Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts

Ben Cole has finally shown me the light on what it is to blog, and how to really make the most of my blog-presence. Here are his "Rules for Blogging:"

1. Try to post daily, but not too many times a day. The greater number of posts you put up in a day, the shorter each post must become.
2. Do not expect people to read your blog because you think your ideas are brilliant. If your readership isn’t increasing, it’s probably because you don’t have anything to say regardless of your insistence otherwise.
3. Be personal, but maintain privacy. There are plenty of freaks out there who have no need to know the most intimate details of your life.
4. Be honest. Do not exaggerate or conceal the facts. You will be caught.
5. Under no circumstance should you use emoticons. Ever.
6. Blog for yourself, and not for others. This is the only way to make sure that your blog is truly yours, and not some projection of what others want you to become.
7. Make a point to check your sitemeter only once a day, if at all. Blog statistics are addictive like crack cocaine, but much less socially acceptable.
8. Respond to commenters with infrequency. If you aren’t careful, your blog will become a place where others determine the subject of discussion. If people start coming to your blog for the comments rather than the main post, you may as well delete your blog entirely.
9. Avoid with all due diligence the temptation to employ arbitrary and excessive rhetorical flourishes.
10. Do not seek attention for your blog by posting frivolous comments on other blogs only to generate readership. All such commenters are to be hanged at dusk.
11. Do not send out email updates that you have posted something new. If people want to track your blog, they can use rss feeds.
12. Do not beg for comments. Do not whine for attention. Do not promote your blog. If your blog is worthy, others will pass it along.
13. Some people’s comments should never see the light of day. Idiots are the lepers of the blogosphere. Treat them as such.
14. Realize that many things you find funny are quite unfunny to others. Of course, you must also realize that some people do not have any sense of humor and will cry foul at the faintest hint of sarcasm, wit, or satire. Disregard them.
15. Only on the rarest of occasions should you allow another person an editorial privilege before publishing a post. Own your own words.
16. Blogs are the new porn. Your spouse will feel like there is another woman in your life if you spend too much time reading them.
17. Most bloggers tell more than they know. Be the exception. Always tell less.
18. Do not announce your absences from blogging. It is nobody’s business why you aren’t posting.
19. Do not post your own sermon outlines or notes. Your own congregation can barely get through your sermon without falling asleep. Don’t suppose that your blogging brethren are any more interested than they.
20. If your blog is controversial, embrace it. Do not attempt, however, to make your blog controversial for controversy’s sake. People like watching train wrecks, but will never favor a man who tries to wreck the train.