Top Ten Habits of Highly Annoying Bloggers -
or, “How to Really Piss Me Off With Very Little Effort”
I read a post along these lines the other day that I’ve since forgotten (which means I’m breaking two of my own rules here and annoying myself) and thought I’d throw my own two-cents into the ring…what’s that saying, “Even if a mixed metaphor sings it should be derailed”? Something like that – but hey, I’m still tired so give me a break.
These aren’t absolutes, and I freely admit that I do some of these things as well, but it still annoys me.
On Blogs:
1. Wasting real estate. You have this nice, huge screen and yet you decide to cram your text into a column that only takes up about a quarter of your screen. I really, really hate this. Another spin on this theme is having a screen but boxing your entry into a frame-type thing with a scroll bar. People who do this tend to have some cool graphic on their background, which is fine, but you do know that you can keep your graphic static, don’t you? I mean, it doesn’t have to scroll off your screen as you’re reading the post. (Though this annoys me as well – it gives me a weird sense of vertigo, almost. You know how when you’re stopped at a light and the car next to you starts rolling forward slowly and you feel like you’re the one who’s moving so you slam on your brakes? It’s like that.)
2. When people link to things like this: “
Here is a great article I read, and
this is fun.” No! Do not do this -
say what it’s about, okay? Say, “
This is an excellent article on the human genome project” or “
This is a fun game that translates your text into Bushisms.” You don’t say what it is? Guess what – I ain’t clickin’. I admit I’ve been guilty of doing so in the past because I felt that whatever I said would be too trite and diminish the greatness of whatever I was linking to, but do as I say, not as I do.
3. Taking every fricking personality test online and not only posting what you are but also including the graphic. You know what this says to me about your personality? That you’re the type of person who takes too many online quizzes. That’s
all that says to me. Don’t keep the graphics of, “If you were any canned vegetable you would be CREAMED CORN” in your template, either. What are you expecting, someone to go, “Wow, he’s creamed corn, a vampire, a gin and tonic, Pikachu
and the number pi? He sounds utterly fascinating.” Well, no one will say that. They’ll go, “Damn, that’s really lame.” Yep, lame. I’ll make you a button for your sidebar, okay?
4. Making a browser-specific layout. This is remarkably frustrating for me because most of the time I’m on Netscape, though Explorer is my preferred browser. A
lot of you have blogs that look like mud in Netscape. Get a clue.
5. Not linking to the source of whatever you’re talking about. I’m guilty of this in this post myself, but again, do as I say, blah blah blah. I try, okay? Sometimes I forget where I see things, like the Wee Me. I did my little weeme, saved it, forgot about it for a few days, then went back to it and didn’t cite that I’d gotten the link from The Presurfer and didn’t even remember the website that had actually created the weeme for me. But I am stupid like that. Do not be stupid like that.
6. Taking a point from someone else’s blog and blogging about it on your own page. That’s exactly what I’m doing here, only because I can’t remember where I’d seen this talked about – and anyway, it was an older post so it’s not like I could have gotten in on the discussion. Why does this bother me? Okay, someone posts something and I feel like I have some strong opinions on the matter – what should I do? I should bloody well comment on the post on the other blog,
not carry the conversation over to my own. That’s what comments are for. (Ooh, and something else that really gets my back up is when people will comment and say, “I’ve written my response on my own blog”…but that’s in another section so I won’t go into all of that right now.)
7. Forgetting/ignoring the fact that some of us are still on dial-up connections. Yes, I know it’s shocking, and I fall victim to this myself, but all of the little trinkety feature-lettes on the page need to
l-l-l-o-o-o-o-a-a-a-a-d and it can be painful to bear when you’re on a dial-up. When I was at my mother’s house I felt this pain rather sharply, which is why I didn’t read a great many blogs when I was there – it just took too long. So remember those less fortunate than you who may be suffering slow connection speeds.
8. Generally being a whinge-bag. I came across a blog once with an entry that said something like, “I don’t know why I even blog, no one reads this and no one comments.” I felt so sad for the little monkey – I posted a comment along the lines of, “Hey, just do it for yourself, kiddo, that’s the important thing.” The next entry was like, “Yep. No one likes me.” I said, “Sure we do!” Next comment, “Don’t know why I even do this.” FINE! I’m outta here, stupid. If you’re looking to blog so that people will adore you and comment on your every post it’s not cute and clever to say, “No one likes me or ever comments.” Because guess what? I don’t and I won’t. Hey, it was you who gave me the idea.
9. Spelling and grammatical errors…
grrrrrrr! If you’re a crap speller or have bad grammar then write your posts in Word first, okay? Don’t try to type straight into the entry box on blogger. I don’t have the best grammar in the world but at least I can form a coherent, cohesive sentence when the mood strikes. I don’t edit my own posts, I type as I’d speak…and I spend most of my days talking to a three-year-old so yeah, I’m going to be tough to read now and again. And I say, “like” too often. And I end sentences with a preposition. And I begin sentences with “and”. At least I know that this is wrong – if your grammar is bad and your spelling is bad I’m
sure that somewhere along the way someone’s mentioned it to you. Think back – how long did it take you to get knocked out of the spelling bee? This is why I don’t feel sorry for those awful singers on American Idol when Simon rips them a new one – somewhere along the way I’m sure someone must have told them they weren’t good singers. They ignored that or didn’t believe it and set themselves up for judgment and ridicule. Good! They deserved it. I’m a bad singer, I know I am, so I restrict myself to singing in the shower and in the car – I only sing around my family as a punishment for them. Don’t punish us with your spelling errors – and if you’re not sure if you’re a bad speller or not, grab a post from your blog and paste it into Word or something. See all those green and red squiggles? I’m like the Terminator – I see those, too, when I’m reading your blog. Spell check is the single greatest invention since sliced porn. Use it.
10. Just general bad design. Loud colors. Crazy-ass fonts. Difficult navigation. And this comes from a gal who once had a black and purple template with yellow text. Wait, no, the title was yellow, I think the text was white. I did that to be funny, though, setting myself up as the antithesis of good taste. And oh boy, was it ever. But ya see, I was sporting that template as, like, all
ironic an’ stuff – I never thought it looked good. Even the Goths would have said, “Whoa, Natalie, that’s a bit too dark.” Readability is
key people. Duh.
So that’s my list o’ ten – it’s not exhaustive (though it could be considered exhausting) but it’s what was at the top of my mind at the moment. Tomorrow’s post will cover the top ten habits of highly annoying commenters…commentors…commentators…I should really be writing this in Word..
Letterman-ly,
Natalie
