THE WONKETTE: Ana Marie Cox is the saucy writer behind a weblog about politics that is attracting a following in election-year Washington, D.C.

The Washington Post’s Anne Schroeder, in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor’s Danna Harman, references Washington, D.C.-based blog, wonkette.com, and says of editor Ana Marie Cox: “She’s fun and fresh and right on the money — and is writing what others think but can’t always write … She can curse, for example.”
Harman, herself, writes that wonkette.com “is also another example of the boundary-busting powers of the Internet, where writers like to be less deferential to authority” — an entirely salutary trait in a writer, always.
Mischief-making, with a sense of humour and a fresh, informed and irreverant take on the events of the day, now that sounds like a formula for blogging success. And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that Ms. Cox’s politics are left — “big fat commie pinko,” as she puts it.

Blogging statistics bane of a web loggers existence

Earlier in the week, when reading Debra Galant’s blog, she published an article on how “blogs and blogging are also a game. And it’s very easy, at any given time, to see if you’re winning. Or losing. How are your Technorati numbers? How many hits? Who are your referrers? I have quoted Mark Federman on this before: “Blogstats are the crack cocaine of the Internet.”
Turns out the Debra is not the only one kvetching about blogging traffic and links (as for me, I check my Sitemeter stats only, oh say, 15 or 20 times a day). The New York Times’ Catherine Greenman, in an article published in the Times’ Circuits section, ruminates on how “the question of how to attract readers inevitably enters a blogger’s mind.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times’ David Gallagher, writes about “the information glut” that weblogs have begun to cause.

“By pointing readers to the Web’s newest and best bits, Web logs offer a way to cut through online clutter. But now that there are millions of blogs, what was once a solution to the information glut has started to become part of the problem.”

Gallagher points readers to websites, like Kinja.com, which automatically compile digests of blogs covering a range of subject areas. Both Bloglines and Feedster, although somewhat more complex for the average reader to use, perform much the same function as Kinja.
Perhaps, though — links and traffic, Technorati, Sitemeter, Kinja, Blogdex and Feedster aside — the hope that exists for web logs in the journalistic universe of the new millennium lies, at least to some extent, in the assertions made in Jonathan’s Dube’s article, Blogs still rare, but foster community, on CyberJournalist.net. When all is said and done, each and every web log journalist must take a few minutes to reflect on the enterprise in which each one of us have engaged.
Web logs are very much part of the new digital democracy. In the corporate world of journalism, as reader (and broadcast journalist) Michael Eckford recently wrote in an e-mail to VanRamblings, “the media business is starting to be frighteningly homogenized. The voices offering different perspectives and opinions are finally starting to be heard and, as usual, in a forum that the media still doesn’t recognise as being viable. That shortsightedness may be the saving grace!”
“Basically I’m saying ‘keep it up’. People like you make it much easier for people like me to get a fair, balanced, and interesting view of the world both locally and internationally.”
May we all keep up the good work. There is so much more good to come.

A view of downtown Vancouver, from the vantage point of Kitsilano’s Vanier Park

Concern has been expressed by a handful of readers as to the lack of a monthly archive on the VanRamblings site. Site technician, Michael Klassen, and I continue our discussion on a long-term resolution to this issue, but for the moment, we think we’ve come up with a suitable compromise.
Yes, it’s true that, for the moment, there’s no monthly VanRamblings index. Tomorrow, April 1st, the March calendar will disappear. Even so, you’ll still find yourself able to access VanRamblings’ archives.
The front page of VanRamblings provides readers with ready access to articles published in the past 7 days. Top right on the ‘front page’, under Topics, you’ll find links to every article — published by category — dating back to the inception of the site. Click on Web/Tech, for instance (either the web/tech button in the ‘logo box’ at the top, or under Topics), and you’ll readily find every article ever published on VanRamblings on that topic.
As it happens, many of the archived articles are updated quite regularly, so it’s worthwhile checking out the topic categories from time to time.
Hope this VanRamblings maintenance / archive explanation helps a bit.

Debra Galant explains the universe

When making my daily foray to Debra Galant’s weblog, the first item I ran across today made reference to International Blog Comment Day, an idea put forth by Spanglemonkey.
According to Debra, here are the rules: “No freeloading. If you read somebody’s blog, you have to post a comment. No silent stalking and making us pick up your scent on our Sitemeter referrers page. And a smart comment, too. Pithy, funny, to the point. Mom, Dad — no excuses about not getting how this comment thing works. Just CLICK ON IT. We want to hear from everybody.” International Blog Comment Day — what a great idea!
Pass it on.