I would be interested to see what you mean by “more criteria” into account.  It always feels like these updates that supposedly drive more traffic to the users end up driving less to the users or spreads the traffic so thin that no site can grow. 

You seem to understand the basic idea behind driving traffic to the ish sites.  You send the most traffic to the most commented links and you constantly feed traffic to the sites.  If you did that with the same passion to ordinary users and give some extra traffic to sites that drive traffic, I think you will not see the decline you saw in the last year.  I think you may make people happier.  But if it is another trick to basically spread the traffic so thin that no one can grow, I think you will see a continued decline. 

Remember, what works for the ish sites will work for the sites.  You don’t play games with the ish sites.

@marc - Ok.  If I see an increase of traffic to my site, I am going to write a post dedicated to you.  It will be titled “I <3 Marc.”  No kidding.  I understand the importance of driving traffic to the traffic drivers as well as driving traffic to the new people and I realize that is a balancing act.  But in the past, it has felt like most of these moves drove less traffic to the sites.  Will the top blogs be above the fold?  That is an important question.  Because the current screenshot indicates it will be. 

I have always advocated an edited top blogs.  In other words, I advocate throwing out the spam and crap. 

No offense against some of you other top bloggers.

@HeartOfPandora - I want you to look at something in a different way.  I want you to look at this for a second the way I do.  A few years back, xanga drove traffic to a secondary link called “Featured Content.”  It wasn’t on the front page.  It was a secondary link like Top Blogs was.  Xanga drove traffic to that link in a few ways.  They had the links from that top blogs in random order on the front page above the fold.  That meant that people could see those links from the front page.  Now there were times when people complained because I was the most commented site every day.  They complained day in and day out.  So xanga made a change.  They chocked off traffic to that old featured content and went to a new system.  I told xanga that it would kill traffic to those users and most of them would be gone in a few months.  What happened to those sites?  Almost all of them disappeared in 2 months.  Ask anyone who was around xanga at that time.  I wrote a post about it.  It is funny but that post is still public.  You can go and see who recommended that post.  It was a great deal of the people that used to hate my site and complain about me being on top of the most commented every day.  But my site was still around.  So all the complaining was that I was getting traffic but you know what?  Those sites were getting traffic to until xanga cut off traffic to them.

So I wrote a post about xanga driving traffic to the users and a great deal of those sites came back from being on break from xanga and recommended the post.  How did I know that it was going to killer their sites?  I knew their sites would suffer because xanga would no longer be driving traffic to their sites.  The problem is that they were so fucused on what I was getting that they missed what they were getting.  They were getting traffic.

So xanga responded to the community and started driving traffic to the users again.  But then xanga started driving traffic to the ish sites.  And also xanga decided to randomize top blogs on the front page.  Xanga put it to a vote in the community.  They asked them to vote on it.  Guess how they voted.  Come on.  Give it a guess.  They voted to make it random.  I said at the time that it was going to kill the top sites again.  Well, it only took a few months and sure enough a great deal of those blogs dropped off significantly in traffic.  But I still get comments and traffic.  I post less now but I have less motivation if xanga only drives traffic to the ish sites.

Now, I want you to put aside whatever you currently think for a moment.  I want you to assume a few things.  I want you to assume that I want xanga to grow.  I want xanga to grown because my site will grow with it.  Yes, that is right.  If xanga grows, then my site grows too.  Remember when xanga sent out millions of emails asking people to update their site or they would lose their user names?  My site increased in traffic by 2000 a day when xanga did that for a few months.  I was not featured one time on the front page and this was when there was not a top blogs.  Why did I increase in traffic?  Well, I have a few extra friends and subscribers on here.  So when xanga increases in traffic, my site increases in traffic even if I am not on the front page.  So when I give advice on what xanga should do to increase traffic, I am saying what I believe they need to do to grown.

Now I want you to make a second assumption.  What benefits my site, benefits the whole xanga community.  That is probably hard to believe isn’t it?  But think about it for a second.  There is a reason I complained about xanga not driving traffic to the regular sites.  I did that because it would send less traffic to people like me but it also sends less traffic to all the users.  See, when I said it would hurt all the sites, it really hurt most of them more than it hurt me.  Check into it.  Ask anyone who has been around for any period of time. 

Now there was a thought that was out there for a while that increasing traffic to the ish sites would increase traffic to the users.  Xanga would drive traffic to the users via the ish sites.  I admit that some on xanga got traffic from the ish sites who didn’t have traffic before.  But it is indirect traffic.  You would have gotten far more traffic if xanga was driving that traffic directly to your site.  Pretty much everyone understands what I was saying on that point and agrees now.  You will get more traffic if xanga drives that traffic directly to your site.

Now here is the next assumption.  Xanga is not going to put me on the top of their front page all day every day like I am on top blogs.  It won’t happen.  It has never happened in the 5 years I have been on here.  You have only seen me on a secondary link that is not on the front page.  So that is why you see xanga saying that they will mix it up a little.  You are looking at this current photo and you are seeing me at the top.  That is why you saw me immediately jump on the idea of deception.  I realize xanga has never driven that kind of traffic to my site.  So xanga is not going to start that now. 

Here is the next assumption.  Assume that I am right and that xanga will grow if they actually send more traffic to the ordinary user with a bias to larger sites.  Now this is the hard part for you to swallow but stay with me.  Under the current sytem, top blogs is getting nothing.  It is starving out those sites.  You are also getting nothing.  That is right my friend.  How many times have you been featured?  I am not sure but lets guess it is 3-4 times.  You will get far more traffic if xanga gives you a steady source of traffic from its front page than you will get from a random big hit of occasionally being featured.  You will also get far more traffic if xanga drives the traffic directly to your site instead of an ish site that then redirects a small portion to your site.  But if you want xanga to really randomize the link, you will end up with nothing.  Trust me on this.  Xanga giving traffic equally to thousands of viewers gives traffic to no one.  It will cause the site to go into a downward spiral that it can’t afford at this stage.

But what is the beneift of xanga driving traffic to a user base instead of the ish sites?  Let me name a few.  The traffic goes directly to your site.  But it is better than that.  Your favorite nonish sites are going to get traffic too.  And you will get more traffic from commenting on their sites.  Nonish sites would have better traffic retention with time.  But you can also be recommended by your fellow sites.  That doesn’t happen with the ish sites.  They don’t recommend anyone. 

Let me give you an example of how this works.  You seem like a nice person but I think you wrote a post one time titled “I hate thetheologianscafe.”  If I remember correctly, a bunch of people recommended that post.  I might have recommended it myself.  I could be confusing you with one of the other 200-300 that have written I hate Dan posts.  But if that is correct, you will remember that post got more comments than your last 5-10 posts combined.  Why?  Because we all recommended you right?  You got traffic from your fellow xangans.  Heck, you might have even got traffic from me.  But an ish site can not recommend your site.  You are far better off if traffic is sent to your fellow xangans who can at least drive traffic to you. 

So don’t worry.  Xanga is not going to make their front page a shrine to me.  But make no mistake about it, what drives traffic to me, will drive traffic to ordinary users.  Do not advocate a system that ultimately drives traffic to no one.  That will not help you.  I have realized over time that sometimes people focus way too much on what benefits me or doesn’t benefit me.  Instead, they should think about what benefits the user base.  But I am pretty good at predicting what will benefit the user base.  I am thinking that driving traffic to ordinary users with a bias toward the top commented blogs will show an increase in traffic to everyone.