Yesterday, [Oliver Reichenstein](http://informationarchitects.net/blog/sweep-the-sleaze/) started a rush of blog activity with his piece about the various “social sharing” buttons that can be found on websites and blogs:
> The previous wave of buttons for Delicious and Digg and Co. vanished, Facebook and Twitter and G+ might vanish or they might survive, but the buttons will vanish for sure. Or do you seriously think that in ten years we will still have those buttons on every page? No, right? Why, because you already know as a user that they’re not that great. So why not get rid of them now? Because “they’re not doing any harm”? Are you sure?
There was a rush of activity as [Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/05/30/sweep-the-sleaze), [The Loop](http://feeds.loopinsight.com/~r/loopinsight/KqJb/~3/i0LtEIKPKaQ/), and [Shawn Blanc](http://shawnblanc.net/2012/05/reichenstein-social-buttons/) (among others) all echoed Mr. Reichenstein’s suggestion to remove those social sharing buttons. I have decided to join in and remove such buttons from my site. I think [Marco Arment’s reasoning](http://www.marco.org/2012/05/30/sweep-the-sleaze) was the most convincing though:
>I don’t embed any sharing buttons for one big reason: they look cheap and desperate. They would devalue my voice and reduce my credibility.
Agreed.