Friday, February 11, 2011

What I love (and hate) about blogs!

Do you have pet-peeves about the blogs you read? I know I sure do! Even more so if I'm checking out the blog for the first time.

I've seen a few people blogging about this and I SOOOO agree! While I know my blog isn't perfect, I try to make it as user friendly as I can. I may post about books a little too much or my snark may not be some peoples taste. But, I'm me. And I love me!

Here are a few things I love to find when I check out a new blog!

* A face. I love it when people don't hide. I like to feel like reading your blog and commenting is making a connection with a real person. Fake names and no pictures sometimes make me wonder if the person is "real".
* I love when you are real in what you write. Everyone gets sad/mad. Don't be afraid to show it. We are all human(I think I need to listen to myself a little more on this one).
*I love when you have an assortment of things you post! I love reading crafty posts one day then about your family/life the next.

This list is a little bigger. Things I hate to see when reading a blog.....

* Lots of swearing. My husband said the best thing to me the other day when I was talking about swearing on facebook "Only psychopaths and unintelligent people cuss in type. smart people can think of a better way to express themselves". I NEVER get the urge to use the eff word on my blog. Ever. Call me a prude, but I think it really dumbs down my opinion on a person. I cansee a swear word here or there and I have a few that I will write sometimes....but the C word? NEVER!
* I HATE adds! I really hate the ones that pop up and you have to click on it to get anywhere! Most times it makes me close out the window and move on. I also hate the ones that are between EVERY post.  I want to read your blog not know what Viagra does.
* I hate automatic song players. You see Little likes to play games or listen to music on the computer and because he's little, he doesn't turn it down. I get on here to read blogs and have quiet time.....not be scared out of my mind when some rock song starts playing louder then it needs to be heard. I x-out right away and don't come back for the day. Sorry. If you want a playlist, make it so they have to click on it to start it. I love hearing other peoples taste in music!
* I don't mind colored fonts AS LONG AS YOU LOOK AT YOUR BLOG to see if it looks alright. Back colored like THIS hurts my eyes. I don't know why you think it would look pretty. It doesn't
* Post with too many pictures get old quick, even more so when you don't explain them. I love picture posts and find that too many posts without pictures get on my nerves to. I'm hard to please I guess.
* 8-mile posts! If you say "and then" more then 5 times. You need to save some of it for another post.  I'm all about rambling. It's how I get to the best conclusions! Seriously! But sometimes it's too much! Break it down. Post it over a few days if it was a huge thing!
* Comments saying follow me! No thanks, I'll pass.
* Word verification! I hate them! I hate going and writing out a nice comment just to guess what some random words are. It makes leaving comments so hard. If you worry about spam, in the almost 3 years I've been blogging I've never once had a spam comment! No, I take that back, it was "spam" but from a real live person who could type in the word verification. So I don't use it and it's been fine!
* My new gripe is when all people post about is awards they've gotten, blog hops, fill-in the whatever or guest posts. It's just not the type of stuff I want to read. At all.

Sorry for the whiny posts. If I get it out I can move on!

Do you have any blog pet-peeves I didn't mention?

13 comments:

Jen said...

Hmmm...blogging is definitely something you learn to do as you go i think :) I'm "new-ish" to blogging a still learning the etiquette an starting to figure out what my own voice is...lol and i think that takes a while :) I TOTALLY agree with you about needing to blog a variety of things... not just vents, or crafts, or whatever. People are reading your blog to get to know you, and jut like in real life the more well rounded you are, the more sucessful you are :)

Unknown said...

I totally agree with so many of your points! I do have a pen name but that's more so I can feel like I have a little privacy...of course if you email me that's down the drain:) I hate having to type in the random letters for comments...so annoying! Are you really getting that much spam?

Sh. said...

I found myself nodding along to everything you typed :) Hopefully I'm not on the annoying list!

Jes said...

I refuse to follow blogs that don't post photos (I get bored and like visuals) or ones that use 100 different text sizes, that hurts my eyes as much as the multi colors!

Oh and if you ask me to follow you, yeah, not going to happen! Tell me to check out your blog? cool. will do but don't ask me to follow you, that's tacky!

PHEW! I've been wanting to blog about this myself but just haven't yet, thanks for posting so I know I'm not alone with these thoughts!

SLM said...

Wow, I agree with almost all of them. I know I make lots of blogging mistakes, because I still feel very new and haven't learned all of the etiquette and such, but at least I am being me.

I catch myself doing a few things that annoy me, excessive use of !! and :-)...I try to stop myself and remove them from my post but it annoys me that I do that!! Hahaha

Jessa said...

I can pretty much agree with all of that, but I do swear here and again. That's me in real life, so I let it happen in the blog too. I do try to refrain from making it an all the time occurrence because I realize no one really wants to read the f-bomb. LOL

KK said...

I have never gotten a spam comment in the 2 1/2 years I've been blogging! well, i got one, but it was someone from another site or blog(I don't remember) who could type in the word verification so there was no point. lol.

Just Another MilSpouse said...

This was a great post, I agree with just about everything you said. The one thing I do that you talked about is the verification words for comments. I was concerned about spam so I just clicked the captcha button but after hearing that you and a few of your commenters have never had an issue I am going to change that. Maybe I will get more comments. I can always change it back if it becomes an issue but I will at least give it a try.

Mandy said...

I completely agree with everything you said! Though I will admit that I am one of the people that dont display my picture all over my blog. Every great once in awhile I will post my picture in a post so if you are a reader, you know who I am. But I am just uncomfortable having my picture just displayed for some reason.

Bit of Blue Sky said...

Great post!

The Social Frog said...

I agree with most of the same stuff! Great post :)



www.thesocialfrog.com

Ana said...

I'm in agreement with most of it. Although, I don't use my real name and have cut way down on the pics because it's kind of scary the stuff I've found out about other people. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Also, there is no freaking way I want people from my husband's command stumbling across my blog. If I used our real names, that would be pretty easy. I steer clear of most Navy stuff for this reason as well (no boat names, etc.).

It does peeve me when I see a lot of military info on a blog; Opsec is violated too many times, and I would absolutely report it if I ever came across someone on our boat who did that. Thankfully, that hasn't happened!

Ironically, I'm not a fan of comment moderation, ha. I like to see what other people have read and respond to their comments, not hope mine shows up below some completely unrelated comments (or ones that just say the same thing I do). I see comment moderation in the same category as the captcha thing.

Michelle D. said...

Everyone has their pet peeves. I was nodding quite a bit while reading this post. Sadly I'm probably a great offender on that. Sorry. Hope I'm not too annoying.

I rarely post a picture of myself, because I'm not comfortable in front of the camera. Much happier behind it.

I like pictures, but I'm kind of with you. You don't have to flood us with photos and no words. I like to hear thoughts about the photo or why you took it.

And I know I occasionally use a bad word here or there. But that's how I am. Everyone's different. That's what makes us all so wonderful! We're different.

Keep blogging! I love to see what you have on your mind.