I thought about diving right in on this topic; when I saw it come up on Krista's blog the other day, my gut reaction was that blogrolls are one of the most basic parts (serving important gestural/signature functions, yeah?). I've watched some of the comments play out, and one of the important distinctions for me is that I've never done much removing of links from the blogroll. Sure, at times, I've pulled down a link, but only when the site seemed to stagnate and, more importantly, only when it wasn't linking to me at the time I removed it. So I guess that's my bind with the blogroll. I haven't ever removed a link--once posted--to a site that reciprocates with a link to me--even when the site in question is otherwise ho-hum. Don't know whether this adds anything to the conversation, but it has started me thinking that our blogrolls (and linking practices in general) are motivated by relatively simple sets of rules, though not necessarily rules we make explicit to anyone else.

And there are a bunch of stagnant blogrolls out there.

I don't even think that stagnant blogrolls are a huge problem (and yeah, I add to mine but almost never remove anything--the one time I tried, the person I silently removed had a hissy, so I put it back up). It seems to me that people start a blog and start searching for links and build their own little blog community, and at some point it kind of maxes out, size-wise (how many blogs can you really read and comment on?). And then it "stagnates." But meanwhile, other people are starting new blogs and forming their little communities, and sometimes communities overlap or form subcommunities, etc.

All of which I think is pretty cool.