[PaulRobinson]

A good idea, and one I had myself recently.

Some suggestions: I know none of us like "the algorithms choosing", but I think we can do better than alphabetical order. Number of clicks you see (popularity), or number of inbound links google tells you about would be good.

I also think you've gone to great effort, but it's still very light in some categories. I hope you keep going - what's your data source? Are you tracking outbound links from the ones you have indexed to find new blogs?

[philgyford]

Thanks for the kind words. The source is user suggestions and my own searching and browsing.

I do sort of track outbound links, so that I can show which domains a blog links to most, which can sometimes give a sense of what the blog is about.

But, while I haven’t analysed the data, I suspect the links from one blog to another would be a very tiny percentage of the overall outbound links. It’s the kind of thing that might have been more interesting/useful in the olden days of blogging when more people linked to each other, and replied to each other, via blogs rather than social media.

[gnramires]

I like the idea of some kind of algorithm minimalism, or at least parsimony; but I also think sometimes it might be appropriate? In this case, another approach would simply be randomization, which doesn't favor any name (Aaaaaron Aaaaanderson's blog :P ), this randomization can be consistent (such that you can find something you wish in linear time).

I think equally important is algorithmic transparency, that is, that the algorithm be publicly disclosed (although I think simplicity is a component of transparency: if you just dump a huge incomprehensible algorithmic mess somewhere that's not very helpful), so that you at least know what you are getting into, and better yet have some ability to choose and make educated critique of the current state of things (i.e. does the algorithm just maximize engagement like a slot machine? or does it optimize for some kind of helpfulness?).