Am I A Google Reader Over-Sharer? Are You?

I’ve been taking a closer look at my Google Reader feeds lately, and, as always, I’m trying to stem the tide so the signal can rise above the noise. I’ve done a little spring cleaning, which for me doesn’t mean unsubscribing – I’m always hesitant to do that – but instead, I’ve been re-categorizing.

Is that feed really a “Can’t Miss” read? Shouldn’t that blogger be on my B-List? Doesn’t this feed belong in my “Ideas” folder?

One of the things that made the most difference was the addition of a brand-new folder I’m calling “noisy tech news.” This is now the home to any feed that drives me batty with zillions of posts per day yet doesn’t really provide that much signal. Why keep these feeds you may wonder? Well, for one thing, it’s great to have them in there for searches.

I’ve also put the aggregate feeds in here for sites like CNET and other producers of mass amounts of content. It’s not to say that CNET doesn’t have signal, but when you subscribe to a bunch of their feeds, you’re likely to see duplicate items and a lot of stuff that’s not relevant to you. However, other CNET favs, like Caroline McCarthy’s The Social for example, went elsewhere so I don’t miss them.

Although information devourer  Louis Gray might cringe at the thought, I can now happily mark this folder as read after a quick scan of headlines without feeling like I’ve missed too much.

Over-Sharers, I’m Looking At You

Now that I’ve gotten my subscriptions under control (ahem, for now), I’m turning my eye to the one area that’s still a bit out of control: you guys. You know know who you are. I mean, I thought I was bad (am I?) with my sharing of maybe 20-30 items per day in Google Reader, but some of you are sharing double that, triple even! Seriously, hundreds of shares. Daily! And all at once! What’s the deal? Now, I know I could just hide those over-sharers using the Google Reader “Hide” button, but the thing is, some of that stuff is actually very good. I don’t want to miss it. But then again, some of it…well, I could do without.

I’m torn. 

Of course what’s share-worthy is an entirely subjective notion, which is one thing that makes the Friends feature so great. It lets interesting stories bubble up and catch my attention, even though I may not subscribe to (or want to subscribe to) the originating blogs.

But what can be done about the uber-sharing? Should I just suck it up and hit j, j, j, j (the keyboard shortcut for flying through feeds) all day long? Should I start scanning headlines here too? Should I gasp hide the noisiest folks from sight?

Does anyone else have this problem? Suggestions welcome.