My dear and near people understand the irony of my endeavor here on this contraption. I swore off computers. I was exasperated by their promissory ease being ruined by their complicated actuality. And then a year ago, I started a blog. Everyone was impressed.
My terror of screwing up was most impressive as well. I kept faking my way through, kinda like motherhood, knowing I was in love with at least the concept. Last week, I put my blog in a new temporary “skin” until I have my ideal site built to my personal elation. That was HUGE.
This blog creation is totally trial by fire. I even attended a seminar conducted by the lovely and very savvy Mindie Burgoyne. Previously unknown info. included that blogs are not news sites and their purpose is to open communication with customers and readers. They want to empower their readership with a means by which they can speak their minds.
My site has not been comment friendly and I do apologize for that. I do not comprehend “Settings” . But I am horrified by the air of untouchability. I don’t want my site to be a secret club. I just tried to post a comment on a Blogger site and got a runaround complete with an episode of “what’s that password” to boot. Now, I don’t care anymore if my comment got posted. Complicated means thwarted.
And then I got the following spam. When I first got started, I had to hurry and install a filter for track-back spam. People leave nonsensical posts meant for nothing but to be there for a mouse over to see their Viagra ad. Some of these still get through to the moderation point. Even though I knew this one was spam, I felt an air of ironic honesty between its foreign garbled English lines.
Spam person wrote, “I must say, as significantly as I enjoyed reading what you had to say, I couldn’t help but lose interest after a while. Its as if you had a terrific grasp to the subject matter, but you forgot to include your readers. Perhaps you should think about this from more than one angle. Or maybe you shouldn’t generalize so a lot. Its better if you think about what others may have to say instead of just going for a gut reaction to the topic. Think about adjusting your own believed process and giving others who may read this the benefit of the doubt. ” The possibility that this is true lurks in my paranoid brain.
I explained to my husband how the blog-world works and the need for people to interact or they’ll drop you like a hot potato. And he respectfully disagreed and said people penning comments to me would be like writing a letter to the editor. Just what I have been afraid of. That I stand on some sort of apple box declaring my opinion without encouraging questions or funny comments from my extremely smart readers. EEyuk.
So if you have anything to say, feel free to do so. And we’ll see how user-friendly my temporary site is. And stay tuned for the new and improved Shalavee coming to a computer screen in front of you some time in the near future.
5 Comments
I love your blog! And I applaud you for being so brave to jump into a new and strange endeavor! And I wish I could write like you – do you want a job as my sermon ghost-writer?
You’ve asked me before. When you ask me face to face, I’ll take you seriously. Thank you so very much for your enthusiasm. My favorite sermon you gave was on your parents and your life. That was amazing. Because it was so honest and revealing. See you soon.
I get so frustrated as well on some sites about the difficulty of leaving a comment. It really annoys me to no end that I must be logged in to wordpress.com to leave a comment on any of their blogs. I also think way to many sites use captcha, I do prefer the put a check here if you are a real person. My site has also been fine without it (I do have akismet plugin which has been great about pulling out all the spam for me, those spambots are crazy, there is definitely some automated weird robotic writing going on).
I’m always amazed when I meet someone IRL on Maui and they know my blog. It is very easy to judge ourselves just by the level of comments but I know in my case I have many readers who read but never comment. And that is ok! I can see my stats, my number of views and the amount of people that went to my home page. Still small numbers but still amazing from where I’m coming from. I love comments but it is mainly other bloggers who comment, I understand that other non blogger types may read, occasionally “like” and will never ever comment but I appreciate them just as much. Let me entertain you 🙂 I think of huge blogs (like Design Sponge), she gets 50 to 100 comments to a post but has tens of thousands of readers every day so when you think about it, the commenters are a very small percentage.
I don’t agree with your hubby btw, respectfully. Blogs are completely different from letters to the editor. Most blogs posts are an invite in to our little corner of the world. I’m sharing this with you so feel free to hang out and share, if you choose.
Hey Shalagh –
Why do you say that the above referenced comment is spam?
Yes, it is a bit oddly put and misspelled, but I sense a coherent idea being expressed. “Think about adjusting your own believed process and giving others who may read this the benefit of the doubt.” I agree that this is oddly phrased, but there may be a kernel of truth in all alien encounters.
Furthermore, I think it must be quite difficult to remain polite and objective in a personal blog. It’s the inside of one’s head, for cripes sake. I don’t speak to myself objectively. And I do moderate my tone when there are other people with whom I am trying to communicate.
So – how to dance the dance of me plus you (invisible you)in cyberspace? Confessing I am still baffled as to the benefits of blogs re: readership and comments. Why shouldn’t I be able to mutter to myself, and be left alone? That is enough reason for blogging to me.
At any rate – I salute your commitment to the practice!
xo – A
We are all in our heads. As an author, I hope people take it a little personally. The degree to which you make anything about you is up to you. Comments guarantee readership and so are necessary. Sometimes I’m surprised when people say they are reading because they are voyeurs online. And yes this was one of many bizarre globs caught in the Askimet spam file as trackback spam. The world is full of people taking care of their “needs” in assorted ways. This is my commitment to one of mine.