Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)

Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)
Huldra Forsvant (Theodor Kittelsen)

Friday, August 21, 2009

10 Things That Unsettle Me As A Blog Reader

1. Constantly changing and evolving blog designs. Change frightens me.
2. Removed posts. You wrote something, then you took it down. The ground under my feet feels unstable.
3. Unanswered comments
4. Post irregularity. Five today, none for the next two weeks.
5. Too many posts. If I scroll down and can't see the post I read yesterday, the task of catching up feels too hard.
6. Long posts without pictures. My eyes need something to rest on. A little island with a palm tree in the vast ocean of font-iness.
7. No picture, no profile. Who are you? What are you hiding?
8. Posts about being sick of blogging. I get sad and leave.
9. All business with nothing personal. I'll read a paper or the Southern Cross instead.
10. All personal, with nothing else. I want to know your world, but from a safe distance.

13 comments:

RodeoClown said...

Why do I feel that point 4 describes me completely...

I read everything through Google Reader, then I don't have to care about regularity - I'll see it when you write...

Ben McLaughlin said...

I have not explored the reader option. I find it very unappealing.

For me, a big portion of the fun is in the browsin, and looking at peoples' different sites.

To me a reader thing would be like instead of having an hour to wander thru a 2nd hand book shop and run my eyes over a lot of duds to hunt down that one treasure on the back shelf, to have someone bring out the three good books and leave them outside the shop for me, so I didn't even have to go in.

Where's the fun in that?

RodeoClown said...

Reader still has a link back to the blog, so I click through to make comments, and once I have read through the entire archives of a blog, having the new posts appear in a reader means I don't have to keep going to the blog to see if it's been updated.

It also means I can keep tabs on 200-odd sites without too much hassle.

Nathan said...

Where I stand under your commandments
1. Broken.
2. I'm happy to leave the good up with the bad. I will occasionally edit with an apology/correction.
3. Broken.
4. I'm pretty good on that one.
5. Broken. But I'm an emergent blogger and I don't like your rule man. I will smoke incense and post as much as I want...
6. Sometimes broken.
7. Not broken - I would go a step further and say using a fake name/psuedonym is annoying.
8. With you. Same goes for Twitter - though I rarely use it.
9. Not broken.
10. Again, not broken.

I think I'm doing alright on this one. My sins of commission are perhaps less problematic than my sins of omission.

Ben McLaughlin said...

Rodeo- There were once two vegetable farmers. the first had a big property with may different varieties, and it became too big a task for hi to tend. So he got in some hired hands to do the menial work so he could take care of the paperwork inside.

the second farmer had only a small plot, and grew tomatoes only. He lovingly tended his patch, and worked alone with the land.

It was approaching the time when the tomatoes would ripen, on both farms, and the fruit that had been green and small was about to double in size and bulge, red and suculant.

The morning came, and on the first farm, the hired hand walked into the field and saw the sight odf the amazing, red tomatoes. He would tell his master in a few hours, after the master had slept in, done his paper work and shined his R.M. Williams. The news however, would just be another thing to tick off on his spreadsheet.

Meanwhile, on the second farm, the farmer was up at a sparrows' fart, while the stars were still out. He stood excited and expectant in the predawn cold. And as the sun arose across the valley his eyes filled with tears as the first rays of the day illuminated his patch of red. All his hard dedicated work had come to fruition. It wasn't much, but it was his.

Book of Benjamin, ch6 v.1-27

Ben McLaughlin said...

yikes, was that heretical?

Nathan-
2. i have decided to do that. I remember a few times I really wanted to take back what I said, but deleting it felt wishy washy. I posted something else instead to apologise.
5.frickin hippy.
8. oops, I've done the Twitter whinge.

RodeoClown said...

Um, what?

Ben McLaughlin said...

I don't know, but it was very deep.

It may take some time to soak in.

goldy said...

Well I think I'm guilty of at least half of those. You must really hate me.

Ben McLaughlin said...

au contraire. it is tough love.

And I'm guilty too, so it's alright.

goldy said...

Well just to make up for it I'm going through my posts and adding more pictures.

Ben McLaughlin said...

more power to ya, girlfriend

kristina said...

I am guilty of some of those too- Sorry. Will try to blog better :)