Learning About Blogging

Shannon is discussing pet peeves of the bloggy kind today over at Rocks in My Dryer.

She's going to be in San Francisco this summer for the She Speaks Conferences to co-teach a few blogging classes. Today she's asking for those in Bloglandia to tell her what our pet peeves are and what form of blogiquette people feel most strongly about.

I'm new to this whole thing, so while I don't have strong feelings about the latter, I do have quite a few of the former and so I shared those with her.

But it was interesting to go through her comment section today and see what I'm doing wrong when I visit blogs, what I'm doing right here at my own blog, and what I might want to think about incorporating eventually.

I'm going to be keeping an eye on this post for the next while. Between it, Blogging Basics 101 and a few other things I've stumbled upon, I might actually have a blog worth reading some day.

Until later...

Blogiquette

I was running through my check of the blogs I read daily and found one of the bloggers had entered into a realm of rudeness that I can't imagine.

This blog is a recipe blog, and I read it not for the other blog items, but rather for the recipes that are the general fare. There was a recipe posted this week, that while it wasn't something that I like, nor would I make, I know that many people would.

Apparently, an anonymous commenter slammed the blogger for the un-healthiness (is that a word?) of the recipe and took her to task for the fact that most of the recipes aren't healthy and that the blogger (who is admittedly over-weight) really needed to stop creating and posting such recipes, because by doing so only added to her problems, but would teach her child the same things.

Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the commenter at all. I believe in using my mouse to vote my opinion. If you're doing something that I don't like, I quit visiting your blog. I've quit visiting a number of blogs for this reason, because while at first blush, they seemed like something I could enjoy, I later found that they weren't. I'm sure many of you were taught the same that I was...If you can't say anything nice... The commenter obviously wasn't.

However, the blogger compounded this issue, but making an entire post about this commenter. COMPLETE with the commenter's ISP information and all other information that you can get from an ISP look-up service. The blogger came across as defensive and just as rude as the commenter. And to be honest, if the blogger hadn't made an "in your face" deal out of the comment, I never would have noticed, because I generally don't read the comments on a post, unless I want to comment about it myself.

This display has made me wonder if I should continue reading the blog. It is something I have to think about...I'm leaning towards not, as I don't appreciate and personally wouldn't take part in, behavior like this.

So what do you think? If a commenter was that rude, would you make a big issue out of it? Or would you, as I believe I would, moderate that comment and move on as if nothing happened?

Until later...

Money For Nothing...

Yeah, it's another song title...

It correlates to last week's Bloggy Giveaway Carnival. I LOVE me some Bloggy Giveaways. LOVE them. They are the highlight of each quarter for me, and even though I've never won, I love running through new blogs and checking out both what they have to offer...as a giveaway and as their normal content.

What I don't get is the fact that some blogs can't be counted on to actually name a winner when they say they will...or at all for that matter. And I dislike the fact that some blogs rename their original Mr. Linky title when it comes to finding out who won what. It would seem to be easier (to me at least) for the giveaway enterers (yeah, it's a made up word) to find the contests they entered...

I have been spending a few moments here and there for the past few days running through the links I saved to a document, to see if I won. Now I know that most, if not all of the blogs email their winners, I still like to know who won the giveaways I entered.

One of those blogs disappeared. Disappeared! As in Blogger no longer shows any evidence of it even having been a blog! How does that happen? Does the blogger just decide that they don't want to give away the prize any longer and quits blogging?

Another blog posted the winners to four of her five giveaways. The fifth just has a curt "This contest is over" posted on the original post. In fact, the post doesn't even show what it was originally for. Did she also decide to no longer give away the prize and this was her way of getting around that?

And finally, I can't count how many have said, "I'll pick a name and post it Saturday (or Sunday, or....) and hasn't followed through with that. If you're going to say you'll do something, do it!

This is a huge peeve for me and one I counsel the monsters on quite a bit. A commitment is a commitment is a commitment. You may decide you no longer want to do something, but until you follow through and complete what you've said you're going to do, you're still on the hook for it. Maybe it has it's roots in the failure of the commitment my ex and I gave each other. I don't know. What I do know, is that if I commit to something, you're guaranteed that I'm going to finish out what I've started.

Next quarter, I've decided to offer up my own giveaway...and you can rest assured that I WILL follow through.

And there will be money for nothing...but no chicks for free.

Until later...