Top of the Blogs: The Golden Dozen #54
Written by Stephen Tall on 3rd March 2008 – 8:26 pmWelcome to the 54th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (24th February – 1st March), together with a quintet hand-picked by Lib Dem blog readers you might otherwise have missed.
Here we go, in descending order of popularity:
1. Live from the Ed Davey Interview on Jo Anglezarke’s Jo’s Jottings blog.
This is what you get if you mix Ed Davey, bloggers, and a fevered imagination.
2. Evan harries the invincible Cable on Jock Coats’ Jock’s Place.
Jock sticks up for Vince’s championing of the radical liberal tradition of redistributive taxes – taxing wealth not income.
3. Jo Swinson shows why she ought to be the next party leader on Antony Hook’s blog.
Perhaps Jo and Susan Kramer can team up?
4. Why I won’t bet on the Lib Dems any more by Mike Smithson on Lib Dem Voice.
In the nicest possible way.
5. The Two Messages Brian Paddick Needs To Get Across on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
Some friendly advice on how our London mayoral candidate needs to make the electoral system work for him.
6. Why Ed Davey is wrong about the Lisbon Treaty on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
“The biggest problem with the Lib Dems’ current position on Lisbon is that it evades making the case for this treaty.”
7. EXCLUSIVE: Vince Cable in free travel scam shocker! on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
And is that Shirley Williams appearing as his dance partner?
And now to the five slots we reserve under the category ‘well worth reading even if they didn’t get the most clicks this week’. Thanks to all those who submitted nominations – both of you, in fact. Don’t tell me you guys are already tiring of doing my work for me? For shame. Remember, all you have to do is drop me a line at , highlighting the best Lib Dem blog postings from the past week (providing the web-link and author, and any tagline comment you care to have published).
8. Contexts of abuse on Mary Reid’s blog.
Recognising the liberal advances made in ensuring child abuse is no longer swept under the carpet.
9. Beating Ashcroft at his own game on Pete Dunphy’s party political plc blog.
A progressive donor who wants to level the political playing field and make a Betterworld – and who is also supporting Labour. Ah well.
10. Is Lib Dem policy being dictated by back seat drivers on Nich Starling’s Norfolk Blogger blog.
Did Shirley Williams’ resignation threat prompt Ming Campbell to ditch the idea of a Lisbon Treaty referendum?
11. Exclusive – How Nick Clegg prepares for PMQs on Alex’s A Lanson Boy blog.
Nominated by Mark Pack: “I think we should demand that the staff are named 
”
12. The Tip Top Top of the Top Blogs – full time scores on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
A round-up of the Golden Dozen round-ups… It’s all gone a bit meta, hasn’t it?
And that’s it for another week… Happy blogging.
<a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-golden-dozen-54-2268.html"><img src="http://www.libdemvoice.org/images/golden-dozen.png" width="200" height="57" alt="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" title="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" /></a>
Tags: lord ashcroft
Posted in Best of the blogs 18 Comments »
3rd March 2008 at 9:24 pm
Steve,
Following on from the TV phone rigging scandal is there any chance you can publish the click through totals when you publish the results. I do not have a counter on my site and although my posts sometimes stay in the top five for a couple of days I never seem to get the numkbers? Cheers – if anyone wants to think this is sour grapes – its not – but think what you want. Its a free world – well for now it is anyways.
3rd March 2008 at 9:27 pm
A ‘fevered imagination’? I just made a cool £150 out of it!!!
Be nice if someone paid me the same rate on here!
3rd March 2008 at 9:42 pm
Good for you Jo!
3rd March 2008 at 10:43 pm
Just a little post-it note for Stephen…where’s the little yellow box that usually links to The Golden Dozen? It’s just I haven’t been in for the last month so it would be nice to put an update box on my blog…
Thanks you :@))
3rd March 2008 at 10:52 pm
Top tip: there’s an easy way to make your own little yellow box (as it were). Just find any of the old ones, and replace the number in there with the one from the URL at the top here – in this case, “54-2268″.
I suspect people of greater technical accomplishment can tell you all the right words for bits of code, but I just worked it out as a ’spot the difference’ puzzle
3rd March 2008 at 11:31 pm
Bob – ref the stats, they’re provided by Ryan Cullen. (And can be independently verfied
) Whether you appear in the top 7 often depends on the time of the week you post – posting something controversial on Wed/Thur is much more likely to make it into the top 7 than something posted over the weekend.
Jo/Alex – forgot to ad the code, sorry. Now in place.
4th March 2008 at 7:11 am
Stephen,
Thanks for the tip. Is that a no then – you can’t post the numbers? Perhaps Ryan can just tell you the numbers and you can write them?
4th March 2008 at 8:03 am
Alex & Stephen – thanks that’s nifty :@) If you wanted to code a box from scratch how would you do it? Is there a formula you follow? I have noticed that it follows a kind of pattern…:@)
4th March 2008 at 9:32 am
Bob, I’m not publishing the numbers, as that in turn could lead to vote rigging
The clicks are only counted by people who are visiting LibDemBlogs, and then click on the title of a post which goes to the actuall blog post. Clicks to the blog itself aren’t counted, and clicks via the RSS feed aren’t either. It’s also not possible to count the people who visit your blog via their bookmarks or links on other peoples blogs.
However as everyone is in the same boat, and the top 7 never claims to be anything else than “the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator”, I’m not that worried that every page view isn’t counted.
Also if you want to get blog stats sign up for one of the many free services including Google Analytics, or Sitemeter.
4th March 2008 at 9:36 am
Jo, it’s the same code every week, just with <a href=”THE LINK IN THE ADDRESS BAR“> changing each time.
4th March 2008 at 10:05 am
The points Ryan makes about what the count is actually a count of are very good ones. The count above doesn’t show ‘the most read Lib Dem blogposts of the week’, and Ryan has never claimed it does. For example, people who (unlike me!) who are not very dependent on the aggregator, and have built up their own readership, will gets lots of readers who never go near Libdemblogs.
None of this is in the slightest way a criticism of libdemblogs, which I think most people who read the Lib Dem blogosphere would be completely lost without.
4th March 2008 at 12:09 pm
The Golden Dozen is perfect as it is!
4th March 2008 at 4:03 pm
Ryan, What a curious thing to say -”Bob, I’m not publishing the numbers, as that in turn could lead to vote rigging”. Are you implying that some people are that desperate to get on the list they will stop at nothing? Also, can you explain how actually publishing the numbers would lead to vote rigging? You have just said how the figures are calcuated so if people wanted to fiddle the count they already could. All I am asking for is clarity – what is wrong with simply saying No 1 Jo A with 50 click throughs?
4th March 2008 at 5:36 pm
Bob,
this is something fun, that you get for free, and it costs effort on the part of the people who do it for you… why are you trying to make it more complicated for them?
Ryan,
thanks for counting clicks, even though I never make it above the line on the list
4th March 2008 at 5:56 pm
Am putting my knitting down long enough to say this so you should be very flattered indeed :@)
I think it’s the London issue rearing its head again :@)
4th March 2008 at 7:26 pm
Ooh, you’re so right, Jo. The London Borough of Oxford and the London Borough of Lincoln are in a giant conspiracy to…
Oh, hang on
4th March 2008 at 8:37 pm
Is it sheer coincidence that whenever certain bloggers are around there is always bitchyness?
4th March 2008 at 11:26 pm
Bob Shaw:- I have not read all your blog posts, and have forgotten some I am sure. My main memory is that when you mention another Liberal Democrat blogger it is almost always just to criticise them. I wonder if your question is best answered by yourself?