For a long time I've known that some things have bugged me about certain blogs and/or bloggers. This is my attempt to collect them in a top-10 list. I was going to write a paragraph for each one, but I think most of the annoyances are obvious. Plus I really don't have the time right now.
(And, no, I'm not naming names here. And, yes, I know that I'm guilty of some of these from time to time.)
- Bloggers who don't enable comments on their blogs.
- Bloggers who rarely produce original content, instead simply aggregating links to other blogs that I already read.
- Bloggers who spend more time blogging about blogging than anything else.
- Bloggers who are FontBitches and don't care.
- Bloggers who don't provide any "about me" info on their blog, or pointers to it elsewhere on their site. I like to know more about the people I'm reading.
- Bloggers who don't provide a blogroll.
- Bloggers who post excuses for not posting. I don't care if you're busy today. If you're not posting, fine. I'll just assume you had other things to do.
- Bloggers who react but rarely act. Commenting on what other people say or do is interesting, but I'm annoyed by folks who never seem to have original material. (Yes, this is like #2 but it's not quite the same.)
- Bloggers who don't provide obvious RSS links for their blog. Yes, I know that RSS auto-discovery is great, but not all tools do it.
- Bloggers who have TrackBack but don't use it.
Feel free to add your own in the comments. And, of course, tell me what annoys you about my blogging. :-)
Posted by jzawodn at February 21, 2003 12:46 PM
11. Bloggers that post nothing but rants -- and they're not amusing. Entertaining rants are fine.
12. Bloggers whose blogs consist of nothing but very minute and boring details of their personal lives that nobody cares about -- also known as the I-want-the-last-5-minutes-of-my-life-wasted-reading-this-back blogs.
Considering I have "ranting" in the title of my blog, I have to wonder if Kasia's referring to my blog... probably not or she would've stopped visiting a long time ago. ;-)
I try to add SOME humor to my rantings. hehehe
I tried doing #1, but, well, I wasn't reading the comments so there wasn't any point to that, was there?
AMEN Brotha! As quickly as I got excited about blogs a year ago, I am getting annoyed with bloggers in general.
My new philosophy towards my RSS subscriptions - Quality over Quantity.
Throwing out the effinheimer just for the sake of throwing it out.
Thoughts:
1. Isn't this the case with anyone who uses Blogger? I tried some third-party tools; they were unreliable, ugly or both.
7. I assume yours is "my links : Home Page", but the placement and phrasing is less-than obvious.
Additions to those posted so far:
13. People who say they'll link you back and then don't, and make excuses (not you).
14. People who have MT but don't have a search (you). Seriously, this is th best part of MT.
Also, why haven't you upgraded your MT? We're up to 2.61 ... lots of cool new stuff.
15. Bloggers who tell other bloggers how they should be blogging. ;-)
Derek, your rants are usually entertaining sometimes in an unintended way :)
I hate when bloggers don't mention how funny something I said was. :)
I don't think I'm guilty of any of those things. Sure I am from time to time, but nothing in that list is something that is predominately true of my blog.
I think we all had names pop into our head when we read each of those. The first was always our own, and the second was always Dave Winer.
Bloggers who use the smallest font they can find in order to squeeze every minute detail of their opinion into an area the size of a postage stamp. "MORE" is not always "BETTER"!
...
17. Geek Blogger who sneer at less technical people who just wanna have fun.
Remember a blog is still a personal thing and there is no right way to do it ... are you a technical blog Nazi?!
Creativity & inspiration should be seeded among fellow bloggers, not rightous complaints. So go out and inspire us ... that is a bigger challenge then complaining ...
Dieter
I wrote my own blogging tool (hey, it just kind of happened - I didn't set out to write one) so don't have comments, rss feeds or a blogroll, in fact, I don't even know what the last two are (yet).
Actually, I think I've been guilty of most of the other habits at one time or another too.
I'll get me coat.
Bloggers who get too hung up on technical features, like trackback and RSS and XML and all the other shit and forget that using blogging tools was supposed to make it easier for not so technical minded people to publish their thoughts.
(Just like how html evolved from a quick and dirty system that anybody could learn in half an hour to the current tedious anal retentive mess. Great for the pros, not so great for the rest of us.)
and some people think better when commenting rather than originating. this may or may not include y.t.
Your complaintabout not providing a blogroll baffles me. I wander through Blogger, Live Journal, DiaryLand and web rings and many blogs that are in their own private web space, connected little if at all to other blogs (saving perhaps those of colleagues and/or friends. I read few consistently, almost none over the long haul. Mostly my chief delight is the writings of long dead people whose words survive only on paper. Why would I, for example, have a blogroll?
What's really so great about a blogroll?
Anyone interesting is already getting mentioned in the posts.
Uh, do you win an award or anything for getting 10 outta 10?
And the last one.
Bloggers who don't even have a blog. Phew!
Your list should probably be #1 on this list.
1. Bloggers who don't enable comments on their blogs.
No one comments, so why bother? Seeing "0 comments" on everything is depressing. And it slowed down loading of the page.
2. Bloggers who rarely produce original content, instead simply aggregating links to other blogs that I already read.
Bloggers who produce "original content" very, very rarely have anything interesting to say. Just give me a link to someone who thinks (ie. not a blogger) instead anyday.
3. Bloggers who spend more time blogging about blogging than anything else.
That blogger's audience is obviously other bloggers.
4. Bloggers who are FontBitches and don't care.
I don't know what those are, and I don't care.
5. Bloggers who don't provide any "about me" info on their blog, or pointers to it elsewhere on their site. I like to know more about the people I'm reading.
Who I am is none of your business. If I wanted you to know, I'd have created an "about me" page.
6. Bloggers who don't provide a blogroll.
A what?
7. Bloggers who post excuses for not posting. I don't care if you're busy today. If you're not posting, fine. I'll just assume you had other things to do.
Agreed.
8. Bloggers who react but rarely act. Commenting on what other people say or do is interesting, but I'm annoyed by folks who never seem to have original material. (Yes, this is like #2 but it's not quite the same.)
Please point me to these fountains of originality that you frequent in the blogosphere. Like "Fan Fiction" the "original" creations of bloggers are below third-rate. I would much rather read someone who has something interesting and intelligent to say when they are being original (ie. not a blogger). But oppinions are sometimes ok... everyone's got one, but sometimes they are informed oppinions, which makes a select few of them worth reading.
9. Bloggers who don't provide obvious RSS links for their blog. Yes, I know that RSS auto-discovery is great, but not all tools do it.
I'm sorry I don't keep up with all of the latest web fashions, but if www.blogger.com doesn't provide a feature right out of the box I'm not going to bother implementing it or searching for tools that do. I have better things to do with my time. And shockingly unfashionable though it may be I actually expect my readers to load up my web page and read it.
10. Bloggers who have TrackBack but don't use it.
Don't have it. Don't care.
Bloggers who don't change their templates.
Bloggers whose comment systems demand an email address.
#51. Please don't post items like the folowing:
"And you simply have to go read this and this."
Don't assume we all have time to follow your mystery links. You assume too much. It may be something I've already seen or something I'm not especially interested in. Then you've wasted my time which is no less important than your own. A blog entry should at minimum say what the heck it's about.
Surely it would just be simpler if all the world followed the Blogger Manifesto?
I heartily recommend Sour Bob and his Open Letter to Blogdom for a hilarious look at some of the same issues.
yes, agree with many of your 10 Aggravations about Bloggers.
But as I am about to post up on www.baghdadskies.blogspot.com
you may like a brief run-down on myy thinking:
**Blogging is not the technology it the content/an opportunity
** Life is about projecting oneself onto the world as best as one can
** life has a lot to do with dominance
--an analysis of 100 blogs (I suggest) will come up with
75% ego
15% muddled thinking and poor expression (due to either over-confidence or someone with no confidence in expressing themselves in "normal life" having a go)
5% good FIV (my term for facts, ideas & values)
(a meme as people might say in the making there -- google FIV systemmatically from now on to see how far it spreads and how quickly)
-- How different is it from "every day life?"
If you set up a blog then lose momentum/can't think of anything to say/lose confidence/ think no one is reading it/ you are behaving in the same way as you might do in "real life" interractions.
** Billions of people bought PCs because they felt they might need one - only a few thought up a use then bought one
All the very best to you,
Andy
I am fairly new to blogging but I do agree with most of Jeremy's top 10 list. I do enjoy reading 'intelligent' blogs. What really annoys me to no end is people who right words LiKe tHIs. IsN't tHiS aNNoyIng aS hElL? What's up with that? It is very irritating. If you want to write at least pretend you learned something in school.
Now, that felt good. Happy blogging everyone.
I also hate people who confuse the whole subject with the film, "My Big Fat Blogger Wedding".
or i/o/w, people who don't know what the heck a blog is (wasn't that a 1950's Steve McQueen horror movie?), who the heck bloggers are and wouldn't even be wondering all of this if I hadn't come across this confusing unknown subject over my newly found interest in the Meet-Up phenomenon of the Howard Dean presidential candidacy.
Oh, and did I also mention I hate people who BLATANTLY plug their own interests.
18) Bloggers that blog into a frame surrounded by 4 other frames.
Loggers who defame useful, standards-based technologies like CSS without doing enough research. (Excluded are loggers who defame such standards *after* doing enough research. One chapter of my book does exactly that!)
Generally, having tried both comments and an 'email us stuff' link, I've found the best stuff comes from people who send emails which can then be folded into the blog proper. As someone up there says, the commenting functions slows the site down, tends to look ungainly, and really leaves you with "comments: (0)" all over the place, which makes the site look like its untouched. Besides, if someone really wants to argue with me on the web, they can do their own blog, right?
and the 'about me' information: if you can't work out what you need to know from my writing, then is there any point in spelling it out?
I generally hate everything, and I am delighted that I can now add "annoying bloggers..." to my list
Holy crap how did I get here?!
Okay - take this pearl of wisdom -
"In blogging - it's the playing of the game, not the winning that matters"......(Discuss)
Can't stand religious blogs...blogs that bring condemnation against all others!
#????. I ran across this post late (today) but hope to add one more..
Memers, bloggers who do nothing but post memes. Is there a technical term for this???
I lost count of the numbers of additions, so I'll start with:
100) Bloggers who present social and political issues and profess to be well-informed and passionate. So, you click on the comment button to present your divergent opinion hoping to get an intelligent, well-thought out, cogent response. NOT!!! Instead, I get these:
a) refutation of words I never said
b) nitpicking on humor I inject
c) erroneous understanding of idioms I use
d) a laundry list of their educational accomplishments
e) bombardment of more facts without analyses of cause and effect
It is HARROWING, please Good God, help me! I've never known anything so depressing.
I'm with Zak. This is a nice list, but i'd like to add just 11. Bloggers who want to be Adam Curry. (because he's an arse)
Not everyone is as knowledgeable as you but still like to blog and, I might add have, a right to so far. I have no idea what you are talking about in #4, #6, #9 and #10.
Most annoying blogs... those ones with huge cartoony type pictures of bunnies, or kitties, or anime girls with some HORRIBLE music playing... and little pop up boxes saying something like "Love you Forever!" Drives me crazy.
I like your Jerem'ys first name thing. Okay, so yeah...
Bloggers who leave a million one word comments to display a message which runs down the page. example:
comment1) Hi
comment2)its
comment3)me
comment4)how
comment5)are
comment6)you
comment7)=)
How about those guys that only put affiliate tags in your blog. Or whats even worse if its not even on target. No, I got it those put thousands of keywords like Texas Holdem or Blackjack, Bonus Cash or whatever... Man thats the worst...
When people post surveys, quizzes, along with their answers, and other chain letter crap that's clogging up email and web forums. If they're ticked off about a fwd and take it apart via rant and debunk, at least it's original and sometimes funny. But simply posting junk that's already invaded my email or some forums countless times - argh.
Oh my god, I'm with Amberjane!! Such blogs freeze up my computer and nothing but the ol' CTRL+ALT+DEL works.
As for your list, I have to agree with John Jay Hooker: "I sincerely believe blogging can save America." (and the rest of the world) You're atleast READING what other people have to say.
Bloggers that leave comments on other blogs whenever they have a new post on theirs, to force people to read the post and comment back. Some even place the same or very similar comments everywhere, everytime...
And bloggers who fall for it and comment back whenever they receive a comment on their blogs, thinking this is being "polite"...
Bloogers who use porn stars pictures suggesting it is them
Littlewing of blogspot had a massive following by using melissa midwest pictures and creating blog stories to fit with the fake pictures , she also pinched other sites works and changed a few words to suggest it was all about her.
There are so much more you can add to that list. I think you should include the paragraph for each point and provide links as examples so that all of us can learn!
What about bloggers that have several different screen names and "gang up" on posters who disagree with them, giving the illusion that "everybody" disagrees.
This is happening on a certain Michigan sports blog. It's pathetic....insane, really.
How about bloggers who spend 0% of their time on making their blog actually look like something you might consider viewing for more than 10 seconds.
Bloggers who don't check to make sure their links are not broken. Oh, such as in
Bloggers who don't provide obvious RSS links for their blog. Yes, I know that RSS auto-discovery is great, but not all tools do it.
which has h\tml as its ending in a link
:whistles:
How about sites that globally nofollow links in comments? I'm not a huge fan of that. Personally, if someone takes the time to make an insightful comment on your site the least you can do is let them provide a followed link back to theirs.
Another one - requiring registration to comment. It completely kills any desire I had to leave a comment at all.
Bloggerz whoze grammer and spellling is so bad that trying to firgure out what their saying is like putting together a jiggsaw puzle.
Bloggers who refer to content to which they could and should obviously post a link, but they don't, presumably because they want to have the "last word" on it, or because of some weird power trip or...?? I don't know, but it's very frustrating and annoying when you want to read about something from the original source. Gizmodo is notorious for this.
I am guilty of posting my boring day to day life details.
What annoys me most is CAPCHAS!!!!!!
11. Bloggers who make boring pointless lists, just for traffic.
One thing I've noticed that really disturbs me is when a blog takes forever (and a mean more than 5 minutes!) to load. What? They think I have all day?
Another one is this. They have movable type, but they don't accept typekey. That's my own peave though.
This is a nice post, and you did a very nice job. Keep up the good work, and have a nice day.
11. Bloggers who submit sites to Digg, but don't make them capable of withstanding the Digg effect.
Jeremy - Great post. If you've got a minute, you may want to check out my piece on The Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging (http://webmarketcentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/7-deadly-sins-of-blogging.html), kind of in the same vein of these 10 habits.
Your ability to inspire large quantities of comments is also mighty impressive.
"9. Bloggers who don't provide obvious RSS links for their blog."
where is yours dude? Maybe I am blind right now ...
anyway funny. liked it. :-)
Fair points JZ! liking it. May take these points into consideration if i start to seriously blog!
Posting a verbatim copy of a chat...
Example:
* e: it was bad last night
* throwing extremist bricks at the dems
* im stopping a huge rant
* ...
* ok.
* how is your morning thus far?
* s: no
* don't stop the rant
* morning is great
* it's the company's 2nd birthday today
* we are drinking mimosas and eating donuts
* e: ?!
* jealous
* mimosas and donuts sound pretty nice
* if not a bit east coast liberally and effete
* hehe
* my blood is so riled
* s: arugula flavored donuts
* they are from dunkin
* not elite donuts
* e: har
* reading articles on the nation after a few cnn critiques of palins speech
* no one seems to be saying anything about just how scary her speech was
* about not reading people their rights
* about the belittling, sneering commentary that disconnected itself from truth so brazenly
* about the lack of any substantive offerings of her own policies or experience except that as mayor of a 6000 person town she did "things"
* s: really? no one?
* what is the nation saying?
* e: that she is essentially sprio agnew
* that she gave an impressively attacking speech that was wrong on facts, and wrong in ideology
* but they're not strong enough
* and i havent seen much of anything that we reacted to last night
* s: hmmmmmm
* i feel like i have seen a couple of articles critical of her attacks on obama
* i mean, not strongly so or anything
* e: and when people get angry about her ideologies and illegalities, like in the comments, there are republican comments that counter it saying how happy they are that palin has them scared and that it shows some truth to what shes saying
* ?!
* s: sick
* people are sick
* s: the comments on cnn for this article are somewhat heartening: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/03/rnc.day/index.html
* e: after a rant session with h and r, and those comments i feel a little better
* s: drill baby drill makes me barf
* e: thats exactly what h said a few minutes ago
* i said i was almost moved to eating my shoe and throwing it against the wall i was so upset
* s: ha
* she is not america. please please please, let that be true
* please let us move beyond it
* the fear and the hate
* it just makes me want to cry and barf
* e: i hope this speech will be a turning point for a lot of people
* s: and in the right direction, ie away from her
* e: its so disheartening and embarrassing to think of the millions of people who ate that shit up
* s: i just don't understand. how can disrespect for human rights, fear and hatred of difference, selfishness, unwillingness to help your fellow human beings, imperial imposition of religion on people's lives and women's bodies, war, death, destruction, abuse, lies, manipulation--how can ANY of that be okay with people?
* how how how how how how how
* e: when its in the name of some justifying belief
* s: who says no when you ask them, should people be respected? who says no when you ask them, is it important to treat people well, to help them lead good lives, to not murder them, to not neglect them?
* who the fuck says no to that?
* s: i am so tired of people abdicating their responsibilities as human beings to a god who doesn't exist
* even if he did, would that mean we are supposed to just sit around and let people starve and die and be treated unfairly?
* is that what jesus did?
* e: no, but he did create the usa to be the hope of the world, with the iraq war being "god's task" and all
* there is so much hypocrisy within their own ideologies as well as matched up to their religious beliefs, so much that is against basic human decency
* its sickening.
* and i really think, even though there's a sizable majority still, the end of the republican party and the base constituency that
* s: ?
* e: sorry
* my thought trailed off as i was answering a call
* s: oh
* e: i think we're seeing the last, heaving, pathetic gasps from these kind of people with the rnc. they're desperate and they know the tide is turning away from their tired rhetoric
* s: i hope so
* i really hope so
* i told my dad if obama doesn't win, he'll probably have three illegal immigrants on his hands...
* e: ha
* its true though
* i can't say what i would do if he really became pres
* its killing me how obvious the inane, bigoted, hypocritical bs is
* s: sigh. it's been killing me for eight years.
Still funny to re-read it after these years....
