Monday, February 12, 2007

How Not to Blog, Part 1

"I don't care about your blog."

I may have noticed the woman's stellar rack before I noticed what was written on her t-shirt. Or it may have been the other way around. Either way, it made me laugh.

Like everyone, before I started a blog, I was a blog reader. I was lucky enough in those early days to stumble upon some wonderful blogs. Some of them have gone away, some of them have deteriorated into "Nobody cares what you had for lunch!" drivel, and some of them are still going strong. But I learned from them all.

I think my blog friends and I have an unstated set of...well...not rules, per se. But guidelines. Basically, ways to ensure that your blog doesn't suck. If you even care about such things. We may break these rules all the time, especially when we don't care about sucking, but we still acknowledge that they exist.

Since I am a staunch rule-follower (seriously, it's a real problem for me) this week I am going to be discussing and breaking these rules. But first, in homage to The Sardonic One, let's come up with a good list. Shall we?

Disclaimer: Because enough people hate me already, please take these with a grain of salt. I'm not talking about you. Even Internationally Famous Superbloggers write posts about baby poop.

Don't blog about the weather.

Don't blog about other people's problems.

Limit blogging about blogging.

Memes are okay in small doses.

Unless you want to be an advertisement for YouTube, limit the number of videos.

Don't tell inside jokes.

Don't gossip about other bloggers. Unless you're linking to their new porn.

Do not use emoticons or texting abbreviations in your posts.

Do not blog as therapy.

Do not go fishing.

Don't take yourself too seriously.

Do practice good blog linking karma.

Do not beg.

Do have fun.

Is there anything else you're dying to ad to the list? You know you have blogger pet peeves. What are they?

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