BLOGGING PET PEEVES
Recently, Jen Speaks complained about open comment threads and Steven Taylor listed five things he’d like to see every blogger do. Tonight, I have decided to combine these two and start an open thread for people to complain about things they dislike in the Blogosphere!
Let me get the ball rolling:
1. When Site Meter goes down hours for no apparent reason. Mine currently tells me, “The statistics for visitors from the last 594 minutes are not yet available.” Well, why not? I could understand it if the whole system is down but it seems to be working at all the other blogs.
2. When sites on my blogroll don’t show up as HOT! even though they have been recently updated. I miss a lot of good posts that way. I wish everyone would ping Weblogs.
3. Conversely, I hate it when people cheat the system and show as updated when there’s no new content.
I’m sure some other things will occur to me. Feel free to add your gripes in the comments section.
When bloggers provide “breaking news” coverage without commentary. Yes, I know that Michael Jackson is about to be arrested. Duh. That is why Ted Turner invented CNN.
Site Meter hasn’t been working for me either. I’m glad I have two traffic monitors.
I get much more accurate stats from my host, although only updated daily. (I can’t make any sense of the “last 300 referrers” log.) The only reason I keep sitemeter at all is that it’s what I’ve had since the beginning, so it’s the only static measure I’ve got and because it’s the one most used out there so it gives me some sense of comparison.
I have been working on this all day (I’m no expert).When I track back, the link goes to my blog, not the exact post I’m referring to. I’m not sure if the problem is in my archive template, main template or both, or maybe it’s because I have a free blogspot acount that just won’t allow it?
and as for no commentary, I avoid that, I try to post news that most bloggers wouldn’t even know about hence it kinda speaks for itself, but then again my blog is still a work in progress, still being realized.
and I republish anytime I make a change even though there is no post, when I do , in the back of my mind I’m thinking about those sites which will show me as being updated even when I’m not, but Damn, I need some freedom to move here.
James, I’m pretty sure that weblogs.com limits the number of pings per hour, plus even if a blog hits on weblogs.com’s recently updated list, it may not be picked up by Blogrolling. Still, anyone who doesn’t have weblogs.com selected to ping in Blogger or MT should get right on it 😉
Richard,
On BlogSpot, there are no TrackBacks. It’s possible for you to use a stand-alone pinger (I have Wizbang’s embedded in my post signature block) to send TrackBacks to OTHER sites but not your own.
Republish all you want. Unless you’re manually pinging weblogs.com, I don’t know how you’d get picked up as updated.
I hate it when blogrolling hasn’t had a search feature in over two months.
And the weblogs.com ping used to be only allowed every 5 minutes.
And I really hate how much bloggers blog about blogging. I know – guilty as charged.
3. Conversely, I hate it when people cheat the system and show as updated when there’s no new content.
I despise these people. They waste my time. And I will tell you this, a lot of them are very popular blogs. I guess the appearance of being constantly updated really helps.
Not to derail the topic too much, but what if a blogger posts frequently about different subject matters than those that we individually perceive to be important? Would that be a waste of our time too?
The time limit of the weblogs.com ping is half an hour. The cached copy that blogrolling uses, well, I dunno how “recent” the updates.xml file is, add to that your own setting of how old is “old,” and “new” indicators can be iffy, especially when, like myself, you sit in front of the puter all day.
My pet peeve used to be the acquired nickname “the other Kate”. Now, it appears I’ve graduated to “Weird Kate”.
I suppose it’s better than my BOFH* sysadmin – who once subscribed me to an email list under the address “nastycumwhore@k***.com”
*recommended google search
I didn’t have to google search on ‘BOFH’, Kate. I was one once (and that man’s writing kept me sane).
Note to John Lemon: I do ‘breaking news’ because a number of my readers are in offices or out in the boonies with no cable or in other places where They Don’t Get CNN (or Fox or MSNBC or al Jazeera). I don’t do commentary because I assume those readers without access are more interested in what is happening than in my opinion.
My pet peeve is bloggers who have 500+Mb pages that take a week to load on dial-up connections.
Who doesn’t get CNN? My child was born with a built in CNN receiver in his brain. And I live out in the boonies — even the bobcats and coyotes here get CNN. And if they don’t get cable or have a dish then what the hell are they doing with a computer?! Don’t you have to learn how to ride a tricycle before flying an F-16?
I don’t mind “breaking news with commentary.” I just hate “breaking news.”
🙂
Another thing I hate is pseudonym-based academics who don’t blog anymore, but who are always making snarky comments on other people’s blogs.
My personal pet peeve? It’s been eight months and Destiny Stahl still–STILL–shows up in my search logs every day.
Kidblogs – no spelling, no grammar, no brains, ’nuff said.
That feeling of welling rage that comes when you read something that is just skewed enough to be both totally misleading and to require you to spend a good half hour writing a rebuttal … so you surf on and try not to let it fash you.
Ted K.
People who blog about how they don’t have anything to blog about.
Tom Lehrer: “I feel that if a person can’t communicate, the least he can do is to shut up.”
My biggest pet peeve about bloggin’is that everyone has the opinion that their way is the only correct way to do it. Heck, ya’ll all know I am the only one doin’ it exactly right! Fall into step people!!!!
JOKE! So don’t be gettin’ your panites all in a wad!