Blogs and blogging: the good, the bad and the ugly

Poll question of the weekend:
What kind of blogs or online journals do you enjoy reading? Or related questions: What lures you to read a blog regularly? Why do you keep a blog? What turns you on or off a blog?

One obvious reason for reading a blog or online journal, of course, is that you know the person and are interested in keeping up with their lives. Except speaking from experience, I know that I put very little of my personal life in Blatherings; I prefer catching up with friends in person or over the phone.

Please note that I'm talking more about personal weblogs and journals rather than "here's a cool link" blogs. Also, blogs written by people I know in person fall into a different category for me; the following describes my personal preferences when it comes to blogs written by total strangers.



Blogs I enjoy reading:

Blogs that are well-written, especially ones that have a sense of humour. Although I generally find "shopping list" entries dull (e.g. "I woke up. I had Wheaties for breakfast. I brushed my teeth. I took the dog for a walk." etc.), I enjoy them if they're written well.

Blogs with a personal voice and style.

Blogs that voice opinions. Blogs that are brave in some way, that don't always stick to safe topics. It's a risk, of course, because the larger your readership, the more likely you are to get criticism or antagonize readers.

Blogs that acknowledge readers. Either with a comments section, or by incorporating reader feedback into entries somehow.

Conversational blogs. I don't enjoy reading blogs that come across too much like an academic paper or technical manual. I prefer blogs where I feel as if I've just had a conversation with that person from reading a post.

Blogs with well-written anecdotes about little kids. My friend Amanda Snyder is especially good at this; check out this recent entry. I used to read Lileks more regularly when he talked more regularly about child-rearing. Weird personal preference, I know, considering we don't have children of our own. Or perhaps it's because we don't have children of our own that I find kidstories so interesting. :-)



Blogs with a specific focus. Yes, this crosses off Blatherings. :-) Unless I know the person, I tend to be drawn to blogs with a single focus on a topic I really enjoy.

Blogs with interesting visuals. I read The Crafty-Girl, for example, both because of interesting drawings and photos but also because she talks about cool crafts and illustration techniques. My favourite photo blog is Daily Dose of Imagery.

Blogs that are frequently updated.

Blogs with something new to say.

Blogs that use links. Nothing more frustrating that reading an entry that mentions an interesting Web site, but doesn't include a link (expecting the reader to look it up himself or herself, I suppose).

Blogs that turn me off:



Bad writing. Lots of typos. (Assuming English is their first language)

Blogs that are mean-spirited, especially about people whom the author is (likely mistakenly) assuming will never read their blog entry.

Pretentious blogs. Blogs that are a little too "I'm SO cool and I know you're fascinated by every single detail about ME-ME-ME, no matter how mundane."

Blogs that rely heavily on "I'm Luke Skywalker!" type of memes for content, where the result of a so-called "personality quiz" is basically random, especially when one of these gets popular in my Livejournal Friends list and I end up scrolling past pages and pages and pages of identical huge images of Luke Skywalker or Golden Hearts or Tiffany The Happy Fairy. I'll stop whining now (see point below). :-)



Blogs that whine and bitch a lot. I don't mean the occasional whine, I mean a LOT. From some blogs I've seen, I get the impression that the writer takes a special pleasure in blog-whining ("OH, I can't wait to get home so I can blog about what that woman said/did!")

In Livejournal, blogs with long entries that don't use cut-tags.

Blogs that are too obviously marketing vehicles. I don't mind if the author plugs his or her book, CD or other projects from time to time, but not if every other entry tries to get me to buy something.

Blogs where the author posts even if they have nothing to write about, especially when their entry is basically "I don't have anything about."

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But again...these are all personal preferences. I emphasize (again) all the above "turn-off" factors go out the window for me if the blog is well-written. I'll happily read a 1000 word essay about how much you hate women with big hair if it's entertaining and written well.

I'm also well aware that according to the preferences stated above, Blatherings isn't necessarily a blog that I'd read myself.

:-)

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