People over at <a href="http://animefanlistings.org/" title="External Link: The Anime Fanlistings.org">TAFL »</a> have a really bad habit of displaying the "You link me = I link you" rule, and never before has it annoyed me as it has now. Out of 40+ sites of trouble checking, I have only come by <strong>three</strong> who have not used this rule (and two didn't even have the "rules" pages).

I find it's <del>a bit like a case of copying if every fanlisting has this rule</del> annoying and irrational because a) it's not a required, and b) while it's a required rule for almost all networks to list <em>all</em> members, they still tend to display it anyways. It comes along the lines of:

<p class="tc">"You are not required to have a site, however, you are required to link back. If you do not, I will not link your website."</p>

<strong>WHY?</strong> I understand the whole links and hits thing going on (especially if it's a clique) but a fan<strong>listing</strong> is more or less "a listing of fans"; no where does it say "a listing of links". I thought that people who create a fanlisting for something they love you know…love it, not have a million and eighty rules about linking back to the fanlisting you <em>love</em>. A fanlisting in which I have to enable JavaScript to work, search around for the damn navigation (thanks, I really appreciate the whole "Click the stars to navigate!" reminder – it makes it <em>so</em> much easier) and when I finally get to where I want to be, I have to scroll all the way down to find what I'm looking for.

I know <a href="http://rain-dance.org/" title="External Link: Rain Dance">Amber »</a> <a href="http://rain-dance.org/trouble-checking-woes/" title="External Link: 'Trouble Checking Woes' at Rain Dance">touched on this »</a> a bit before, but it's still annoying me to no end. Usually ranting makes me feel better, but my eye still hurts from all the twitching it's been doing. I could just talk to a senior staff at either network, but what's the point? It's nothing serious; while part of me wants to make a dramatic exit to the trouble checking world because of this, helping out is more important to me than complaining about the things that annoy me…to other people, that is.

(Happy entry coming to a internet near you! Or something.)