My most popular blog post is on a most unpopular topic

At least it's unpopular with me. It's the blog post I did in 2007, about 9-11, and the circumstances of the people who jumped or fell to their deaths:

The 9-11 jumpers; they didn't "jump"

It's not a nice topic by any means; it was painful to write about. Yet it receives more hits in Google searches than any other post on my blog. And each year around September 11th, the hits skyrocket. I think this year, it will be the highest ever:


Source: My Site Meter

People leave comments on the post. Some of them are incredibly vile, cheap and disgusting. Others push political agendas and conspiracy theories.

There are other places to post that stuff. The topic of the jumper post is the jumpers/fallers. I try to keep it on that topic, and delete anything else.

I sometimes think I'd like to turn comments off for that post. Perhaps I will one day. But some people seem to use the comments to help them deal with something, so maybe that's a good thing. And they aren't all bad.

Someone left this comment today:

Thank you. I want to understand the world around me before I choose my own conclusions. I do not want to be pushed around, I'm tired of it. Thank you for your honesty, for your courage with difficult material, and for the respect you have shown all of us who have read this article. [...]

That IS what I was trying for, so I'm glad some people understand that. I was not trying to tell people what to think, but rather to just try to provide a complete picture of the variables many of the jumpers/fallers may have faced (and the lack of acceptable choices available to them).

And I will quite freely admit that it's possible some people jumped out of despair. But there are many variations on the human theme; each person was unique, and we just can't know what was going through all their minds, or the details of what each one faced. Yet, I think it's likely that NONE of them would have jumped or fallen that day, if the planes did not hit the towers. They were forced into impossible circumstances that are painful to even imagine.

The above commenter ended his comment with:

[...] Again, thank you. This thoughtfulness, honesty, and respect for others is the only path back to national greatness. [...]

Those qualities, given and received, are much needed. I hope we will all strive for them, because it will help. It's impossible for us all to agree on everything, nor do we need to, but we do need to stand on common ground and be united on those things we can be united on.
     

Beware of the "Sploggers" (Spam-Blogs)

So THAT'S what they are! Here is a link to my Google search results:

"Fake Blogs Sploggers"

I got some requests for these kind of generic blogs to be added to my sidebar list. They added mine to theirs, so I reciprocated, at first.

But then I started getting more and more requests. All the blogs seemed to have a kind of generic sameness, often using the same template, and their posts seemed rather generic and impersonal. The requests to be added to my blog roll seemed odd, unnatural, like they could be computer generated.

That's when googled "fake blogs" and found out about "sploggs".

I made the mistake of adding some to my sidebar, and now I'm being spammed by hundreds of them. My spam filter it catching them, but it's inconvenient to deal with, and creepy. I may have to turn off comments on my blog for a while.

I've deleted suspected sploggs from my sidebar. I'm not accepting new reciprocal links anymore, I'm sticking with people I actually know from the past. I may even delete some of my blogrolls, as they don't seem to work half the time anyway.

Things like this dampen my enthusiasm for blogging. It's like dealing with Pod People. I've definitely got better things to do with my time.
     

Blogosphere Map; the most popular groupings

This photo is from an article by Stephen Ornes at Discover Magazine:

Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere

The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you’ll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that’s about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites. These links allow analysts to track trends in blogs and identify the most popular topics of data exchange. Social media expert Matthew Hurst recently collected link data for six weeks and produced this plot of the most active and interconnected parts of the blogosphere. [...]

The article goes on to break the map down into six major groupings. Large white dots represent popular websites. Number one is the DailyKos. Number 4 is Michelle Malkin. See the whole article for the others and the explanations of what it all means.


Related Link:

What "Map: Welcome to the Blogosphere" Doesn't Tell You!

Dave Lucas has quite a few things to say about the Discover Magazine article. He looks at the many variables that need to be considered when looking at web traffic data, in order to get a more complete understanding of what it all means.

I'm not sure I would agree with all his conclusions, but it is an interesting read on a fascinating topic. If this subject is at all interesting to you, I would head on over there for a visit.