dear marcos;
all snark aside, i am deeply disappointed that you would remove skippy from your blogroll.
especially considering that skippy has been around only 3 or 4 months less than dailykos, and i've been a dkos member since that time. with the exception of one sunday in 2003 when i just couldn't bring myself to turn on the computer, i have blogged consistently everyday for 5 years come july. i'm not a flash in the pan.
i wonder how many other dkos users with user id's under 2000 have their blogs dumped off the roll? maybe kid oakland, i don't see his blog there. but, really...you have actually hurt my feelings, kos.
it's not as if skippy hasn't had a role in the history of blogs becoming an important part of the political and media landscape, and no, i'm not being snarky here.
-- more --
i'd be happy to see a correction, but i believe skippy was the very first blog to engage cnn in a "dialogue," as much as it was, when we wrote to daryn kagan during the 2004 democratic convention to correct her about blogs reporting news inaccurately, when she herself was guilty of wrongly accusing david letterman of falsifying the video where the kid yawned behind bush as he spoke.
also, skippy was the blog repsonsible for getting judy woodruff, and later, abbi tatton and jacki schechner to stop over-loading cnn's "inside the blogs" segment with conservative blogs, and start giving liberal blogs more air time, with our research of conservative v. liberal sound bytes per segment and our constant letter-writing campaign to judy, and later abbi and jacki.
and we're not riding on our laurels. as recent as the ben domenech washpo fiasco, we were the first blog to point out the errors in domenech's first column (which happened to be the incorrect meme that you, and dailykos, was "0 for 20" in supporting winning candidates, a meme i have strongly fought against with other media types, with letter writing campaigns, including to wonkette as well, who wrote back and sort of admitted her cuplability).
(abbi has gone on the record with "i love skippy," and she writes us that she she reads our stuff daily.)
addendum upon edit: whoops, i forgot the fact that skippy was a finalist in the 2006 weblog awards for best liberal blog (and we didn't come in last in the voting! ha!)...and, a winner of the first annual coveted golden monkeyfister award!
dude, i'm not just a snarky anti-capitalist. my blog holds an important place in blogtopia, and yes, i coined that phrase. even putting aside the fact our traffic meter comes no where close to yours, we happily link to dozens of other blogs with even less traffic...and thusly, when you cut skippy off your blogroll, you by extension cut the path off for the smaller blogs to get readers surfing their way thru blogtopia (y! ictp!).
sure, i wasn't surprised when duncan dumped me off echaton's roll. he was pretty snotty to me at ykos in person, and hasn't given me a link in his daily work for more than a year.
but you were quite civil to me, and very personable. i guess i mistook that for respect of my work and my place in what is probably the biggest communications revolution since gutenberg.
no, i'm not a big blogger; tho, yes, skippy has been quoted and cited on several big media programs, papers and websites (let's not forget that we were mentioned twice on the daily show).
i would have thought that my place in blogging history, tho not at the forefront, would have been secured, at least in the corner in the back of the room somewhere. or in the little foray leading to the kitchen. or something.
do i need the traffic from your blog? well, it couldn't hurt, i suppose. and, yes, there are other blogs out there with much bigger numbers in terms of readers. but even without your (and atrios') link in the past few days, i've maintained my regular 1000-1500 hits, which i've maintained for the past 3 years. so somebody's reading my stuff, even if it ain't you and duncan.
and, luckily, other important blogs still think skippy is worth a looksee now and then, and have links to my blog on their rolls, including digy, jeralyn, glenn greenwald, steve gilliard, fdl, c&l, eric alterman (who kept me on his transfer from msnbc to media matters, and who graciously emailed me to let me know), tom tomorrow...the late great media horse put me as one of the four blogs on his/her roll. yes, the big guys (and gals, hi jane and christy!).
whining? i guess i am. but more than that, i'm confused and genuinely hurt. i had hoped my support for you throughout the last almost five years would have counted for something.
no, this is not a "goodbye cruel world" diary. but it is a "what the f kind of world is this, where when guys get big and crash the gates they shut those same gates on the little guy? what is this, republicanism?" diary.
all i can say is, unfortunately, skippy has a "reciprocal link only" policy, and i will now be forced to remove dkos from my roll. I don’t’ want to, but it’s editorial policy.
sorry dude. but you really did hurt skippy’s feelings.