Frequently Asked Questions
From AcademicBlogs
About the site
What is the purpose of this site?
This is a portal that is intended to provide resources for (a) academic bloggers, and (b) people who want to read academic blogs. It is a first step towards Scott McLemee's suggestion of an aggregating site to provide the academic blogosphere with a greater degree of coherence. The main organizing principle of the site is a list of academic blogs, organized by discipline. Each disciplinary list provides at a minimum links to relevant blogs, and links to Wikipages about those blogs. The site is designed to be as open as possible - people who wish to contribute new forms of content are encouraged to do so (they are also encouraged strongly to read this FAQ before jumping in at the deep end).
What is the history of this site?
This site is a distant descendant of the Academic Blogroll. The Academic Blogroll was started by Jacob Levy in the earliest dawn of the academic blogosphere (circa 2002). It then consisted of a list of approximately 10-15 academic blogs. Jill Walker of jill/txt independently started a similar list, and then abandoned it as unworkable. When Jacob Levy joined the Volokh Conspiracy, he left his own blog and the Academic Blogroll in hiatus. The Blogroll was then taken up by Henry Farrell, first on his own blog, and then on Crooked Timber. As the academic blogosphere continued to expand, it became next to impossible for one person to keep up with. Hence this site, which provides a collaborative platform to keep track of the blogosphere and provide new forms of content.
Who runs it?
Henry Farrell is the Chief Editor, and is responsible for most of the initial work involved in setting it up. There are also a number of Senior Editors, including Bitch Ph.D., Steven Bell, Sean Carroll, Adam Kotsko, Liz Lawley, Ralph Luker and Daniel Solove. But for all intents and purposes, you run it. Our job is to keep the paths clean, to prevent obvious vandalism, and to make sure that the underlying structure doesn't disappear entirely beneath new accretions, additions etc.
Who pays for it?
At the moment, this is run on the cheap using spare server space. Ideally it will continue this way. If it starts to gobble bandwidth at an unaffordable rate, we may either (a) seek institutional support, (b) seek donations, or (c) run Google Ads to keep the show on the road. At no point will this become a pay-to-view site.
Contributing to the site
How can I contribute?
Most obviously, by helping us keep track of the academic blogosphere. If you come across a new blog that meets the necessary requirements, you should add it to the appropriate disciplinary list of blogs. If you want to write the descriptive page for your blog, or for someone else's blog, you should by all means do so. Less obviously, if you want to do something entirely new and different, go to the internal resources page for the relevant discipline, and create a link to a new wiki page. Then start writing it. If you want to link to a valuable resource elsewhere on the WWW, do so under "external resources" on the relevant page. This is an open-ended project - while we set broad rules, we don't want to discourage people from coming up with interesting and innovative resources. We will remove material that is obviously unsuitable (spam, for example).
What are the necessary qualifications for a blog to be listed?
They're pretty simple - the blog has to be written by an academic. That is to say, the author should be either a member of a third level institution's faculty (i.e. community college, college, university, technical institute or whatever), or pursuing a doctoral degree, or employed by a third level institution to do academically relevant work (such as working as a university librarian). If you come across a blog that seems to meet these requirements, feel free to add it. When you do, you ought to note the evidence for why the blog qualifies on the changes page. Some blogs - e.g. those written by anonymous academics - may involve tricky judgment calls. Say why you think this is a genuine academic blog, but please add it - many academics have good reason to blog anonymously. If it turns out not to be a legitimate academic blog, it will likely be deleted later. Very rarely, blogs written by non-academics may qualify. If you think a blog by a non-academic qualifies on its merits, you should suggest it to one of the Senior Editors, with supporting evidence. The Senior Editor will then decide whether to nominate it. Otherwise it is liable to be deleted summarily. If you are a non-academic and you nominate your own blog for consideration, don't be offended if it isn't accepted - only very exceptional blogs will be included. The intent of this site isn't to provide comprehensive lists of blogs and resources dealing with history, politics, archaeology etc - there are already very good sites in existence that do this. It's to provide a resource for academic bloggers, and readers of academic blogs.
How do I add a new blog to the list?
Edit the relevant page, and enter in the details for the blog, providing both a URL and a link to a wikipage. You don't have to create the wikipage yourself, but you are encouraged to. You should follow the format for other blogs in the list (if you click on edit, you will see the underlying wiki-code, which isn't hard to understand). The lists are organized in alphabetical order, starting with the first letter of the blog's title. The only exceptions are blogs which have the blogger's name, and nothing else. These should be added in alphabetical order according to the surname of the blogger.
Where do I put cross-disciplinary blogs?
There is a special section for cross-disciplinary blogs, under "Those Belonging to the Emperor." If you run a cross-disciplinary blog which falls mostly within a single discipline, and you want to move it to the list for that discipline, you can - but you should delete it from the cross-disciplinary blogs list. Alternatively, you can create or add to a list below the main list for that discipline, called "Other Blogs that talk about xxxx" (e.g. "Other blogs that talk about Astronomy") and put it there. When you do this, you don't need to remove it from the list of cross-disciplinary blogs. You can do this for single-discipline blogs too that speak regularly to another discipline - e.g. if you are a computer scientist who frequently talks about library studies issues, you can add your blog to a secondary list of "Other blogs that talk about Library Science" as well as to the main computer science list. If you don't in fact talk all that much about computer science, and are just trying to maximize your exposure to eyeballs, you can reasonably expect to have your excess listing deleted. This is especially likely if you do this across multiple lists.
Where do I put academic blogs the discipline of which is unclear?
You put them into the "Who Knows?" list under "Those Belonging to the Emperor"
Should I list my blog under more than one discipline if it fits more than one discipline?
No. You should just list it under the most relevant discipline or under the listing for cross-disciplinary blogs, as appropriate. You can, however, add your blog to a secondary list of "Other blogs that talk about discipline x" at the bottom of the list for other disciplines.
My blog is misclassified - can I move it to a different discipline?
Certainly. Feel free to correct any errors of this sort. In general, however, don't move someone else's blog from one discipline to another, unless the error is really glaringly awful.
What about defunct or moribund blogs?
Any blog that hasn't posted for three months or longer is fair game for deletion from the blogroll. It can be reinstated if it begins to post again. If you wish to remove a moribund blog, just remove it from the list - don't delete any wikipages associated with it, in case it starts posting again. Especially wonderful dead blogs may be listed in the In Memoriam section, but this should be quite rare, and reserved only for blogs that have demonstrably had a major impact on the academic blogosphere.
I can't edit the main page. Why?
It's protected - only editors can change it. If you want to change it, bug Henry Farrell. If he thinks it's a good idea, he'll implement it.
Can new discipline pages be added?
Yes, as bloggers in these disciplines emerge. But they should be genuine self-standing disciplines. You shouldn't, for example, expect to have a separate page with a link from the main page for medieval history or for comparative politics. These are sub-disciplines, but they aren't disciplines in their own right. Of course, if you want to write a wiki page with a list of medieval historians, and add it to the Internal Resources for history you should by all means do so.
Are personal pages for individual blog contributors allowed?
Yes. If your blog is a solo effort, you can combine personal description with blog description in the wikipage for your blog. If you are writing for a group blog, you should create a new wikipage to describe personal details with a link from the wikipage for that blog. For an example see the entry for Henry Farrell which is linked to from the wikipage for the group blog Crooked Timber.
What is the 'Personal blogs by academics' page for?
It's intended as a halfway house for anyone who doesn't feel that they want their blog to be considered an academic blog, but who would like their blog to be listed. If you want to move your blog there, please do. Please don't move other people's blogs there without their permission. If no-one wants to do this, the page will eventually be removed.
What style should I write contributions in?
Wikipedia is famous for making contributors adopt a Neutral Point of View (NPOV). We're not quite that strict. Contributors, who, for example, want to put together a personal guide to blogs in a particular discipline, are encouraged to put a bit of their own personality and idiosyncracies into it. But nonetheless, we request you to follow a few basic guidelines. First, even if you don't have to be neutral, try not to be tendentious. This is especially important if you want, for example, to write a description of someone else's blog. A dispassionate and accurate description of the kinds of topics that the blogger writes about is good; a tendentious account of the blogger's more embarrassing posts or feuds with other bloggers etc is not so good. Gloating references to the blogger's failure to get tenure, marital difficulties or drug addictions are double plus ungood. Don't write hagiographies - but stick to reasonably unobjectionable facts. Second, if you are writing about yourself, please avoid self-aggrandizement. References to a few of your achievements are OK; boastful descriptions of your accomplishments, intelligence, and central role in the blogosphere are liable to get edited out of existence.
I have never written a wiki before - Help!
Writing or editing wikis is extraordinarily easy - much easier than writing HTML, or indeed using a word processor. Consult the basic directions for a simple guide.
What are the rules?
Apart from the guidelines above, there aren't many rules, and those that exist are quite straightforward.
Vandalism
Consistent vandalism (deliberate attempts to wreck pages etc) is liable to get you banned permanently. Disagreement over pages is allowable, and some degree of reverting back and forth is OK too in the case of disagreement. Vandalism includes the insertion of obviously offensive and inappropriate content, especially when this is on someone else's wikipage, or on the main page for a discipline.
Spamming
Spamming is considered grounds for immediate and permanent banning.
Revealing anonymous bloggers' identities
Any attempt to reveal the identity of a blogger who prefers to remain anonymous will result in immediate and permanent banning with extreme prejudice. If you vandalize pages and then reform your ways, you can ask nicely and we'll possibly let you back in. If you maliciously try to reveal someone's identity, forget it.
Disputatiousness and rudeness
Some degree of orneriness is acceptable. Serious disputatiousness, ad hominems etc are likely to result in a temporary ban. Consistent and extreme anti-social behavior may result in permanent banning.
Can I use copyrighted content that I don't own and don't have permission to use?
Not on this wiki.
