If you can't beat 'em...

I cached from BlogNetNews the lead to a Salisbury News post that started out this way... 

Monoblogue & Brian Griffiths believe they have calculated who were the best Blogs in the State of Maryland according to Blognetnews. However, they forget to mention how several of these Blogs are cheating the system.

Then he went on to talk about how I crosspost with Red Maryland and only do one post per day. Joe's post was only up a few hours before it was pulled after a comment I made. Normally I keep lengthy comments but in this case I didn't. Hey, I figured I'd wait to see what the reaction was and it looks like the reaction was pulling the post.

Let's face facts here. Unless a website is a private site anyone who puts the time and effort into doing one is interested in having as many people read the site as possible. In my case, I use Red Maryland to expand my audience since people who are into politics (one of my target audiences) go there to read the perspectives of RM contributors.

Besides, if I were doing this to game the influence rating system one would think Red Maryland would be the number one site, what with all the crosslinks it has. But generally it sits around 5th or so, some weeks higher and some lower.

So what do I see this morning but a new "partnership" between G.A. Harrison of Delmarva Dealings and Joe Albero's Salisbury News site? I'm glad Delmarva Dealings is back and obviously G.A. wants more eyeballs on what he has to say. But the timing on this affair does strike me as a little odd, especially after Joe pulled the post I alluded to above.

It's not like Joe should have anything to hang his head about - after all, his overall influence rank was #4 so only Brian Griffiths, Free State Politics (also a collaborative effort), and I had a higher influence ranking. I'm also led by his boasting to believe he has a much higher readership than I but since he's a news site with frequent updates and I'm primarily once-a-day commentary that's to be expected. I'll be the first to admit I check on Joe's site a few times a day.

I guess what frosts me is the accusation of gaming the system. I didn't ask to become a contributor to Red Mayland, Streiff invited me after reading my website and finding that my commentary was to his liking and I would think well-written in his eyes. Obviously I said yes and I'm honored to contribute to the site. It wasn't done to artificially pump up my influence numbers because I think I earn what I have through my writing. Truly I think I do have a top-tier political site in Maryland because I don't always accept things at face value.

All right, enough of my grousing. I'll be back to politics later tonight. We have a big caucus day tomorrow in Iowa, you know, not to mention Congressional news.