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The American blogosphere, both liberal and conservative often talk and practice the Old Boys Club rule i.e. link and write only about each other’s content.
I am not taking any names, but I have seen this behavior increasingly in the Indian Blogosphere too. Come on, there cannot be only that many good Indian bloggers out there.
by Patrix | on Wednesday, April 20th, 2005 at 11:05 pm | 
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April 21st, 2005 at 9:00 am reply
Blame it on the never ending blog melas and blog awards. One finds more and more reason the link only the choosen few.
April 21st, 2005 at 9:24 am reply
It takes time to find and follow new and interesting blogs. I have been trying to do this for over two months, and I feel like there are many more wonderful blogs out there than what I seem to reading at present. See examples here, here, here, and many more here!
April 21st, 2005 at 10:01 am reply
As a relatively “new” blogger let me tell one of the reasons that happens - Because it’s hard to make your presence felt (because of the existing problem. people are too busy reading just eachother’s blogs - it’s a vicious cycle), when you do get some regular readers, you want to keep them so you return the favour and then before you know it you’re a part of the Old Boys Club…I guess no problem is a problem if you write quality stuff (now THAT’S the road block i’m facing!) LOL!
April 21st, 2005 at 10:03 am reply
Agree with Anup.
Time’s short.
iPatrix–Is there somehting illegal that Amazon does ?Didn’t know that
April 21st, 2005 at 11:06 am reply
time & inclination buddy. If you had both, you’d be linking and talking about me.
April 21st, 2005 at 11:26 am reply
Kuttan - Incidentally the blog mela was supposed to throw up undiscovered gems but guess everyone is tired of scouting the web for them.
Anup - I checked those blogs when you had trackbacked to my earlier post. Nice collection. Thanks.
Gabby - As a new blogger writing quality stuff, you are doing pretty well. I have no problem in linking to others but I just wish that circle was a little larger. I have noticed (among Indian bloggers) a close knit circle of 4-5 bloggers.
Anand - Nothing that I know of but they may be collecting too much personal information than we wish. But people don’t seem to mind, so until they do, no probs.
Alpha - LOL! I already link and talk about you a lot…time to get a new blog to look up to (only if you hadn’t chickened out and deleted a post just becoz some anon.ppl found it offensive)
April 21st, 2005 at 12:03 pm reply
Patrix, Please man..stop making non-issue into something big. I’m really getting irritated now. I took it off coz I felt like. MY BLOG! Meri marzi! Fuck you all! *hope that was fiesty enough for you all*
April 21st, 2005 at 12:06 pm reply
Alpha, Ok Ok, thand rakh. You made your point. You are just being ‘feisty’ on the wrong ppl. We already know how ‘feisty’ you are.
April 21st, 2005 at 1:08 pm reply
Thank you Patrix - Coming from a maestro like yourself that too! (Alpha used to call me your fan. She just stopped. Now she’ll start again. It’s OK, we can just delete what we don’t like :))
See when topics are as deep and global as Horlicks it’s tough to get my non-Indian visitors to come back!
April 21st, 2005 at 1:24 pm reply
Just because you have the ability to go and change your comments, don’t poke fun at my spelllings ok!
Seriously guys, let the matter chill. stop taking it personally. maybe i need to write a post on this phenomenon. It’s too funny for words.
April 21st, 2005 at 5:21 pm reply
Gabby - Alpha seems a bit on the edge today, lets not piss her off too much, its bound to come back and bite us.
Alpha - I realized the typo later on..the quotes were just to taunt you on use of fundoo words but there, you got an idea for a post.
April 22nd, 2005 at 8:18 pm reply
Simon and Kevin Drum have talked about this recently…bloggers tend to take the easy way out by preaching to the converted.
But unless your objective is to change the world, there should nothing wrong with this. Mirrors real life does’nt it — you don’t cross over into ‘hostile territory’ and make a speech? It is those ‘processions’ that cause the trouble in places like Ireland etc
April 22nd, 2005 at 8:23 pm reply
Two weeks ago, I did an entire weekly economic review featuring new bloggers. But the effort required was tremendous.
As a direct consequence of this discussion, though, I’m going to invite nominations in all future editions of the weekly blogside review.
April 22nd, 2005 at 10:47 pm reply
Nitin - Of course, the effort required would be tremendous but I guess you must have discovered a few blogs that are equally as good as those you regularly cite.BTW you are one of those rare exceptions to “ones that haven’t been named”. I am not arguing for preaching on both sides of the fence but rather there are more ppl on our side of the fence than we know. As Gabby noted, if we link to them, they link back and the circle effectively expands.
April 23rd, 2005 at 7:32 am reply
it’s a vicious cycle
Actually, the term is “a vicious circle“. ;)
See, what I don’t get is this: if you folks know of good undiscovered bloggers, why don’t you just nominate them for any of the weekly blog melas? It’s open to everyone, and as long as you’ve got a decent written piece that’s not just one hyperlink and two lines of commentary, it will be out there for the rest of the world to discover. I’ve found a few blogs this way.
I can’t speak for everyone, but Yazad and I always go scouting for new bloggers and posts beyond the ones that have been nominated. Just see the comments to my mela announcements and compare with the number of featured articles in my last one. That said, we are all working people with only so much free time, so I don’t have too several hours to spend on the project, which means that not all the good blogs will be featured.
Lastly, blogging is like any other writing-related field. Much of what you encounter will be mediocre. The truly stellar will be a minority. And sometimes the widely-read may be inane too.
April 23rd, 2005 at 8:26 am reply
MadMan - Bah! Cycle…circle, you get the point, right? As long as it comes back, its vicious. If you want me to combine our arguments on individual liberties during crisis and use of Cycle instead of circle, you might like/not like this article.
Blog Mela can and is an excellent way to discover new blogs. I too nominate a few posts on my own for every other Mela I host.
BTW did you take the Old Boys Club taunt personally? :)
April 24th, 2005 at 6:01 am reply
BTW did you take the Old Boys Club taunt personally? :)
No, because I am neither old nor a boy.
April 24th, 2005 at 10:56 am reply
MadMan - So you are just confused?
April 25th, 2005 at 3:11 am reply
The weekly blogside view of the Indian economy (12)
Coverage of the Elephant’s trajectory: observations from the blogosphere. (This week: nominate your favourite blog to be included in this series…
April 25th, 2005 at 1:39 pm reply
MadMan - So you are just confused?
Are you just logically challenged?
April 25th, 2005 at 10:47 pm reply
MadMan - When it suits me, yes I am.