Q: How do I get listed on the page?

A: Send an email here with the URL of your site. If you are listed on blo.gs I will add you.

Q: How do I tell if I am listed on blo.gs?

A: Go here and search for your blog URL or name. If you see it, you are good. If you do not see it you will need to manually ping.

Q: How does the page work?

A: I get my information from blo.gs, which gets its information from a variety of sources. I refresh my list every hour.

Q: How does Blo.gs work?

A: Ideally, your blogging tool sends blo.gs a ping message whenever you make a new post. Blo.gs just keeps track of when each site last updated.

Q: Why didn't the site show my last update?

A: You are using Blogger, aren't you? Blogger doesn't send a ping to blo.gs, so it is unreliable. Blogger publishes an update list, Blo.gs reads it periodically, sometimes things get missed. If you want to make sure every post shows up properly you may need to manually ping.

Q: What is manual pinging?

A: You go to a special web page that tells Blo.gs that your site updated. The Blo.gs ping page has all the information you should need.

Q: Will manual pinging make me go blind?

A: No, but there are problems, keep reading.

Q: Manual pinging seems like a hassle, can I make it easier?

A: Make sure to bookmark the link it gives you after you fill out the form. Then you just need to visit that bookmark page after you update.

Q: What do I do if the blo.gs page gives me an error when I try to ping?

A: Cry at the general unfairness of the world? There isn't really anything I can do, you can try to contact the very nice person who runs that site. Sometimes an error message appears even if it succesfully recorded the update. Follow the directions to find your blog above to see whether it got the last update.

Q: I manually pinged and now it doesn't seem to get any of my updates automatically. What happened?

A: When blo.gs receives a direct ping (including your manual ping) it stops looking for automatic pings for 3 days because it assumes it will keep receiving direct pings. So, either wait 3 days and hope it starts working again or start manually pinging each time.

Q: Why didn't you tell me that before you explained how to do the manual pinging?

A: Sorry!

Q: So what blogging tools work well with this site?

A: MoveableType and WordPress seem to work well for updates. Blogger is a little unstable getting updates to blo.gs. I don't have much data on other tools.

Q: How do I enable pinging for Moveable Type?

A: Click on Manage Weblog, then click on Weblog Config on the side, then click on Preferences, and check the box next to "blo.gs" for the "Notify the following sites when I update my blog" option.

Q: Why don't you make it more reliable?

A: I am about 70% done working on a more reliable version of this, not relying on other people's sites, but I don't have time to finish it right now. If anyone wants to help and knows python and mysql and php, let me know. For now, that project is on indefinite hiatus.

Q: Are there other options for keeping track of all my favorite comic web sites?

A: Yes, you can use an RSS/Atom newsreader to subscribe to sites that have syndication feeds. Bloglines is an online site that does this. Desktop software is also available, check here for a list of RSS newsreaders.

Q: But then I won't need to visit your page, will I?

A: That is correct. I don't make any money off this, so that is fine. I want to provide an easy way for people to keep track of the community, but people willing to put in more effort can have more options. And since I don't have time to add more features right now, I want people to know about their other options.

Q: Can I link to your site?

A: Please do. You can even give it a more clever name, like "Comics Weblog Update-A-Tron 3000". We're not marketing people, we aren't worried about consistant branding.