More Kos vs. Skippy

Why? Because it amuses me.

Skippy, completely unable to "let it go",had been told by "mo betta meta" that Kos himself actually defended his blogroll purge.

Skippy points out one major big of strange wrongheadedness that's popped up here: that since having a long blogroll supposedly diminishes the value of each link, that justifies the pruning. Skippy saw it as silly and vaguely Republican to try to limit choice, but I personally just see it as (oddly enough) bad economics.

Think about it. Each additional blog entry, assuming that Kos is right (and it's a HUGE assumption with no basis in fact besides its usefulness to Kos, Atrios, and all the other purging majors) may diminish the number of hits for each other blog entry slightly. Here's the problem: unless each new entry diminishes the number of outbound visits to other blogs by more than it generates in and of itself, you're still going to have a positive effect on the aggregate.

If a Kos link to Skippy generated a thousand visits a week, then the only way to justify it would be if it reduced the number of outbound visits on all the other blogs put together by more than a thousand. Considering he only has about, what, 32 links to other blogs, that's one HELL of an assumption. Honestly, it's ridiculous on its face, not even counting the need to compensate for the amount of ill-will that something like this generates, and the problems with google rankings that he continues to studiously, hilariously ignore.

Most of the rest of the Kos entry follows an old pattern: A bit of "if you want to be visible, post comments on Daily Kos, post diaries on Daily Kos... really, just shut down that ol' blog of yours and come join the Kossacks" coupled with "how DARE smaller bloggers question me! The PRESUMPTION! I will grind them into PASTE", along with a touch of the Logan's Run-esque idea that any blogger that has been around for too long and isn't Kos needs to go the hell away to make way for the "new blood".

(Yeah, I'd warn that "new blood" to watch their backs, except that Arianna Huffington and Brad DeLong, along with the rest of 90% of his blogroll, ain't exactly new to the scene. So he's pretty much just lying to save his ass.)

My favorite argument, though, is "No, I don't have a responsibility to help other bloggers. Let somebody else do it." Well, no, not by law or anything. But the idea that the big guy should help raise up the "little guy" is pretty goddamned important in most liberal circles.

Jon Swift was right: the weirdest thing about all of this is that the conservatives are linking like you'd think a liberal would, and liberals are linking like you'd think a conservative would. Maybe that's why the Republicans tend to do better in elections- individualistic rhetoric aside, they know what wins elections and debates, and it ain't "I got mine, Jack, so push off."

Kos got his. We get to push off.