History News Network

Departments

Your List Sucks

A couple of days ago, several of us who are listed by Online University Reviews's The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs linked to it. Sharon Howard, "Time for a Good Demolition Job," Early Modern Notes, 5 July, offers in its stead another list – of some reasons OUR's list is "a pile of stinking poo" -- "the most incompetently conceived, sloppily executed, downright utterly worthless effort I have seen in four years of blogging."

Sharon's right. Apart from dubious judgments (given thousands of available choices, is Judith Klinghoffer's de ja vu really one of the 100 Best Academic Blogs on the net?) and misinformed categories (why are both de ja vu and Juan Cole's Informed Comment listed as Political Science rather than History blogs?). #46 on OUR's list is particularly telling: Jeff Pasley's "Inactive Notes of a Left-Wing Cub Scout" is described as "this amusingly titled blog." Well, yow -- but it's real title was "Notes of a Left-Wing Cub Scout." "Inactive" is meant as a signal that Jeff hasn't blogged there since August 2003. If Fiona King wants to catch up with Jeff, he's currently blogging at Publick Occurrences. If she's going to assay "The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs," King really ought to get acquainted with them.

Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 2:22 AM | Comments (5) | Return

Home Newsletter Submissions Advertising Donations Archives Internships About Us FAQs Contact Us All Articles