For Quadmama: Clearing the Bloglist

Quadmama asked: At what point is it OK to delete someone from your blogroll? I have some great cyber friends but some of them haven't updated their sites for 5 or more weeks. Life happens, I get that and I don't want to offend anyone, but don't know how to keep my site current with really old posts on my blogroll. Don't some host sites (ie: Today.com) lock you out if you go 4 weeks without posting?

Howdy, Quadmama. I don't think I can give a pat answer, but let me tell you what I do.

Back when my bloglist didn't conveniently list out the latest post along with when it was posted (in order of most recent), I had to troll through my list daily to make sure I didn't miss anything. It was a real time drag (and I'm a busy mom, like you, but fewer kids to herd). Back then, things that didn't update reasonable and/or blogs that lost my interest, that I really didn't read were culled frequently. My thought was (and is) that, if I felt going and being disappointed was a waste of time (not worth waiting for or taking the time), they probably shouldn't be on my bloglist.

Harsh, but it gave me a chance to figure out which blogs were really worth reading every post. Now, because I've developed relationships or figured out which blogs are worth waiting for - and the newest stuff floats to the top effortlessly, I'm less prone to give up on the out-of-date blogs, though, of course, eventually, they'll probably get pruned. Some I keep, hoping they come back, like Secret of Newton and Oldwestmom. They haven't but I think they're worth waiting for.

What does all that mean for you? Nothing, because what I would do is only imposed on me. You have to decide what you're looking for in the blogs you follow. The right time to drop a blog is the time you begin to think the trip there is wasted.

One suggestion, don't worry about rude. If a blog is left unattended for months at a time, they are unlikely to take offense if you move on. In my opinion, a bloglist is something of an endorsement, a statement that these are blogs worth visiting. If you reach the point where you no longer think that's true about a blog, don't feel bad about letting it go.