The Alliance

Why Open TrackBacks?

Recently, there has been an explosion of "Open TrackBack" posts on the Web. Coupled with that are the phenomenon of "Inline TrackBacks" -- posts where the TrackBacks appear on the front page, usually immediately below the post.

This has become an issue with some. Here's why.

• The Truth Laid Bear runs an "Ecosystem" based upon links. The more links you have, the higher you are in the Ecosystem.
• Some bloggers have used submissions to the "Open/Inline TrackBack" posts to inflate their standing in the Ecosystem.
• Some bloggers have hosted "Open/Inline TrackBack" posts in order to get links with inflate their standing in the Ecosystem.

Here at the Alliance, in posts under the Blog Tips category, we've told how to add "Open/Inline TrackBacks" to Blogger posts. So, it appears that we're encouraging such activity.

The whole issue of "Open/Inline TrackBacks" has caused several people to get their panties in a wad. While I'm not wanting to contribute to the controversy with this post, the controversy itself does bring this blog tip:

Before you implement Open TrackBacks or Inline TrackBacks on your site, consider why you are doing it.

If you want to cause your standing in the Ecosystem to rise, perhaps you're doing it for the wrong reason.

If you want to increase exposure of posts that others might not otherwise see, you might be doing it for a better reason.

Keep in mind that if your reason is simply to get noticed, that's not a good enough reason.

Remember, Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald got noticed.

Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should do something.

Your blog is a potentially powerful tool. Don't abuse it.

New Precision Guided Humor Assignment: A Cloud For Your Silver Lining

[Inspired by a suggestion from Basil of Basil's Blog]

Ever notice that, no matter what happens during the War on Terror, the anti-war crowd will find a way to spin it to make it sound like it's a failure and a quagmire?

If Iraqis get to vote for the first time in their lives, you can probably count on the New York Times to lament "Millions of Iraqis were forced to color their fingers with ink just so that they could vote! They call these free elections? Also, ink pads weren't sterilized between users! Is Bush setting Iraq up for a bacterial epidemic?"

On and on... so sad... so predictable.

Your Precision Guided Humor Assignment this week is two-fold:

1) Find actual good news in the War on Terror and 2) put anti-war spin on it to make it sound like bad news.

Post the answer at your own blog and leave a link in the comments to this post, leave a trackback, or e-mail the permalink directly to Alliance.PGH@gmail.com. Entries due by 9pm EDT Wednesday, December 7th and GEBIV will post the round-up Wednesday night. Late entries must be accompanied by a lame excuse.

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!

Precision Guided Round-Up: Cindy Sheehan's book - Reviews

Sometimes, The Alliance actually does something that has a certain kind of public benefit. This could be considered one of those times. Maybe...

Recently, Cindy "I Blame Bush" Sheehan wrote a book. And as a public service, we at The Alliance have written some reviews.... well sort of.

GOP and College couldn't think of anything funnier than some of the actual reviews over at Amazon.com.

SeanS of Shoot a Liberal protests having to read about this protester.

The man at GOP and the City was hired to do the review before the assignment. And he scanned a few pages for us.

Dane Bramage gives us an in-depth chapter by chapter review.

Harvey, posting at IMAO, gives us his opinion. He also ponders why so many of the bad reviews are dissapearing from Amazon.com.

I (GEBIV of There's One, Only!) get some big name Liberals to give me quotes about the book.

Damien G. of Conservathink does a review with some fake (I hope) excerpts for us.

George guy at Pontifications of George has his own take on the book.

bob, over at either orr, has his cracked research team review Cindy's attempt at gettting another 15 minutes of fame.

In the comments, Marvin asks:

cindy - book ???
I thought she was too broken-hearted to think, let alone write a book.

The real question is: Who is RAB? and who helped RAB?

And bill at Possibility Knot knows that a picture is truly worth a thousand words... and somewhat more than 175 pages.

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS! Even those who practice a more subtle form of tyranny...

If I missed your entry or there's a typo or broken permalink, please leave a comment, or e-mail us directly at Alliance.PGH@gmail.com

Friday Linky Stuff

Carnival of Comedy #31 is up at The (not so) Daily Me.

The Best of Me Symphony #106 will be at The Owner's Manual. Entry deadline is midnight Sunday. E-mail to gcruse-at-netscape.com with subject line "Best of Me Symphony".

When Cats Attack!! will be hosting the next Carnival of the Cats (#89). Submit your post containing a picture of a cat or a Reasonable Facsimilie of a Cat (RFOAC) by 5pm Sunday to cats-at-isfullofcrap.com See the Carnival of the Cats home page for details.

Bonfire of the Vanities is looking for your WORST post of the week. Send entries to bonfire-at-wizbangblog.com by 6pm Monday

Also, new Bonfire hosts are needed ASAP!

Carnival of the Vanities #168 will be at Denali Flavors. Submit a link to your best post by 5pm Tuesday to contact-at-moosetracks.com. You should probably just do the easy thing and use Conservative Cat's All-Purpose Submission Page this week (see below).

NOTICE FROM SILFLAY HRAKA: December 28th is "The 171st and final edition of the COTV, at least as co-ordinated by Silflay Hraka. Should you wish to be come the new manager of the COTV, drop us a line."

Before signing on as the new COTV moderator, consider what you're getting into (especially point #7). If you're sure you're up to it, submit your name to Silflay Hraka for consideration.

Conservative Cat's All-Purpose Carnival Submission Page - Bookmark this handy form, and you can enter almost any carnival with just a few clicks. It doesn't get much more convenient than this, folks. Additionally, it now features a "Carnival News" section, featuring links to the most recent Carnival posts. Also please note that Ferdy tracks a LOT more Carnivals than just the ones listed at Alliance HQ.

***NEW*** The Blog Carnival Index currently tracks 144 blog carnivals and offers a submission form. If you can't find a carnival at Conservative Cat, look here (and vice versa).

Conservative Cat's Permanent Floating Ping Festival. Just send a ping to http://www.conservativecat.com/Ferdy/.track.cgi/3, and you will show up on the front page. The only rule is you need to have a link to Conservative Cat somewhere on your front page, but most Alliance members should already have that. Just keep it clean and no more than one per day. The 15 most recent pings are displayed in the right sidebar with an excerpt.9

Basil of Basil's Blog wants to send you traffic!
If you trackback to a post in his "Articles of Interest" category (usually titled either "Breakfast", "Brunch", "Lunch", or "Supper"), the trackback from your post will appear in the "Covered Dish Special" section at the bottom of the post. All he asks is that you give a courtesy link back to the post you're trackbacking. See the link for details.

The New Blog Carnival Showcase - a chance for new bloggers (3 months old or newer) to get some free exposure. It's a great way to get your beginner's talent discovered. See this post for details. For blogs that are too old, you should consider checking out the entries, since grateful new bloggers tend to reciprocate post links with permalinks.

Blogosphere Political Compass Project - Sandor of The Zoo is graphing the political positions of all the bloggers who are willing to take a short quiz and send him the results. Details on how you can get a link out of this can be found at the BPCP home page.

A Filthy Lie

Alex of Alex in Wonderland spotted Evil Glenn out Christmas shopping.

Filthy Round-Up: Evil Glenn at the Airport

Well, I guess not too many people felt like lying about Evil Glenn this week.

All we got in response to the question of:

What was Evil Glenn's connection to the mob that attacked the New York Air desk at Washington National Airport?

...was a totally non-photoshopped picture, rumors of an evil billboard, and an eyewitness account.

From Harvey posting at IMAO, myself (GEBIV of There's One, Only!), and SeanS of Shoot a Liberal. Respectively.

INSTAPUNDO DELENDA EST!

If I missed your entry or there's a typo or broken permalink, please leave a comment, or e-mail us at Alliance.filthylies@gmail.com

New Filthy Lie Assignment: Evil Glenn - Wedding Crasher

As everyone knows, Alliance Fearless Leader Frank J. of IMAO is soon to wed the Lovely and Talented SarahK of mountaineer musings.

The wedding of the century.

And a perfect target for Evil Glenn's perfidy.

Your Filthy Lie Assignment is to answer the question:

What will Evil Glenn be doing during Frank J. & SarahK's wedding?

Post your response at your own blog and leave a link in the comments to this post, leave a trackback, or e-mail the permalink directly to Alliance.filthylies@gmail.com. Entries due by 11pm EDT Friday, December 9th and GEBIV will post the round-up in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Late entries must be accompanied by a lame excuse.

INSTAPUNDO DELENDA EST!

Monday Linky Stuff

Your Precision Guided Humor Assignment:

1) Find actual good news in the War on Terror and 2) put anti-war spin on it to make it sound like bad news.

Is due by 9pm EDT Wednesday, December 7th. Late entries must be accompanied by a lame excuse.

Carnival of Comedy #32 will be at Blonde Sagacity. Links to your funny bits must be submitted by Midnight Wednesday. Submissions are only taken via Ferdy's All-Purpose Carnival Submission Form.

Carnival of the Recipes #68 is up at Blog o'RAM.

The New Blog Carnival Showcase #41 is up at Dave's Not Here.

If you know any blogs that are less than 3 months old, please tell them to enter. If you ARE a blog less than 3 months old, tell yourself to enter, but don't do it in public or people will look at you funny.

If you would like to host a future NBCS, (and new hosts are needed ASAP!) see this post for available dates. If you can host one, please drop a line to showcase.carnival@gmail.com - Remember, new bloggers are especially grateful for any attention they get. Hosting this has a good chance of getting you permalinks and life-long readers.

Best of Me Symphony #106 is up at The Owner's Manual. TS Eliot theme this week. Next week: Tammy Bruce

Carnival of the Cats #89 is up at When Cats Attack!!. The Carnival of the Cats is a travelling show, and Laurence is currently in search of future hosts. Drop him a line if you're interested - laurence-at-isfullofcrap.com. Full details at the new domain, www.carnivalofthecats.com

Carnival of the Capitalists #113 is up at Techronization.

Christian Carnival #99 is coming to Attention Span. Entries due by Tuesday at midnight. Submission guidelines are as follows:

To enter, your post should be of a Christian nature, but this does not exclude
ones that are political (or otherwise) in nature from a Christian point of view.

Send submissions to:  ChristianCarnival-at-gmail.com

Please put "Christian Carnival" in the subject line and provide the following:

Title of your Blog
URL of your Blog
Title of your post
URL linking to that post
Short description of the post

Conservative Cat's All-Purpose Carnival Submission Page - Bookmark this handy form, and you can enter almost any carnival with just a few clicks. It doesn't get much more convenient than this, folks. The page includes a handy "Carnival News" section featuring links to the most recent Carnival posts. Also please note that Ferdy tracks a LOT more Carnivals than just the ones listed at Alliance HQ.

***NEW*** The Blog Carnival Index currently tracks 144 blog carnivals and offers a submission form. If you can't find a carnival at Conservative Cat, look here (and vice versa).

Conservative Cat's Permanent Floating Ping Festival. Just send a ping to http://www.conservativecat.com/Ferdy/.track.cgi/3, and you will show up on the front page. The only rule is you need to have a link to Conservative Cat somewhere on your front page, but most Alliance members should already have that. Just keep it clean and no more than one per day. The 15 most recent pings are displayed in the right sidebar with an excerpt.

Basil of Basil's Blog wants to send you traffic!
If you trackback to a post in his "Articles of Interest" category (usually titled either "Breakfast", "Brunch", "Lunch", or "Supper"), the trackback from your post will appear in the "Covered Dish Special" section at the bottom of the post. All he asks is that you give a courtesy link back to the post you're trackbacking. See the link for details.

James of Outside the Beltway hosts a more-or-less daily linkfest called the Beltway Traffic Jam. Go to the most recent Traffic Jam post in the Traffic Jam category, and send a trackback to get entered in the next edition. If you're ping-impaired, you can use the standalone trackback form, a link to which is conveniently located at the bottom of the Traffic Jam post.

The New Blog Carnival Showcase - a chance for new bloggers (3 months old or newer) to get some free exposure. It's a great way to get your beginner's talent discovered. See this post for details. For blogs that are too old, you should consider checking out the entries, since grateful new bloggers tend to reciprocate post links with permalinks.

Blogosphere Political Compass Project - Sandor of The Zoo is graphing the political positions of all the bloggers who are willing to take a short quiz and send him the results. Details on how you can get a link out of this can be found at the BPCP home page.

Blogger's TrackBack Alternative, Part I

One of the most popular free blogging services, Blogger, doesn't support TrackBacks. Blogger blogs that want TrackBacks on their site were forced to use a third party, such as HaloScan, to offer TrackBacks.

And that's still the case. But Blogger has taken the concepts of TrackBacks down a different path. Blogger offers something called "Backlinks."

What's the difference? Not much, actually.

The idea behind TrackBacks is to know what other blogs are linking to your posts. And that's the same idea behind Backlinks.

The difference is the method of notification, including how quickly links appear. Let's talk a little about each, and cover how to add Backlinks to your Blogger site.

Wednesday Linky Stuff

Your Filthy Lie assignment:

What will Evil Glenn be doing during Frank J. & SarahK's wedding?

Is due by 11pm EDT Friday, December 9th. Late entries must be accompanied by a lame excuse.

Christian Carnival #99 is up at Attention Span. Special "Famous 99's in History" edition.

Carnival of the Vanities #168 is up at Denali Flavors.

NOTICE FROM SILFLAY HRAKA: December 28th is "The 171st and final edition of the COTV, at least as co-ordinated by Silflay Hraka. Should you wish to be come the new manager of the COTV, drop us a line."

Before signing on as the new COTV moderator, consider what you're getting into (especially point #7). If you're sure you're up to it, submit your name to Silflay Hraka for consideration.

Bonfire of the Vanities #127 is up at Special Fried Rice.

and

The Bonfire needs new hosts ASAP!

The next Carnival of the Capitalists posts due by 2pm Saturday. See here for submission address & guidelines.

Carnival of the Recipes #69 will be at Dubious Wonder.
Entries are due by noon Saturday. Submit to recipe.carnival(at)gmail(dot)com.

Conservative Cat's All-Purpose Carnival Submission Page - Bookmark this handy form, and you can enter almost any carnival with just a few clicks. It doesn't get much more convenient than this, folks. It also has a "Carnival News" section featuring links to the most recent Carnival posts. Also please note that Ferdy tracks a LOT more Carnivals than just the ones listed at Alliance HQ.

***NEW*** The Blog Carnival Index currently tracks 144 blog carnivals and offers a submission form. If you can't find a carnival at Conservative Cat, look here (and vice versa).

Conservative Cat's Permanent Floating Ping Festival. Just send a ping to http://www.conservativecat.com/Ferdy/.track.cgi/3, and you will show up on the front page. The only rule is you need to have a link to Conservative Cat somewhere on your front page, but most Alliance members should already have that. Just keep it clean and no more than one per day. The 15 most recent pings are displayed in the right sidebar with an excerpt.

Basil of Basil's Blog wants to send you traffic!
If you trackback to a post in his "Articles of Interest" category (usually titled either "Breakfast", "Brunch", "Lunch", or "Supper"), the trackback from your post will appear in the "Covered Dish Special" section at the bottom of the post. All he asks is that you give a courtesy link back to the post you're trackbacking. See the link for details.

The New Blog Carnival Showcase - a chance for new bloggers (3 months old or newer) to get some free exposure. It's a great way to get your beginner's talent discovered. See this post for details. For blogs that are too old, you should consider checking out the entries, since grateful new bloggers tend to reciprocate post links with permalinks.

Blogosphere Political Compass Project - Sandor of The Zoo is graphing the political positions of all the bloggers who are willing to take a short quiz and send him the results. Details on how you can get a link out of this can be found at the BPCP home page.