Basic Etiquette 101

Tuesday was blogging 101. Yesterday, commenting. Today – etiquette:

1. Do not ask people to put you on their blogroll. They will when [if] they want to/when [if] they get a chance.

2. Be polite and engage your audience. I always try to visit the blog of a new commentator and comment their latest post, as well as reply to their comment via email. Just to let them know that I do really appreciate the fact that they took time out of their day to stop by and leave a note over here. Of course, there have been times where I didn’t because I missed it or I forgot or whatever, so if I didn’t do that to you – my apologies. Don’t hate me.

3. Be aware that emotion and tone does not always come through via words on a screen, so be clear. Sometimes sarcasm can be taken as seriousness, sometimes bluntness can come across as bitchiness. Things are easily lost in translation. I experienced this a few months ago when I made a self deprecating joke and it was taken the wrong way by another blogger. I was mortified and very sorry that I hadn’t made myself more clear. Not a good feeling. No matter how bitchy I am – I really prefer that people like me unless they have reason or the feeling is mutual.

4. Do not get your feelings hurt if people don’t seem to acknowledge your presence at their blog.  Like, you leave comments pretty regularly and they never ever respond, or pay you a return visit. It happens. This could be happening for many reasons such as:

In any case – there are millions of other blogs you can peruse. Most of them will like you. Hell, I’ve taken the time to send emails and fill out contact forms telling people that I really like their blog and heard nothing back. I didn’t take it personal, – after a while I just said ‘Well fuck you, your mom sucks rooster cock‘ in my head and moved it along.

5. Do not trash another blogger, or kiss their asses. Unless you’re literally dumping garbage on their head or performing analingus, your space should be devoted to you, not a shrine to someone else.

6. Don’t comment things like ‘Well, I know you’ll never read my post‘ or ‘I know you never come to my blog‘ or anything of the sort. Passive Aggressiveness – not cool. If you want them to visit you that badly, how about being direct and saying ‘Hey! Check out my blog!’

7. Do not hesitate to hit ‘Mark All As Read’ in your feed reader. If you feel pressured to read everything by everyone, you’ll get burned out. Plus, anyone who expects you to comment on every single one of their posts is delusional, and anyone who notices and returns the favor [ie, stops reading/commenting you] wasn’t coming to your blog for the right reasons anyway.

8. Do not be afraid to just stop reading. If you realize in the course of a blog relationship that you don’t like another blogger, or you’re just skimming their words, or that you no longer find them interesting, just take them out of your reader. I mean, why not? If they’re offended tell them ‘It’s just the internet‘.

9. Don’t take everything as a personal slight.  Like I said in the beginning, just because some of these things may have been applicable to you, it does not mean I was talking to you. That is applicable to all types of blogs, bitchfests, rants, raves, etc. If you read something and take offense to it, that’s your problem – not theirs.

***

Now – here’s some miscellaneous stuff that I either forgot to put in the other posts, or doesn’t fit anywhere:

1. Full feeds. I am *very* unlikely to click through on partial feeds. It annoys the shit out of me. It doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get more comments, or that you’ll get more impressions on your ads. Probably less, because people will purposefully not click over. I became a hypocrite a short while ago for a week or so when someone informed me that my feed was being scraped to another site who didn’t respond to me emails. I received complaints and realized that it wasn’t just me that hated that shit. It’s most people. Even worse – when you make so there’s not even an excerpt – only the title shows up. Goddddd. That’s annoying. Full feeds!!

2. Don’t link your own posts in someone else’s comments. It’s beyond tacky.

3. Awards and memes – there’s no rule that you have to participate in memes or pass along awards. Don’t take offense if you tag someone and they don’t do it. Or if you give them an award and they don’t pass it along.  I never pass along awards. I always say thank you, and I’m always very grateful because it really can light up my day sometimes, but I just don’t pass them on. I don’t like being tagged, but usually if I am I’ll do it. I never tag other people. It’s just a matter of personal preference.

4. Remember that the only person that absolutely has to be happy with your blog is you. You can be the exact opposite of everything I’ve written these past three posts, but if you’re happy with your space and your presence in the blogosphere, that is all that matters. You are most important: blogging is absolute narcissism at is finest, so you are all you need to focus on.

OK.

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