New BLOG VILLAGE FORUM and CHAT

Have you found our new forum and chat room? If not, you probably haven't been voting for anyone's blog lately. You'll find links to the forum and chat room on the right hand side of the Gateway page. That's the page you see when you click on any Villager's voting banner or link on their blog.

The chat room is there for any Villagers who want to carry on a live conversation with other members, but you'll have to arrange your meeting time via email or comments on each other's blogs.

But the Forum is open all the time, with all the threads there for you to read and comment on. Please feel free to start threads of your own, too. Make the forum into whatever suits you, our members, as long as you keep it constructive. It's perfectly OK to complain, but try to give a suggestion on how to fix what's bothering you. And, just as the TopList is family friendly, it goes without saying that I expect everyone to behave civilly when they post there.

The forum is meant only for members, so that's why you won't find a link to it anywhere else.

I'm looking forward to reading what you have to say!



Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Working on our BLOG VILLAGE Gateway Page

I'm still playing around with the idea of how to make the Gateway page of our TopList more useful, so I decided to try Anthony's suggestion of putting BLOG VILLAGE specific content there, rather than generic content. I can't move the voting button up to the top yet, as I am waiting on the gotop programmers to make that possible. In the meantime, please bear with me as you have to go to the bottom of the page to vote. If you click END on your keyboard, it will take you to the voting button immediately.

Jackie suggested that we start a Chat or Forum, where Villagers can talk about all things related to our blogs, and link to it here, as well. I haven't had time to work on that, but I haven't forgotten about it.

Once I can get the page fully developed, I will probably remove at least some of the extra content, such as carnival banners in between the Villager banners, from the TopList itself, and some of the announcements, too. So, you might want to bookmark the Gateway page, and use it to enter BLOG VILLAGE. That's what I had in mind, anyway.

PS Entering from your bookmarked Gateway page will give you a HIT IN.

Please let me know what you think, as I will consider any suggestions.



Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

VOTE FOR YOURSELF This Week

If you want to remain part of the BLOG VILLAGE community, then you must show your involvement by voting for your blog FROM THE VOTING LINK ON YOUR OWN BLOG in the first week of each month. So, it's time to click on your banner on your blog. Don't have the banner on your blog? Then add it from the code in the left hand column of your control panel. Can't find the code? Email me, and I'll send it to you.

Many Villagers have received an email warning that their blog would be deleted, if they did not make a new post or add the voting link to their blog. Those blogs are shown on the TopList with as asterisk at the beginning of their title. I have no desire to delete anyone, but I also have no desire to carry blogs who are not participating in our community. So, I have set a deadline of Sept. 15 before I delete any who have not complied.

If blogs you enjoy are in danger of being dropped from BLOG VILLAGE, please encourage your blog friends to fix the problem, vote for themselves this week, and once at the beginning of each month, and become an Active participant. And, of course, YOU can vote for any blog you like from the banner on their blog, too. It only takes ONE HIT IN to keep a blog showing on the Village.

Right now, all the blogs are showing to give these blogs in danger of being dropped extra time to fix their situation, but after Sept. 15, only those with a HIT IN will show.

I know some of you are getting dizzy with all the changes I seem to be making lately, but they are all done to accomplish one thing. And that is to get our Village down to a list of blogs who are genuinely interested in belonging and being involved. Those are the bloggers who will take the time to read and comment on what you have posted. Without participation, the others just don't belong here.

I do appreciate those expressions of thanks many of you have sent me, as this does take a good bit of my time. But I truly believe our Village is worth the effort, and I hope you agree.

Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

How to Be an ACTIVE Member of BLOG VILLAGE

I really do appreciate those of you who took the time to vote on the two polls I listed, and particularly those who commented about them. I'm not seeing an overwhelming consensus, so, as administrator, I have decided how I will proceed with our Village.

Just so you will understand where I'm coming from, that word Village was chosen as part of our name for a very important reason. I did NOT want our TopList to become just another blog directory, but rather, a community of bloggers with similar ideas about what is appropriate for a Family Friendly blog, regardless of the topics discussed.

I am NOT going to put a limit of 500 members, but I AM going to set some criteria for continued membership.

I'm going to manually reset the list at the FIRST of AUGUST, so that it will reset at the beginning of each month. For the first week after the reset each month, all the blogs will show. I will give everyone ONE WEEK before I change the settings each month, and then only those blogs with at least 1 vote IN will show on the TopList.(This didn't turn out to be such a good idea, and I now leave all blogs showing, but delete any blogs that have not received at least 1 HIT IN by the end of the month.) If you really want to be part of our community, asking you to vote for your own blog once a month is reasonable. If that's too much trouble for you, then it's time for you to let me know, so I can delete your blog. Any member who does not have at least one HIT IN by the end of the month will be deleted.

I will, however, continue to RANK the list by HITS OUT, as it encourages interaction with the TopList itself. Ranking doesn't really seem to be that important to most of you, but the importance of community is a value that many of you share with me. Please continue to vote for blogs you appreciate and comment on the TopList about the blog, itself, as this is one of the ways you can encourage your fellow Villagers.

With a large membership, it will take me about 3 months to comfortably take a look at each blog. I will warn any member who has not posted in the last 3 months or who does not have the BLOG VILLAGE Banner or link prominently displayed. If the problem is not corrected within two weeks, I will delete that blog.

As always, if you see a post on any Villager's blog that you find objectionable, please email me as soon as possible, so I can deal with the situation as I see fit.

With your active participation, I am confident that we can maintain the community ethic no matter what size our VILLAGE is!

Looking forward to visiting each of you over the next few months.




Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

Confused???

I'm sorry that my change on the way your blog shows on BLOG VILLAGE has been so confusing to so many of you. I'll try to explain what's happening, so maybe I can put your mind at ease.

When I reset everyone to zero Saturday night, no one showed on the list until they had a vote from their own blog banner or text link.

The gotop100 servers cycle through all the members for all the toplists they have, and that takes some time. That means that you will not instantly see your vote "count." Until the server recycles, which is usually every 30 minutes, even though you or someone else voted for your blog, IT WILL NOT SHOW ON THE LIST. Once you have ONE VOTE showing, your blog will show on the list until the monthly reset. Then the list will go blank again, until someone votes.

If you vote for yourself, and your blog is still not showing on BLOG VILLAGE after waiting an hour, by all means email me, as something is wrong, and hopefully, I can fix it or tell you how to fix it.

The fact that so many of you are writing me, asking for help understanding why your blog isn't showing, is a good thing (although frustrating for both of us). It means you CARE!!!

I'm trying this new method because so many of our almost 300 members aren't keeping their blogs active or with a good voting link. There have been way too many blogs whose only vote all month long was MINE, when I've been doing the monthly check in! And, there have been as many as 25 or so each month that I end up emailing repeatedly, trying to get them to put the voting link back up after template changes, etc.

Please be patient while we all get used to this different way of displaying your TopList entry each month. In the long run, I hope it makes for a smaller, but more active and useful list, with fewer "dud" blogs to wade through to find the "good stuff!"

Doing my best,

Rosemary



Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

NOTICE!! **********NEW Reset Procedure STARTS TONIGHT!!

As you probably already know, our BLOG VILLAGE TopList is set to change all votes back to zero once a month. This allows every Villager the opportunity to be on the front page of the list, depending on how many votes your blog gets. It has been my habit each month to go through and vote for each blog, as a way to reacquaint myself with blogs I've lost touch with, as well as check for dormant blogs, or those that no longer have the voting link displayed.

We are very close to a membership of 300 now, and real life has cut into my time for blogging considerably lately. I have decided to change the way our TopList is set up, so that only those members who have at least 1 vote will show up at all. That means each month you will need to assure yourself a place on the list by voting for yourself from the link on your own blog. The gotop100 server cycles through the votes in about 30 minutes, so you may not see your blog appear in the list immediately. If you vote, and your votes does not show up within an hour, it may mean that there is something wrong with your link, or it may be a server problem I have no control over. Please email me if you cannot get your link to work, and I'll see if I can figure out what the problem is.

I have my blogs listed with some directories, etc., that I have never visited again, once I had them set up. BLOG VILLAGE was never intended to be that kind of place. I chose the name very carefully, to convey the feeling of friendship and caring for each other that I have tried to make a part of our community. So it seems reasonable that the Villagers who are interested enough in our Community to vote for themselves once a month should be the Villagers whose blogs are listed. Of course, we hope you get lots of votes from lots of other visitors, as well! But to get your banner or name on the list, you will now need to vote once for yourself.

This change in procedure will have several positive results, I think, and no negative ones that I'm aware of. It will free my blogging time to more productive tasks, such as reading and commenting, instead of "policing." It will cut the size of the TopList, so that the active blogs will be those people see. And it should encourage new members to add the voting link quicker, cutting down on the number of emails I have to write to individual members.

I am always open to suggestions about the way BLOG VILLAGE is run, but ultimately, the decision is up to me as to how to proceed. I will evaluate this change to the reset system for awhile and will let you know if I decide to make further changes.

Hoping this change will be a positive step forward for all our Villagers,

Rosemary


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE? Start HERE.

If you are interested in being the Featured Villager on our BLOG VILLAGE News blog, please contact Janey Loree, Kilroy, or the Gatekeeper, the members of our Village Interview Team.

We Reached 250 Villagers on our TopList Today!!

We've been hovering close to this "magic" number for some time now, as blogs were added and others were put on InActive Status or Deleted for not having the banner on their sites. But today we actually did reach the total of 250 Active members!

Those of you who have displayed your voting banner or link prominently on your blogs are, for the most part, the ones to thank for our tremendous growth since May, 2006, when we opened BLOG VILLAGE. The other reason we have been able to attract so many quality blogs is the wonderful way many of you have joined in the community feel of our TopList and showed, through your continuing comments on each other's blogs, that you really are interested in each other.

I hope that this year sees an increase in publicity for BLOG VILLAGE and for each of your blogs. I also would like to see even more participation among our Villagers as far as supporting each other's blogs. You show your support for your fellow Villagers when you comment on their posts, and when you vote for their blogs. You also contribute to the quality of BLOG VILLAGE when you post regularly on your own blog.

If you will make an effort to work toward more participation, the ultimate result will be that you will have more quality links to your blog, your traffic will increase, your readership will increase, and your Search Engine Rank will increase, too.

So, I wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all you Villagers who have done your part to make this one of the best blog TopLists on the Internet, and I look forward to our continued growth!!

As always, if there is anything I can do to help you achieve these goals, don't hesitate to ask. And if you have any suggestions or ideas that will help all our Villagers, please email me.

Happy Blogging to You All,

Rosemary

This is a copy of the email I sent all our BLOG VILLAGERS today.


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE?

Start HERE.

BLOG VILLAGE was established on May 23, 2006, currently with a membership of 250 Active Villager blogs.

Our Featured BLOG VILLAGER - Ashwin Khanna

Hi there,

This is Janey Loree, a member of the BLOG VILLAGE Interviewing Team. In the near future you will start seeing interviews by The Gatekeeper and Kilroy. Please stop by their blogs to thank them for taking some of their precious time to help us find out more about our Villagers.

Before Christmas, I interviewed Ashwin Khanna, one of our newest Villagers, and asked him seven questions to gain more information about who he is, and what his blog, AceTech, is all about. (Ashwin has moved his blog to his domain and renamed it to 30 Gigabytes Dot Com.)

Ashwin is a seventeen year old, who fills his blog with posts on technology, electronic gadgets, and making money by blogging. While browsing his blog, I found his Christmas Eve post quite interesting. He stopped blogging during finals, but I have a feeling that he is gathering more technology, gadgets and advice that will show up on his blog in the near future.

He shares a link to a button making site and is willing to host these buttons on his blog in an attempt to help his fellow bloggers advertise their blogs. Remember to create an 80 x 15 button to advertise on Ashwin’s blog! Mine are almost ready!

Janey Loree: Who is Ashwin Khanna? Tell us more about your blog!

Ashwin: Ashwin Khanna is a young blogger who is willing to learn the right tools of the trade to be successful in every aspect of life. I am into blogging, music and going out with friends and having fun. My blog is about a true passion of mine, which is technology and gadgets, and I use this blog to let my readers know of the latest products and reviews and other tech tips and tricks.

Janey Loree: Ashwin, what prompted you to start blogging in the first place?

Ashwin: I don't know really. I was reading in papers and on the internet about how blogs were becoming popular and thought I should give it a try. So I did.

Janey Loree: When do you do your blog reading?

Ashwin: I normally read other blogs after school and in the evening. I find out about other blogs on forums and blog directories. As a student, I don't get as much time to read blogs as I would like, but I try to whenever I can.

Janey Loree: Where did you hear about BLOG VILLAGE?

Ashwin: On most of the blogs I read, I always see a banner ad for blog village, and so I decided to check it out. Hopefully, it will increase readership for my blog, which I am sure it will.

Janey Loree: Why do you blog? Is your blog personal, business, etc?

Ashwin: I blog so I can let other people with a passion for gadgets learn about the newest and latest products. I also blog to see what people think of the products I write about, and, hopefully for me, I can earn money from my blog.

Janey Loree: How often do you post and how many blogs do you maintain?

Ashwin: I generally post about 2-3 times a day, however sometimes it can be more or less depending on how much homework I have. My collection of blogs is called AceMedia.

Making up AceMedia are 30 Gigabytes Dot Com,
AceGames, and Ace2.0


Bonus Question: Which BLOG VILLAGER would you recommend for the next interview?

Ashwin: As I am new to blog village, I don't know many users, but I think it should
be someone with the lowest ranking, so there readership can increase.



Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE?

Start HERE.

BLOG VILLAGE was established on May 23, 2006, currently with a membership of 245 Villager blogs.

Blog Village - A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Blogosphere

Not long ago, Kilroy60 decided to celebrate the anniversary of his blog's first year on the Internet by having a Commentathon. His goal was to reach 365 comments within a month's time, and he actually came close, with at least 311 comments.

Many of those commentors were fellow Blog Villagers. This may have a little to do with his latest post, or maybe nothing at all. Who knows with Kilroy?!?!? Anyway, I encourage you to follow the link in the title and read and comment on some of the Villagers whom the big Kilroy has chosen for his Hitchhiker's Guide.

Thanks, Kilroy60, for giving these fine blogs a featured position on your blog. Let's pay back his kindness, folks, by visiting his Guide, choosing a Villager or two, and commenting on their blogs! Kilroy is not going to be upset with you if you leave him a comment, either!!!


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE?

Start HERE.

BLOG VILLAGE was established on May 23, 2006, currently with a membership of 246 Villager blogs.

Verification, Moderation, Hurdles to Comments??? A Personal RANT

I've noticed that an increasing number of Bloggers in general are using the verification process to weed out comment bots. And I've also seen quite a few blogs that I frequent who've gone to moderated comments. These measures to prevent spamming and offensive comments kill the spontaneous flow of the conversation between the blogger and the reader, IMVHO. I, too, have used verification on my own blogs from time to time, when I seemed to be the target for these bots, but I try to take the verification back off just as soon as the spam storm seems to have passed.

I say all that to say that personally, I very much dislike to comment on someone's blog, only to find that I have to fill in a long string of letters. Usually, I've taken so long to compose my comment, that I end up having to fill out two sets of letters, because the first set has expired. There are even a few sites I've seen that make me do the verification thingy, and then they moderate the comment, too!!

I've been on dialup for the last week, and it's really made me appreciate just how cumbersome this whole verification process is. If you choose to Preview your comment, then you have to put in another string of letters in order to Submit your comment. Not to mention you have to wait while the slow dialup loads all this stuff.

Well, can you tell I'm just a wee bit peeved? Yes, I know the bots are out there. Yes, I know they can be a real pain. All I'm saying is, some of you have gone overboard and turned the prospect of commenting on your blogs into a real pain, too. I hope I've given you something to think about, anyway.


Interested in joining BLOG VILLAGE?

Start HERE.

BLOG VILLAGE was established on May 23, 2006, currently with a membership of 226 Villager blogs.