Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

Well, I've been sitting on this news for several weeks now. When I created the Canadian Blog Rankings, I got in touch with N.Z. Bear of the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem that I used as my ranking engine to get his permission and blessing. Not only did was he pleased with what I had done, he let me in on a secret -- the Ecosystem was undergoing a massive re-write to include many new features, including the capacity to create sublists like mine.

Since I had already done the leg work, N.Z. Bear invited me to join his group of administrators and manage the community of Canadian Blogs.

Let me explain some of the features. First, you'll notice that the rankings are only a small part of the community web page. We also have a list of the latest posts, and a list of the most linked posts. The idea is that the community page will become a jumping off point for people looking to explore the community, in this case Canadian blogging, and perhaps act as a home base as well.

The rankings run down the right hand side, and the keen-eyed observer will notice that the ranks are different from the ranks on my list. The reason is that the formulation is different. The community ranks are based on scores that consider links only between blogs that are members of that community. If, for example, you get a dozen links a week from Instapundit, that won't help, since he's not a community member (though your traffic is better, and if you use Sitemeter in public mode, the Ecosystem will include that factor into your overall score).

The effect is interesting. On my ranking, Captain's Quarters had a lock on first place, given the sheer breadth of links he has throughout the blogosphere, while I wallowed in 16th. On the community ranking, he drops to 6th, and I move up to 3rd, simply because I have many more links within the Canadian community than he does.

Clearly this is a superior formulation. Clearly.

Other new features include a log of carnivals, called the übercarnival.

Looking for a quick snapshot of what's hot? Go to the Top Posts page.

There are still the links and traffic rankings for the overall blogosphere.

The Ecosystem is looking better than ever, and if you haven't registered, go do it now. If you are a Canadian blog, get in touch with me and I'll get you on the community list.

As for my rankings? Well, I guess I'll be retiring the list [sniff]. It was fun, but I don't want to duplicate the work already done at the Ecosystem. Also, though I'm a Blogging Tory, I've been absolutely even-handed in seeking out and listing other blogs, regardless of their political stripe, such as the Blogging Dippers. No one has complained, but in all fairness, I think a neutral list like this should reside on a neutral piece of blogland instead of on a partisan blog such as mine.

I'll be looking to reclaim that real estate for something else, like my promised list of Canadian blog media appearances and citations, coming soon.