On Linky Love

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Reading this piece from the NY Times about the Larry Craig case, I thought it was worth pointing to this quote by famous blogger Jeff Jarvis: ”A link is not necessarily an endorsement, but a way to say ‘you go judge for yourself.’ ”

link_meBecause blogging is still not well understood in this part of the world, there are some things that people don’t realize about this medium. Many people think that when I link to something it necessarily means that I agree with it. This is not true. In most cases, when I link to something I usually mean: “hey, check this out.” Another thing is that most bloggers here don’t know how to use linking properly to provide a better reading experience.

Old timers on this blog probably remember when I used to link to dozen of stuff everyday with short or no commentary at all. I stopped doing that, but I still provide a lot of links everyday to content that I think worth checkin out in right sidebar under the title Arabic Picks. I chose to make it all in Arabic because I don’t write in Arabic anymore and I thought this could be like an alternative to writing (I admit it’s not, but hey, at least I’m trying :-). I’d love to hear what you have to say about this, so kick things off in the comments.

7 thoughts on “On Linky Love”

  1. هذه الزاوية – إن صحت التسمية – في مدونتك تعجبني…ودائما ما أزور ما أراه مثيرا للاهتمام منها .
    وأعترف أنني في بعض الأحيان – خاصة عندما تكون مواضيعك عن الكرة و المنتخب ;-) -أزور المدونة فقط لأرى هذه الروابط
    :-)

    لكن هذا لا يغني عن كتابتك باللغة العربية
    لا زلت أطالب بانضمامك إلى نخبة المدونين السعوديين المدونين باللغة العربية فكتاباتك تستحق القراءة
    والقراء باللغة العربية يستحقون أن تخاطبهم بلغتنا الأم

    :-)

  2. Linking is always a good thing once it’s used properly.

    What I can’t stand is blogs that only have links and the author of the blogs don’t add their opinions to it. It’s ok to do it once in a while but there is blogs that do it on all their posts. One of the most popular bloggerss in the middle east does it. I don’t understand how his blog is so popular all he does is link.

    And no I won’t mention the blog :-) Don’t worry I’m not talking about your blog Ahmed

  3. very true …
    but lets face it .. we were not raised to give our opinion … we are raised to say what others like to hear … i know it’s sad but it’s nothing but hypocrisy.
    We hate to look at it this way to the degree that no-one admits it … thats why many arab bloggers and internet writers in Forums prefer using Nicknames and almost never show their identities. Do we have identity issues ? can’t answer the question .. but always a possibility..

  5. I just read a text on German blog where two commenting guys didn’t understand the text because they didn’t use the link which provides the article on which he refers.

    Now one could say: “He should write it in a way you don’t need to click links” – but that’s not as good as the chance to read a text yourself. So you know it’s real…

    Link dumping is not bad – but I wouldn’t read a blog consisting of links and nothing else (but I use Global Voices and other services).

    Links are good. I totally agree with Jeff – “you go judge for yourself” is a very good explanation why they should be used.

    And because of that I now go and give you a link in on my blogroll ;-)

  6. I think you might need to keep the current style. However, it is fine to write in Arabic from time to time if you feel what you will write need wider base of the readers.

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