Changes in the Old Sidebar (Housekeeping!)

With the invention of Blogger's blog feed feature, I have been gradually converting more and more of my blog links into feeds. I'm noticing I'm much more apt to be reading the blogs that pop up at the top of the list due to a new update, so I thought it would be a good idea to convert as many as possible to this format.

I know the whole "following" thing is supposed to enable more immediate readership as well but I just find if I'm checking my blog for comments I see the links at my sidebar and that's when I tend to read other blogs. I know I'm doing it wrong. But what can I do, I'm a bad blogger.

I also wanted to add some more blogs to the list (found some good ones over at Enigma's place in her blog roundup the other day). So what I've done is have the feeds just display the most recent title instead of a whole snippet to save space, and added a lot more feeds instead of links. I've also reclassified a couple of blogs from the list that I am now calling "progressive" and put them in the next section as their focus isn't as political as the ones in the progressive group. I find it very hard to categorize a lot of blogs and maybe I should just put them all together but I do try to have some kind of categorization going on. Take it with a grain of salt and if anyone feels their blog belongs somewhere other than where I have it, please let me know as these categories are very vague!

Those links that haven't been converted to feeds are blogs that aren't updated frequently, have been taken private, aren't being updated anymore but are being kept on the list for their archives, or blogs that for some reason don't seem to have an automatic feed. (If yours is one of the latter, please let me know if there is some way I can include it into the feeds that I'm not aware of).

I also took off a few links that I really haven't been reading (Dooce for instance). I don't think Dooce needs a link from my tiny little blog to keep her popularity going! And, I'm sad to say, I removed my own mother's blog, as she hasn't updated it since last July! (If she gets back into the mood I can add it back again!)

If anyone's blog got deleted inadvertently, please comment or e-mail me and let me know and I'll add it back in! And of course, if I don't have your blog on the sidebar and you'd like me to add it, please let me know. If I haven't done it yet it's probably just because I'm lazy!

So that's the scoop. If you see a new blog over on the sidebar that you haven't read before, hope you enjoy it!

Baxter will be back tomorrow with his take on the past week's events. Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!