Last month was quite a negative one in the blogging world and it’s made me ask myself some questions.
During one particular scandal (more on that later) I posted about stats and rankings. Following that post two big shake ups happened – the Tots100 changed their scoring method and Klout changed its already mysterious algorithms. Both of these changes resulted in many bloggers seeing huge falls in rankings and therefore huge disappointment.
Even if we chose to write a blog for ourselves it’s nice to be recognised isn’t it? Whether that’s by people subscribing, comments, tweets or by being a number on a long list of numbers, it’s nice to be noticed and to have some kind of pat on the back for a job well done. Because for whatever reason we write, we all want to be accepted. We all want to know that one person in the big wide cyber world thought ‘hey, that was a good post’. Blogs are hard work. They require love and attention, it’s nice to get something back when you put so much in.
So the Klout and Tots100 drops were a bit of a hard pill to swallow for some. But life goes on. It doesn’t matter really, we still write, we still try to improve. And then something else happened. Something started by a nasty individual and the more people that got involved the worse it got.
Anyone can start a blog just as anyone can comment on a blog. Everyone has a right to an opinion and a right to be able to express it. But once the dust had settled it got me thinking.
The main thing that bothered me about the events that shall not be spoken about was that someone who calls themselves a genuine, honest run of the mill blogger had found something to hide behind. Of course it bothered me that someone who I consider a friend was being attacked. But what about the readers of this persons original blog? Were they not being deceived?
If the original blog was on the Tots100 list or the writer a member of BritMums is that not deceitful? Should someone who has chosen to take an alter ego to attack others be able to have the perks of being included on a list likely to bring them opportunities or the member of an organisation who strive to keep the blogging world free of nasties?
A blog is defined as a journal. As something personal to the writer. That’s how I have always seen blogs, a personal space and the platform to voice opinions and experiences. But what if your so called blog doesn’t fit in that generalised heading? Can you still call it a blog? If you are hosting a platform purely for guest posts and there is little if any of your own content ever published are you still a blogger?
Does it matter?!
So many people, myself included, put a hell of a lot of time and energy into their blogs. Not only that but they have a sense of pride and ownership about them. I spend a lot of time making sure that my pages are easy to navigate, that all my posts are spellchecked and make sense(ish), that i dnt rite hole paras in txt spk mkin thm v hrd 2 rd. If people are subscribing then I do my best not to publish too much dross or too many posts about why I love cake. And that brings me to my current biggest bugbear: people who plagiarise, sensationalise or publish only guest posts yet still claim their website is a blog.
Is it? Is it really?
More and more of these blogs are popping up and irritatingly, they somehow seem to manage high rankings too.
Maybe I’m going against my own here, and I don’t deny that any website needs constant maintenance, upkeep and hard work, but to be honest there are only so many rehashed or brazen copy and paste jobs that I can read.
Don’t read them you say. I tend not to, but every now and again a conversation on Twitter or a sensationalist title will pull me in and once I’m there I can’t help poking about. It’s like picking at a scab that I know I should leave alone.
Maybe it’s only me that gets wound up. When next months rankings are published maybe it will only be me silently thinking why? Not because I’m the best blogger in the world, not because I have amazing stats (or even good ones for that matter) but because I blog. I produce original content, I try to express my own opinions articulately and I never, ever rip any one off. Maybe I’m just jealous.
Am I being really unfair?
Well, I have the attitude that, whilst I’m signed up to the Tots and Klout, I only take a passing interest in both. When the whole “Klout anger” happened, I suggested that we start a Klout List entitled “Those who do not give a flying feck about Klout”. Its just a number, on a list, on a massive thing called the net. It will not bring you your wildest dreams, it will not buy you a house, much less a castle.
What I hate in blogging is anonymous comments. If I have something to say, I say it, and I put my name to it. Sometimes that has left me open to a bitch fest from Twitter and beyond, but I was accountable.
Now, I’ve had a pretty rubbish year in blogging- not due to stats, not due to anything other than a person, or group of people, have decided to anonymously be abusive to and about me. I’ve had some pretty unrepeatable nastiness used to search my blog- they know where the blog is, but know that, owing to stats I’ll be able to find the rotten things they’ve said when I look. I had someone impersonate me- yes, impersonate, really, me over the net for months, and the only reason I found out was due to being away for a weekend with no net or phone to find people I am mates with asking why I’d been rude on Mumsnet. If even my close circle was convinced, God knows what others who don’t me thought. They set up a Twitter account to be abusive too, calling me thick, and worse-I had that taken down by Twitter. However, even this morning they’ve left another anonymous comment on my blog about me being thick and a rubbish writer. Where does it end and why has it come to this? I don’t consider myself the top flight of blogging, so God knows why me.
It comes down to it that I had to persuade you to post this post- it should just be a case of blogging what you like, but now, we have to check what we say wont face the wrath of the idiot few who find fault in the minutest detail. If you don’t like something, don’t read it.
I don’t think you’re being unfair. I don’t know what exactly you are referring to here but sounds quite nasty. It’s a shame that people do these things.
As for blogs with guest posts, (unless I’ve got the wrong end of the stick) I don’t have anything to criticize them for. If they are gathering content that people want to read, it can only be a good thing that they are making it available. The stats and ratings are for the blog, not necessarily for the creator of the blog, so they can only glean as much pride from their ratings as they actually deserve.
But then again I am a newbie to all this and prob don’t understand properly!
No you aren’t being unfair you lovely thing.
You know me, I get my grump on monthly about rankings. And it’s not that I think I am amazing, there are some ruddy great bloggers out there and I know that I am not articulate and thought provoking, but I see my blog, my little patch of the web improving and yet my ranking have dropped down lately.
But now I am looking at it a bit differently, it simply means that there are a lot of great bloggers out there – and that can be no bad thing!
What defines a blog is a hard one, when someone starts up a blog just to ‘shake things up’ and be controversial and mean for the sake of it then I do get riled. I still am innerwardly grrrrrr-ing over TRL affair. It’s easy for people to say ‘ignore it’ but when it’s happening to you it feels so personal that it’s hard not to react. And that is exactly what people who do that know – after all they claim to have a blog themselves so surely they know… Meany pants (them not you!)
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there – blogs are so personal. And I think that’s why I get so wound up. When you put your all into something it’s hard to see others use the heading of blogging to launch personal attacks or to copy and paste nonsense purely to provoke reactions from readers.
Entirely fair, in my opinion. I liken THAT blog to a trashy magazine. Your’s is more of a column in a respected newspaper. Keep doing what you’re doing x
Well said! You shouldn’t worry about losing followers, you have just expressed an opinion that I think you will find a lot of people agree with! The whole ratings debate is interesting but like you said for most people it isnt really important but it is still a bit sad when your rating goes down. Guest posting I think can be a good thing if it is part of a feature rather than the whole blog and damn right people should t hide behind their blog to personally attack people, that’s really not on!
Tricky one.
When I started blogging I had no idea of the existence of blogger networks or ranking systems, awards etc.
It is very easy to get sucked into believing the worth of your blog is defined by statistics and ranking systems. Isn’t that giving our power and freedom away though?
I also think those that feel they are not contributing as fully as the would like to the world and/or have mental health issues can get a bit too obsessed with the whole rankings game. Or maybe that was just me before I got largely bored with it all.
I write what I think and feel in a honest way. If people love it, great and if they don’t, jog on.
I have had about a year of doing reviews but increasingly am waking up to the fact that what I really want to concentrate on is my writing both on my blog and in other ways.
Some of us are still trying to find the right balance.
I guess if we look at Mum of the Year Awards, very few get them and yet is we ask our own children, they would say, despite our shortcomings, that we are the best mum in the world. What matters, some awards from some probably commerical organisation or the love our our children (and in blogging terms, blog readers)?
Everyone has the right to choose which matters most for them. For me, it matters when I make a difference or help someone along the way or when comments make me feel connected to other people and mums out there.
Sorry, I have waffled on but hope some of it helped.
I have a guest blog which won’t last forever but is proving to be quite popular especially as its very relevant to my site/blog, and so I think my guest blog is proving to be helpful to a particular audience of readers. There fore I see nothing wrong with a guest blog as long as its relevant, and to be honest I have had terrible bloggers/writters blog over the last few weeks as well as depression amongst other things so I’ve found blogging very hard, I just can’t write when depressed, so I am grateful I still have something to offer my readers with a relavant guest post. I have also been writing one blog a week thanks to memes, tags etc but not the usual two. I think you can guess I got a little upset about the guest post thing but I also totally respect your opinion too! Keep blogging …… :o).
I don’t think I phrased things right! There is nothing wrong with guest posts, I agree with you and think that when they’re relevant they are really valuable. What I don’t like is when it is not made clear that posts are guest posts and when people claim that an entire blog is their own when in fact it consists of nothing more that irrelevant or badly written guest posts.
They’re brilliant for adding new voices and new opinions when used correctly. When they’re used for 100% of a blogs content and not relevant or passed off as the blog owners I don’t think it’s right.