Why I Still Don't Like the JIBs

In the 2.5 years or so that I have been blogging the Jblogosphere has grown exponentially. Once upon a time it felt quite small to me. Ok, not small but more intimate than it feels now. There were a good 25 blogs or so on my blogroll that in my mind were the core of the Jblogging universe.

Some of them were big bloggers, some were new bloggers and some were in between. What the hell did I know, I was just another voice in cyberspace talking about this and that.

When Aussie Dave pioneered the JIBs the first time around I was pretty gung ho about it. As my grandfather would say, that is emes (Truth). But that changed pretty rapidly. Mainly I was turned off by the behavior of some bloggers.

By the second year I grew even more disillusioned with them. I won't lie and say that I didn't have any interest in winning. I readily admit that I would have been pleased with a victory, but I also refused to engage in any of the campaigning. It just irked me.

Enough of the walk down memory lane. If you want to catch up you can read the following posts:

Relax With the JIBs
Why Do You Blog? More about the JIBs
The JIBs- What I find Distasteful

Ok, clearly they made for good blog material, but I digress.

This year Dave is understandably avoiding playing daddy and I can't blame him. The antics and games of the last few years must have gotten old quite quickly. It appears now that a small start-up has agreed to take on the task of trying to sail the ship. Although from what I saw it appears that they are already foundering.

Why reinvent the wheel. I don't get it. There is an existing model that could be followed.

Anyhoo, I'll save some of my comments for later. For now let's move forward and discuss something else.

One of the reasons for the formation of the JIBs was to help promote the Jewish/Israeli blogosphere. It remains an excellent idea. But for my money I prefer Haveil Havalim.

And it just so happens that I am hosting the 97th edition. As a side note I have had the pleasure of hosting it a few times before:

Haveil Havalim #30
Haveil Havalim #43
Haveil Havalim #54 Big and Beautiful
Haveil Havalim #61- Call Me Roger Maris
Haveil Havalim #72- Handed Down From the Mountaintop

If you are good in math you'll notice something special about those. That is for all you reformed clevelanders. ;)

I am currently soliciting for posts for this coming week. Send them in and I'll see that they are included.