mattmurrell.blogspot.com>An Insomniac</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://andrew-allison.blogspot.com/">Andrew Allison</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.asadodo.com/">As a Dodo</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.beltoday.com/">Bel is thinking</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://braveheart-does-the-maghreb.blogspot.com/">Braveheart Does the Maghreb</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.chickyog.net/">Chicken Yoghurt</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://corporatepresenter.blogspot.com/">Corporate Presenter</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://crushedbyingsoc.blogspot.com/">Crushed By Ingsoc</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://defendingtheblog.blogspot.com/">Defending the Blog</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.deeplyblasphemous.blogspot.com/">Deeply Blasphemous</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://elleeseymour.com/">Ellee Seymour</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.liz-and-harvey.blogspot.com/">Finding life hard?</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://haveringhavers.blogspot.com/">Havering Havers</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://greenbanana.wordpress.com/">Heather Yaxley-Greenbanana</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.hells-handmaiden.com/">Hell's Handmaiden</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://higherthebetter.blogspot.com/">In Search of High Places</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://imaginedcommunity.blogspot.com/">Imagined Community</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://nourishingobscurity.blogspot.com/">James Higham</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://lookingforavoice.blogspot.com/">Looking for a Voice</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://lordnazh.com/dailyramble/">Lord Nazh</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://morag.wordpress.com/">Morag the Mindbender</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://mutleythedogsdayout.blogspot.com/">Mutley the Dog</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://notsaussure.wordpress.com/">Notsaussure-</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://observationsfromthehillside.blogspot.com/">Observations from the Hillside</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://onyxstone.blogspot.com/">Onyx Stone</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://this-is-sparta.blogspot.com/">Ordovicius</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://pommygranate.blogspot.com/">Pommygranate</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://pubphilosopher.blogs.com/">Pub Philosopher</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.rabbitstrike.blogspot.com/">Rabbit Strike</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://russianwolfhound.blogspot.com/">Russian Wolfhound</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.museinmeltdown.blogspot.com/">Sempiternal Horizons</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.iangrey.blogspot.com/">Shades of Grey</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://sicilyscene.blogspot.com/">Sicily Scene</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://stevenbainbridge.blogspot.com/">Steven Bainbridge</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://cityunslicker.blogspot.com/">The Cityunslicker</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://consciousearth.blogspot.com/">The Conscious Earth</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://theegotistical.blogspot.com/">The Ego</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.lastditch.typepad.com/">The Last Ditch</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://thethunderdragon.blogspot.com/">The Thunderdragon</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.theospark.blogspot.com/">Theo Spark</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://tuscantony.blogspot.com/">Tuscan Tony</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.bradfordvision.co.uk/">Visions of Bradford</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/">Wardman Wire</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://gracchii.blogspot.com/">Westminster Wisdom</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://ruthie-zaftig.blogspot.com/">Zaftig</a>
</li>
</ul>
<!-- Blogpower HTML blogroll ends -->

Blogpower - still relevant for particular reasons

Some readers will have noticed I've ventured into MyBlogLog and the Praguetory community and I've noticed Westminster Wisdom has delicious and digg-it [neither which I understand] listed at the foot of each post. Tom Paine is also in Conservatives Abroad and the Witanagemot Club.

Is this treasonable to good old Blogpower?

This blogger says no, quite the opposite. Despite anything people say about stats not mattering, I think everyone would like to be read by a large and discerning community. Most Blogpowererers joined to expand their contacts and through a friendly but very loosely confederated community which is always outward looking, rather than inwards.

If I had to sum up how I saw Blogpower operating, I'd list the following:

# The 'big bloggers' all have some sort of national exposure which ensures them huge readerships, e.g. TV spots, Doughty and so on. The 'little bloggers', though linking to the biggies, usually don't get anything in return and so there is a case for a large collective of little bloggers who provide each other with larger readerships than would ordinarily be possible.

# The whole ethos of Blogpower is 'blogging for pleasure'.

# Members feed off other members' own expanding contacts, who in turn feed off those contacts and so on. A process of personal filtration then creates an ever-expanding community we'd like to be in.

# There is a definite sense of community here, which is Blogpower's main strength, given that it is open to all shades of opinion and strongly defends the right of those opinions to exist, even if we disagree, sometimes violently, with those opinions or affiliations. Members are free to use full or abridged versions of the blogroll, as they see fit.

# Compared to other web based communities, Blogpower is very human-based and low tech, without the snazzy little 'recent visitors' boxes, marauding marsupials and the like. It works on members of a slowly expanding community knowing one another and providing solid readerships which don't diminish on whim.

# We try to write testimonials, provide technical help and run various schemes to improve the blogs of fellow members. People are lways coming up with new ideas to improve our lot.

# Blogpower, being a completely free and voluntary collective, has no opinions of its own on any topic and endorses nothing but each other. If members wish to expand their blogs by joining other communities and schemes, Blogpower positively encourages that. It doesn't alter our blogfriendships.

# Blogpower Express will soon feature a blog of the week spot and be co-administered on a rota basis. It is our flagship homepage and Defending the Blog is our discussion page.

Anyone care to add anything to this?

Thogger awards.

See this about thinking bloggers.

(I don't know who started the meme, I followed the links back quite a way and am still none the wiser.)

UPDATE: This was originated from www.TheThinkingBlog.com- thanks Mia.

I think it is inevitable that a Blogpower member is likely to get tagged in due course. (I'd hedge a bet that Ellee Seymour being first!)

I would suggest that the majority of us qualify along the way and the hard bit will be in whittling it down to five tags.

Blogpower review number two- Welshcakes

I've put my second review up at Shades of Grey.

I'm not progressing particularly quickly because I am trying to wrap a blogpost on some common topic with the recepient around the review, and if possible, inject a little bit of humour as well.

Ian Grey

Blogpower developments

As almost all of us know, our new homepage is Tom's Pageflakes page but he has suggested and I concur, that we should retain a forum page such as this, linked from Pageflakes.

Lady Ellee has suggested we need to have the word Blogpower up front and Defending the Blog as our tagline. This is fine but we then need to set up a new blog, under the Blogspot system. Or else we choose another, monetary free system such as Wordpress.

My suggestion is that:

1 we retain this page as our archive, our history, put in a tagline to state this and suspend the comments facility;
2 we set up another forum type page for fora and I'd like your thoughts on this matter as to the format which would best serve our needs;
3 we put the pageflakes banner on our sites instead of the current banner [see Tom's own site] and I'll be doing this as soon as I can resolve my template issue;
4 we expand our administrative committee to include maybe five persons;
5 we place a time limit on this changeover of this coming Sunday, March 4th, to achieve all this.

Your thoughts?