Bloodless Coup

The Zth Percentile

The Stealth Badger riffs on the Rev. Mykeru's discussion (such a tame word to describe Mykeru) about the difference between A-list bloggers and "Z-list" bloggers. From Stealth Badger:

How to tell you're a happy Z-Lister:

You don't have enough readers for anyone to get paid to twist your words, but you have enough so that you don't feel like you're just primal screaming into your sock drawer.

You have time to dink around with your site, doing things that will probably break it for a little while, and your readers will snicker with you rather than complaining with the kind of voice that is usually only heard by tired, underpaid Customer Service Representatives.

You have never had the compulsion to say something you know isn't true because you think someone else would like it.

You have the freedom to either block 0-signal-to-noise-ratio trolls at the firewall/blog application, be reasonable, or flame the crap out of them as you like. Or all three!

You're small enough that if you choose, you can easily and quickly get and interpret the logs for your blog (or know who can in a moment's notice) and allow the information therein to inform your answer to said trolls (such as the people who follow you home from other blogs to act like morons in your house.).

Your stylesheet/template can totally suck, and you can somewhat avoid feel guilty about it. *looks over at the ugly, horrible archives listing, which is why my blogroll is on a separate page....* >.>;)

Death Before Proofreading is a viable editing strategy.

E-mail about your site and comments ON it are rare enough to be a wonderful surprise, and just common enough that you never, ever think about quitting because no-one's interested

You're perfectly happy with your fluid, chaotic, undisciplined writing style, free to one day sound like a raving psychotic, the next sounding like a bookkeeper.

You can occasionally treasure the illusion that some of your ideas are original, without it some smug jerk mouthing off at you who can't accept that if you thought it up without anyone telling it to you, then you at least get credit for using your goddamn brains.

No-one sucks up to you, so you can trust and treasure the compliments that you get.*

For that matter, you're small enough that you've got enough time to DO things like be your e-mail admin, site designer, etc. (depending on your individual skills).

You feel like you're allowed to make mistakes.

Updating your server hardware does not involve issuing a press release.

You're still doing it for the reasons you STARTED doing it.

It can still occasionally be FUN.

Like looking in the mirror. And I especially liked the seventh item on the list.

And on a final note, I've seen the Stealth Badger around, but never been over to the site, which is surprising, given our love of badgers (at the top of our diversions list, no less). I'm definitely in favor of working Ozymandias into more blog posts.