It came as some surprise to see my own site linked to from Ian Dale’s political mega-hub, particularly as I’ve not published one even vaguely political story this year. So I’m unable to glean quite how I achieved a rank of #75 in the lib-dem chart, and a higher rank than the official blog of the Liberal Democrat party leader.
Ian states that his rankings are a reflection of ‘votes’ cast by his panel. All I can say is that this sort of voting reminds me of the kind they have in Florida where the actual number of votes cast have an estranged relationship with the results. Perhaps a few of those “hanging-chads” got mis-counted as votes for Stodge.org?
I’m certain that none of the Lib-Dem supporters would have singled out my site for a vote. I never solicited anybody to vote for me, nor was I aware that this competition existed until I was mysteriously revealed to be 75th best in the land. I never got involved with the debates on the other LibDem blogger’s sites, in short I made no effort and did not actually deserve to be on any ranking.
I can be pretty certain that any votes allegedly cast for Stodge.org are either accidental or imaginary - and almost certainly below the threshold of what is statistically meaningful when compiling a ranking.
If I was feeling charitable, I’d say his methodology is dubious - at at worst entirely bogus. Would it be fair to conclude that the whole affair is link-bait, intended to persuade the gullible and eager for publicity to link back to Mr Dale’s blog and thus boost his profile in the web-o-sphere?


