Biblioblog Rankings (by The Biblioblog Library) – July 2011

It’s that time of the month again, but with a new twist!

Using the new tracking system, at The Biblioblog Reference Library to keep count of over 350,000 page views, here are this month’s rankings.

Top 50 Biblioblogs:

If you don’t see a little green check next to your blog’s name, that means you don’t have the tracker installed. If there’s a little red X next to your blog’s name, that means that you *had* the tracker installed, but it is now not working for some reason (so best check up on it!).

The rankings for the Top 50 are based on hits from the tracker widget, as well as the number of Library referrals (i.e. traffic generated from the Library).

On the live rankings page at the Library, these are also broken down by category.

#	Hits	Blog	Tracker	Library
1	75400	Debunking Christianity	75093	307
2	39767	Unsettled Christianity	39132	635
3	25757	Exploring Our Matrix	25317	440
4	18271	Scotteriology	18104	167
5	17141	Ancient Hebrew Poetry	17049	92
6	14526	Gentle Wisdom	14391	135
7	11784	Better Bibles Blog	11746	38
8	9784	Near Emmaus	9592	192
9	8840	XKV8R: The Official Blog of Dr. Robert R. Cargill	8753	87
10	6872	Political Jesus	6582	290
11	4770	Observatório Bíblico	4697	73
12	4574	Dr. Claude Mariottini – Professor of Old Testament	4509	65
13	4450	The Aramaic Blog	4400	50
14	4020	Participatory Bible Study Blog	3983	37
15	3991	Reading Acts	3920	71
16	3850	A ‘Goula Blogger	3766	84
17	3239	The Musings of Thomas Verenna	3141	98
18	3135	Professor Obvious	3117	18
19	2688	Aristotle’s Feminist Subject	2598	90
20	2525	Zwinglius Redivivus	853	1672
21	2505	The Biblioblog Top 50	2481	24
22	2308	Diglotting	2224	84
23	1776	Dust	1706	70
24	1440	Abnormal Interests	1317	123
25	1003	The Biblioblog Reference Librarian’s Desk	868	135
26	899	Polumeros kai Polutropos	889	10
27	345	Jesus Creed	0	345
28	296	The Poetry of Christ	257	39
29	234	Pseudoscienze bibliche e false reliquie di Antonio Lombatti	0	234
30	200	PaleoJudaica.com	0	200
31	141	Suzanne’s Bookshelf	0	141
32	126	Ιστολόγιο βιβλικών σπουδών / Biblical Studies Blog	0	126
33	121	Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel	0	121
34	116	Euangelion	0	116
35	103	Sects and Violence in the Ancient World	0	103
36	89	Remnant of Giants	0	89
36	89	BibleX	0	89
37	85	James’ Thoughts and Musings	0	85
38	74	Targuman	0	74
39	73	Quadrilateral Thoughts	0	73
40	65	BIBBIABLOG	0	65
41	54	NT Blog	0	54
42	52	Menachem Mendel	0	52
43	50	Daniel O. McClellan	0	50
44	49	Textuality	0	49
45	45	BiblicalStudies.org.uk	0	45
46	41	Awilum.com	0	41
47	39	Biblische Ausbildung	0	39
48	36	Sansblogue	0	36
49	33	5 Minute Bible	0	33
49	33	The Naked Bible	0	33
50	32	חלק טוב: Helek Tov	0	32

(Jim! Put your tracker back on and give John something to worry about! :-) )

Also, please get the word out to all of those who have blogs on the Top 50 List, but do not have the tracker installed!

Top 10 Articles:

This is a bit of an experiment (and you can see why — in terms of relevance — once you skim the list). These are the Top 10 articles for the past month based upon individual article page views.

On the Library Top 10 Articles page, these are (like the Top 50) also listed by category.

#	Hits	Article	Tracker	Library
1	2313	It’s Ignorant to Say “There is No Evidence for a Historical Jesus” by John W. Loftus via Debunking Christianity on Jul 20 2011 @ 6:28 AM	2309	4
2	1973	Knights Templar 2083 by Anders Behring Breivik – The Freemason Fundamentalist? by Joel via Unsettled Christianity on Jul 23 2011 @ 9:43 PM	1953	20
3	1838	The Face of a Terrorist? Anders Behring Breivik and Christian Fundamentalism by James F. McGrath via Exploring Our Matrix on Jul 23 2011 @ 9:10 AM	1835	3
4	1673	Ricky Martin’s Mistaken Assyrian Aramaic Tattoo by Steve Caruso via The Aramaic Blog on Jul 8 2007 @ 1:16 PM	1668	5
5	1486	Biblioblogger Jim (Unaccredited) West’s Proposal for Dealing with Heretics by John W. Loftus via Debunking Christianity on Jul 14 2011 @ 6:42 AM	1471	15
6	1376	Disconfirming Evidence is Decisive by John W. Loftus via Debunking Christianity on Jul 18 2011 @ 6:00 PM	1373	3
7	1014	WordPress Twenty Eleven: give us back our sidebar! by Peter Kirk via Gentle Wisdom on Jul 5 2011 @ 5:47 AM	1011	3
8	1007	“Anders Behring Breivik Doesn’t Represent True Christianity” by John W. Loftus via Debunking Christianity on Jul 23 2011 @ 2:47 PM	1004	3
9	855	Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True? by John W. Loftus via Debunking Christianity on Jul 24 2011 @ 8:59 PM	849	6
10	823	Old Testament Scholar Michael Heiser and I Discuss OT Prophecy by John W. Loftus via Debunking Christianity on Jul 27 2011 @ 7:24 AM	819	4

In the next version of the script, I’m going to try and have a relevance filter pull out posts that are over two months old (so we’re dealing with *recent* posts), as well as some which simply don’t belong in “Biblical Studies.”

Top 10 Authors:

Yet another interesting metric is to see which individual authors are the most read amongst the blogs.

Unfortunately, the Top 10 Authors script is buggy at the moment, so once I track down the problem and squash it, I’ll have it posted here.

Additions to the Complete List of Blogs — Soon!

There are about 30 blogs that I have yet to look over and categorize on top of the ~300 Related Blogs from the original lists. They’re all pending while I work on:

Next Version of the Library

I’m getting ready to release the next version of the Library’s interface that is portal-driven and you can check that out here.

The category system and draft of inclusion criteria are going to be replaced by a new self-categorizing questionnaire that will add all sorts of useful metadata to search by as well as allow for new portals like “Women’s Blogs,” “SBL Members,” “Bibliobloggers Who Are Interested in Paleo-Hebrew Who Live On The West Coast” etc. etc.

With the new account system, you’ll also be able to “claim” and manage your blog and author profiles as well as determine which portals you view on your homepage.

There will also be topic tracking, which will assemble a list of “What People Are Talking About” based upon what links they’re sharing in conjunction with what tags they use.

All of these tools will help users find blogs and articles that are interesting to them, that they would otherwise not know existed.

A Plea From The Librarian:

Three words: “Shared hosting stinks.”

The Biblioblog Reference Library is really starting to push the upper limits of the shared hosting plan it’s currently running on, which has revealed itself with some serious slowdowns here and there. I’m currently using every trick in the book I know to boost performance, but when you’re sharing a host with God-knows-how-many other people who are running scripts that hog system resources… Well there is no control.

What’s worse is that at this point in time, I cannot afford to upgrade to something better.

So here’s the thing: I’m looking for either (a) someone at a qualifying institution that would be interested in writing a grant proposal with me that would fund the expansion of the Library and/or (b) individuals who think that the Library is important enough to chip in some funds to get a dedicated server.

To help with this, I’ve drawn up a basic budget for “minimum” and “ideal” configurations for the Library, which can be found here.

I’d love to hear any suggestions as well.

“But There’s One More Thing…”

Two things, actually.

1) I want to get some discussion going about starting an actual, peer-reviewed Biblioblog journal. I know that there has been a lot of talk about this in the past, but nothing has really come of it. Now, given the demonstrated wealth of information that the Biblioblogosphere has shown, I think is the time to seriously consider what’s possible and how we can highlight, showcase and reward genuinely good work.

I’m already putting into place within the Library a means for individuals to submit articles for consideration by simply tagging them with a specific keyword. Once that keyword is in the post’s tags, the system will automatically grab the post and get it ready for a peer review process. What that entails and what interface will be necessary I am still working on. Which brings me to:

2) I want to assemble a battery of experts in the Biblioiblogging community grouped by expertise who are willing to volunteer time to review articles, answer questions, and talk with the press. In the past few months, I’ve been steadily compiling a group of press contacts for major news outlets and putting together a system to distribute press releases on emergent issues within Biblical Studies. My hope is to have a mechanism in place to mitigate the kind of mistaken coverage that happened during the Lead Codices debacle, and point the press towards reliable sources.

Once the new account system to the next version of the Library is finished, any interested individuals can apply to be part of the battery directly from their profiles, but in the meantime, I want everyone’s thoughts.

Peace,
-Steve

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