It's Nice To Know Who Returns A Courtesy...

...and nice to know who does not. I guess I do not understand the world of bloggers, although I certainly have tried; or maybe I do understand - and if I do well it just ain't no different from the rest of the world. There are people out there who when shown a courtesy and given a compliment would show a courtesy back at you, even if they decided not to return a compliment. They direct a courtesy back to you because, even maybe while they do not necessarily agree with you or maybe they just don't even like you enough to give you a compliment, they are respectful folks and they know one of life's best kept rules is that one good deed deserves another. They also see a courtesy given to them as a good deed. So it would make sense that if one blogger provides a link on his blog to the site of another blogger, then that other blogger would return the courtesy; but of course that would only make sense if the other blogger was a respectful type of person.

Of course this does not necessarily mean that someone who fails to return the courtesy of a link with a reciprocal link is a cad; there could be plenty of reasons they do not link back. Some of those reasons could be that a courteous and respectful blogger who has not provided the reciprocal link has not: realized his site was linked to on the other site, updated his site in a while, remembered to provide the reciprocal link, does not provide links as a matter of principal. Then again, the blogger who does not provide a reciprocal link could just be an out and out arrogant, disrespectful, discourteous asshole - although I will admit this type is probably the rare exception. I suppose there could also be a number of other reasons, and it is not that they elude my train of thought right now but rather that I am sure you can think of them yourselves.

I have not quite figured out yet, who of the bloggers for whom I provide a link on my list of links fits in any of the above categories - that is except for two of those categories - those who do not normally provide reciprocal links for whatever reason, and those who have had the courtesy and decency to provide a reciprocal link to my site on their blogs. I also know that out of the first 30 links I have provided to the sites of other bloggers, there are only 7 who showed me the same courtesy in return. So I think a little gardening on my side plot of linked sites is about due. Now I have to decide if I want to treat the non-reciprocating bloggers as weeds and just yank em out by the roots, or if I want to treat them as belonging in their own little brier patch apart from those flowers of respect and decency who had the courtesy grace my garden with a link to my blog. Pretty flowery analogies emanating through my keyboard, but not one word of bullshit to be found, I used all of the manure I had on hand in my real garden.

Well, I'll check the rest of the blogs to see how many others reciprocate with a link to my site, and then I guess I'll give it a good think over the next few days on how I should handle it, and if I should do anything at all. I am pretty sure I will do something, and that weeding and replanting will be taking place in the near future with some. By the way, this is not any sort of a threat to those who don't link back to my site on their own sites. I am not foolish enough to think that my removing a link to your site from my little blog has any effect as any sort of threat, and besides that why would I bother with trying to threaten someone into being courteous. Courtesy is a thing you learn, and then that you develop as your character develops. Making any sort of a threat in order to try to guide someone toward becoming courteous would be counterproductive, and is certainly not something I would even think of attempting with a grown adult who has already developed their own character to either include or exclude common courtesy. Of course, if this rant reminds you that you somehow forgot to give me a link on your site to mine, and then you do me that courtesy, that would be nice of you. A reminder it may be, a threat no - not in the least.

I figure most of the bloggers who visit my site are nice folks. I can sort of tell that from what they have written about in their own blogs, and from the quality of comments they have sometimes left on my blog. I would hate to inadvertently offend any of them by having them think that I believe them to be less than nice people, or that I am making some sort of ludicrous threat when I am not. So please, if you are one of the folks who has not linked to this site on your own site, just take my current rant and any action I take concerning weeding or replanting of non-reciprocating bloggers as me being me, and as me blogging about something that is important to me.

One last thing. If you are a blogger, and provide a link to my blog on your own and I have not given you the courtesy of which I have written - well it is most probably because I am not aware you link to this blog. If that is the the case, please let me know you have extended a courtesy to me, and I will gladly return it to you. Thanks.

All the best,
Glenn B

I toned down the above, the morning immediately after I first posted it. Why? Well because I don't want to be offensive to those who read it and are not among the disrespectful type of bloggers who do not give the least bit of concern to common courtesy. I know my fellow bloggers, the ones to whom I have linked on my blog, better than that. I believe you are rather nice people, and would not have wanted to have you believe otherwise because of the way I had previously phrased some things above.