Les Jones

Blogging > Best Of...

Inspired by Steven Den Beste's Best Log Entries, I decided to create a Best Of for this site. This solves one of the problems of blogging software programs: they're great for keeping track of the fresh and the new, but not so hot at keeping up with the good and the old. Erudite missives scroll off the front page, never to be seen again, least of all by new readers.

Let's be honest. No one ever browses archives. They may get to an old post by a link or a search engine, but no one archive dives to find the good stuff amid the garbage. Life's too short.

By making posts less disposable, a Best Of page encourages more thoughtful writing. It also provides incentive to update old posts with new information, and to check links for link rot. Those are standard maintenance practices for traditional web pages, but they're rarely practiced in the blogosphere.

A Best Of page also helps beginning bloggers buck up during those early days when their traffic levels stink. "Maybe no one will read it now," the suffering blogger steels himself. "But one day everyone will read my manifesto on why the Commodore Amiga was the GREATEST COMPUTER EVER!!!"

Finally, Best Of posts make good spider food to point search engines to your primo dope.

For now I'll maintain the Best of LesJones.com by hand. Ideally, the blogging software would do this for me. Rankings could be by page views, user vote, number of comments, the writer's own assessment, or an algorithmic combination of factors.

• E-commerce
  • Why Consumers Aren't Getting the Full Benefit of E-commerce
  • E-commerce Companies in the Knoxville, Tennessee Metro Area
• Guns
  • .410 Handguns and Some Excellent Gun LinksAssault Weapons
  • Gun-Fearing Wussies in California
  • Melissa Learns to Shoot, and a Pair of .22 Target Pistols
  • Review: North American Arms Black Widow
  • Thoughts on Power and Weakness
• It's funny. Laugh.
  • Elvis is the Watermelon
  • GOUT!
• Knoxville
  • Daytrips near Knoxville
    • Chattanooga
    • Crossville
    • Jonesborough
    • Townsend
  • Knoxville Night Life
• Misc.
  • Do You Think I'm Addicted to Coffee?
  • Transient Ischemic Attacks (TIA)
• Politics
  • Homosexuality
  • Tennessee Income Tax
• Wedding
  • Bridesmaids Dresses
  • Lighter Side of the Ball and Chain
  • Modern Bride
  • Wedding Plan Version 2.0
  • Wedding Registry, Etc.