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RSSHow To Piss Me Off With Your Blog
While I enjoy and appreciate the effort that goes into the 100+ blogs that I chew through daily, there are a number of things that grind my gears. Here’s my top 10:
10. Put in huge blocks of text and never break them up
I don’t care what that big, fat, snotty ass of an English teacher told you about writing. Writing for the web is different than writing for the approval of a washed up author. Most of the time, people don’t read your site, they skim it. Newspapers traditionally break up their paragraphs into smaller chunks to provide multiple places for your eye to rest on your way down the page. The web is exactly the same. When you give me big blocks of text, I lose my place a lot and end up getting aggravated. When I get aggravated, I read something else.
9. Make me hunt for your RSS feed
This one kills me. I think you’re awesome, so why won’t you let me subscribe to all of your updates? RSS has been around for over a decade now, so if you have a site, there’s no excuse not to have an RSS feed. All Blogger and Wordpress users have feeds created for them by default, and just need to advertise them. I might spend a couple of minutes making educated guesses as to where your feed might be, but the average person won’t. Do everyone a favor and put a big orange chicklet at the top of your blog so us lazy folk with bad eyes can find it, subscribe, and enjoy your posts.
8. Don’t allow comments at all
If you shut off commenting because you were drowning in a sea of comment spam, using Akismet and Bad Behavior for Wordpress will allow you to turn it back on by eliminating 99% of your spam for free. If you’re simply afraid that people will say something that might detract from your totally awesome post, then maybe your post isn’t that awesome after all. Come out from under your bed in that giant ivory tower and let people love or hate your posts. Eliminate barriers. Get some feedback. Make a couple of friends. Communicate. (Unless, of course, you are the Grand master of the Illuminati, in which case I apologize for even suggesting this. I wouldn’t dream that my comments would matter to you, Sir. Or Madam. Or Whatever. I, for one, would like to welcome our new insect overlords.)
7. Limit comments to Blogger users only
Look, I know Blogger is a big community and can provide you a ton of readers, but I don’t want to log on with a Google account just to leave a comment. I want to leave a comment under one of my more awesome pseudonyms, such as Seniorhotdog666. Why won’t you let me? Know what happens when people put up barriers? I stare at the screen for two seconds, maybe use a little foul language, and click the X in the corner of the screen. I have a ton of stuff to read and won’t waste time scaling walls just to tell you how great I thought your post was. Seniorhotdog666 might love your post, but you’ll never know because you shut him out. And no one shuts out Seniorhotdog666.
6. Simply vanish
Write really well, get me interested, and then drop your blog cold. Maybe even delete your domain in a fit of rage. Why do you treat me like you don’t even know me? Didn’t our time together mean anything to you? Oh, wait. You don’t know me. Well, that’s no excuse. You still suck. And I miss you. No, no, wait, I hate you. Are you coming back? Hello? Fine, be that way.
5. Suddenly make reading your blog invitation only
What, now I’m the pimply fat kid who’s not good enough for your crappy club for jerks? I was good enough two months ago when you were itching for readers. If someone found out that you were crapping all over your boss, I certainly didn’t tell them, so why am I suddenly on the wrong side of that new velvet rope in front of your blog? Bah. I’m taking my twelve sided die and going home. Don’t think I’ll check back either. I’m serious. If I only had magic missile in my bag of holding, I would cast it upon that velvet rope for +d12 damage. Not that I know what any of that means because I’m so friggin’ cool.
4. Try to make me register
The best way to piss me off with this is to tell me I need to register as a site member after I type out a long comment. Your site is so phenomenal that I have to become a member to leave a comment? Do you have any idea how many friggin’ accounts I have out there? Do you think I’m willing to create another one just to respond to you and let you know that I appreciate the work you’re putting in? Unless you’re some huge site that generates a bunch of awesome posts and offers free lower body massages for members, it’s not likely. Do you know why people get annoyed with the New York Times and get their information from other sources? Registration. Maybe The ‘Times can afford it because they’re huge. Unless you’re that big, take off the members only jacket, get rid of the club card, and let me in.
3. Switch gears hard
You had an awesome blog, and then you went and had an awesome baby. I know the little rug rats can take over every part of a new parent’s life, but if I read another post on how you’ve gotten no sleep and have sore nipples, I’m deleting your feed. This goes triple if you are a dude. I can certainly sympathize with you being tired, but throw me a bone once and a while and write a post about something other than the baby’s every move. I’m not requesting “The many sweaters of Mrs. Fussbudget the cat” either. Anything else. Please. I’m begging you.
2. Twitter around and leave me hanging
I know, I know. Point a finger at someone and three fingers point back at you. I will admit to being completely guilty of weekly posts full of mundane details so that when I’m 70 I’ll be able to look back and see what a tool I was, but those posts are for me. In the meantime, I write a lot of other posts in an attempt to inform or entertain you. There’s nothing wrong with a vanity post every so often, but when each post is a pointless catalog of every mundane minute, put it in a diary and chuck it under your pillow there, princess. I love catching up with you, but tie all the details together into a story and provide me with a point once and a while.
1. Jam Adwords into every crevice
I know you want to make money on the web. I do too. And I can understand placing ads down the side or at the top of your page to maximize your revenue, but when you start jamming ads every two paragraphs, or have links that pop up little ads whenever my mouse touches them, I get insanely annoyed. Sometimes I even growl at the screen. The more ads you jam in, the more I wonder about your intentions. When you enter that grey area, chances are I’m not going to waste any time validating your opinions before discounting them and moving on. If you’re one of those dinks that sticks me with pop under ads, I will immediately discount you, and avoid both returning or linking to you at all costs short of that free lower body massage mentioned earlier.
Super Angry Bonus Round! Newscasters with blogs
I’m going to break something if I see another TV newscaster encourage people to check out their blog during a newscast. YOU’RE A PROFESSIONAL NEWSCASTER. You already have a media outlet to give your opinions on. It’s called television and it reaches a zillion people an hour. Blogs are an alternate stream of getting information. Pro blogs from newscasters are a contrived stream. Stop invading the blogshphere with useless crap because some exec decided that this new “blogging thing” might encourage your career by humanizing your big, talking head. Leave the useless crap to us. We know useless crap. I do, anyway. I’m like the king of it. Look at this post for crying out loud. I’m the king of crap, there is none higher…
Got more things that burn your muffin about blogs? Feel free to post them in the comments…
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July 26th, 2007 at 11:48 am
ooooh! I almost made it till i got to reason #2. I am terrible at the fluff posts fillled with useless info. i started to care a while back…. and then i stopped. sometimes i hesitate after writing a post about nothing important whatsoever, and then i click “post” anyway because so many people freakin annoy me if i go missing for 20 minutes. it’s a catch 22, really.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
So is #3 directed at me? *paranoid glance* Admittedly, BD’s just taking up a lot of my time right now and there’s not much else going on but projectile pooping, lack of sleep and general insanity. Well, that and me attempting to hock the husband so I can afford Spice Girls tickets.
But I gotta say I totally agree with you on #10.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Hey wait a minute. I have those double underlined links which pop up when you put your mouse over them. They actually make quite a bit of money.
July 26th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
This post isn’t directed at individuals, folks. And I’m not trying to change you. Click post if you want. Write about the baby if you want. I’ll just keep reading and pushing all the anger down into a tiny little ball…
Michael, Considering you wrote “Bad Behavior” and give it away for free, I’m fully willing to give you a pass on your ads. Thanks for a great plugin!
July 27th, 2007 at 3:23 am
I used to be guilty of number 10 – then I was shown the ways of blogging.
And the ones on comments and registering are spot on. I have a cousin who has a blogger page. Luckily I can use my Google account to post comments, but it’s pretty much a pain every time I do.
Not only do I have to essentially log in with my username and password, I also have to enter a captcha cause they don’t trust me. (I know I use captchas on my site, but that’s cause you don’t have to register)
I know you said you weren’t directing this at individuals, but you really brought up good points in numbers 3 and 2. I know I’m guilty of it myself, but never really thought much of it. Now that you lay it out I realize that the people that do take the time to read my blog probably don’t care about most of the stuff that I do post.
Thanks for making me aware, I’m definitely going to see what I can do about my content, because I feel as if it’s been lacking in some areas.
July 30th, 2007 at 7:29 am
‘Unless you’re that big, take off the members only jacket, get rid of the club card, and let me in.’ HAHAHA, that’s awesome =)
October 6th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Well, I almost get full points for number six (“Simply Vanish”), but don’t seem be be picking up any points for the others. Presumably this means there is something wrong with your research – my blog oughta piss you off lots more ways than that.
Oh, I know, how about a new post:
1 Things That Piss Me Off About Weblogs
1. The content
Yeah, I could get 110% for that one.
October 14th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Blogs are for readers or for bloggers?
I believe my blog is for myself so I don’t care if people delete my feed because “I’m tired and I had to blog about it”
October 15th, 2007 at 8:51 am
No THIS is an excellent post. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I can see where you are coming from. You have listed many annoyances that occur on far too many blogs out there.
A great read, and very entertaining. Thankyou
October 15th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Excellent article. Many of things piss me off too and I wrote about the making me register thing. What a pain!
October 19th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Totally with you, especially on the ads thing. You wanna pay your server bills from ad revenue, that I understand. You want your blog to be an alternate or even main source of income – that’s pushing it, but still acceptable (and possible ) if you do a proper job of consistently providing quality content and take it seriously. Just do NOT annoy me with ads.
Non-blinking, non-eyecancer-inducing banners WITHOUT sound, between major sections of your entry that deserve their own subheadings, are about as much as I’m willing to tolerate if down the side and at the top and bottom of the page doesn’t bring in enough for you. Anything more than that – including those ever so profitable double-underlined links – and you’d better be publishing a new entry on the value level of proving the Goldbach conjecture, every week. Else you’re off my list of feeds, period.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
This one made me laugh! Relly great language and you’re [ almost
] always right. I guess #3 with the baby was too hard 
If the content is usually great I’d stay subscribed.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Hey great list, i think i’m guilty of one though, I should break my paragraphs up a little.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:41 am
9. Make me hunt for your RSS feed
I’m totally guilty of this one, if you check my site, I decided to make a ‘dock’ that would let you subcribe to RSS, etc. Unfortunately, my page got so long that the dock is pushed down a LOT and is not easily visible anymore. I’ll be working on a new side dock though. Interesting read
November 15th, 2007 at 5:01 am
One of the things that really bugs me is not easily being able to see the date something was published. I like to know how fresh information is and it lacks a little credibility for me if I can’t see the date.
Yes, I know I can look at the URL or the date of the first comment but why make it that difficult?
November 16th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Perfect. When I read the title, I wondered, “Hmm… what might this person think???” Apparently, I hold the same opinion in these areas, except Twitter because I don’t.
Of course, I am one of those people with kids, so my blog does “go there”, but it’s less about Jr. not eating veggies and more about my mania and psychosis as I hourly realize this mom-thing… I digress…
Loved the post – it made me nod, shout and point in agreement
November 20th, 2007 at 2:58 am
10. I’m skimming this right now
9. I passed!
8. I’m totally guilty, I’m working on this though.
7. Pass
6. Report them to the human rights violation centers, domains have feelings.
5. Invitation only? That’s lame, unless it’s really private information or something.
4. Registering sucks, usually. And yes, especially when you find out “need to register as a site member after I type out a long comment…” But you also forgot something even large web corporations are really good at, giving you a box to type in, but not letting you know there’s a character limit of 250 or 500 characters, then you click send, and then and only then, you’re let in the loop.
3. I have controlled myself, on the outside.
2. I’m glad I don’t do vain things like you, I’m awesome.
1. lol – i typically do the same thing… I don’t enjoy ads very much myself (although on a rare occasion I actually see one I want to click on, so I do it), so I try not to link to peoples sites who have annoying ads (scattered like buckshot throughout their webpages), unless what I’ve found is so amazing and unique that I couldn’t find it anywhere else (because I will likely try, if it’s so amazing) and in that case, I’ll try to make sure I warn people of the despair that gauntlet they must run through to get to the treasure.
November 29th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Well it really pisses me off that my previous comment i posted in your free e-mail subscription icons “is awaiting moderation” !!! What, you don’t trust me? Fine.
jk. nice post. was a good read.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I’m slacking. Still no comments section on my site… Writing all the code myself (and learning it at the same time) is challenging, especially while still writing articles like the one I’ve been spending a lot of time on one article, which aims to logically explain a specific paradox. Sometimes I wish I had known of the power of word press before I coded my site from the ground up w/ the help of a PAPER book. Yes, paper! (there are still tree’s left in the world – surprisingly)
December 19th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I am getting closer to your ideals of perfection! I have a comments ability working now! PWUAHAHHAHHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHHAA I am pwnage cornflakes.
February 14th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Some great stuff here, and I’m sure I’ve been guilty of it myself from time to time
One thing, for the RSS, be sure to set up auto-discovery so the icon appears in FireFox’s address bar.
February 16th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Amen, and why are ads from Google in the middle of the post? Confusing at best, makes me go away.
February 24th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Logging in to comment…
Probably the dumbest thing a blogger can require.
If I run into this, I’m gone. There is absolutely no point in making someone register before they can interact with you and your blog.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:46 am
I really enjoyed reading your article. I think I’m guilty of occasionally dropping my blog cold, and leaving it for weeks without anything. I’ve actually never subscribed to an RSS feed before (maybe I’ll start with you) so I wouldn’t know about that one, but I get really annoyed when blogs don’t let you comment.
November 23rd, 2008 at 12:47 am
Great article! I agree with you on so many levels.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
[...] How To Piss Me Off With Your Blog [...]
May 31st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
As a novice blogger I read this with interest and a little bit of shame as I recognised my not so old self here. Fortunately, advice like this enables us to learn and I hope that I am getting stuff right(ish) now!
June 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Eh, I do have blocks o’ text, my bad.