First, Blogger started malfunctioning in April-May of this year. As a result, many people left the platform and moved their blogs somewhere else.

Now LiveJournal has crashed. From what I hear, LJ bloggers now have limits on how long their posts can be. And still, nobody guarantees that the blogs will work. (If you think Blogger’s customer service is bad, you need to meet LJ’s. That one is truly abysmal.)

This shows either that blogging is becoming more popular with every passing day or that somebody is sabotaging popular blogging platforms. I’m not very much into conspiracy theories, so, for me, blogging is on the rise.

Blogging offers so much creative freedom that no Twitter, Facebook or Google+ can substitute it. It is a way to go beyond the triviality of posting endless pictures of boring events and senseless status updates. Its goal is not to let you sort your small group of acquaintances into a great number of circles to convince yourself you are more important and popular than you are in reality.

Blogging is all about expressing yourself in a way that makes it quite obvious very soon whether you actually have a self to express.

I hate scheduling my posts. The immediacy of feedback is gone when posts are scheduled. Half the fun of blogging evaporates when, instead of sharing my thoughts as they come to me, I postpone saying what I want to say in this artificial way. Also, it’s hard to keep track of what was scheduled for what time. WordPress does not make it very easy to remember which posts were scheduled to appear and when they were going to come out. As a result, there are times when two or three posts come out almost at the same time which is confusing both to me and, I assume, to my readers.

The reason why I got into this whole post scheduling thing is that people started to complain that I publish new posts too often and they can’t keep up. I understand the readers’ plight and recognize that I do write a lot. Before I started blogging, I had paper diaries that I filled in very rapidly. I started my first diary when I was 11. The last time I wrote in my paper diary was the day before I got the brilliant idea to start a blog. Blogging helps me keep my BP (blood pressure) down. It makes me happy and kind to my students, acquaintances, and even university administrators.

This is why I need to be able to blog as often as I want, people. I’m sorry if the number of posts gets too much and you feel you can’t read all of them. I’m really really sorry to be inconveniencing the subscribers and the Twitter followers who get notifications of new posts every two hours. I tried blogging less and spacing the posts through scheduling but that doesn’t make me happy. And if it doesn’t make me happy, then what’s the point of the whole thing?

So, thankfully, this will be my last scheduled post.

So I just ordered business cards for this blog. People keep asking me about the blog (of course, they do since I can’t shut up about it), and I always have to write down the url on some crappy little pieces of paper. I have always been obsessed with the concept of business cards so I use any excuse to design a set.

Here is what I came up with.

The front:

And the back:

The point was to make it very dramatic, and I think that goal has been achieved. Cool, huh?

“I keep posting all the time but readers just don’t come. What am I doing wrong?” bloggers often ask. Here is a list of things you might want to consider, if you are one of them. Everybody else should feel free to leave their own suggestions in the comment section. Don’t worry, I will not insult your intelligence with the suggestions of the “write great content and check your spelling” kind.

1. People prefer a dialogue to a monologue. If a reader comes to a blog several times and leaves comments, they are usually expecting some sort of a response. Nobody wants to feel like they are talking to themselves and not being noticed. Responding to comments takes time and effort but this is something you need to do to in order to acknowledge the effort of people who comment on your blog. It is also a good idea to follow your readers to their blogs. You might discover some pretty great blogs this way and start a fruitful dialogue.
2. Reading is as important as writing. A successful blogger spends as much time reading other blogs and commenting on them as writing and commenting on their own blog. When you leave comments on other blogs, this allows both those bloggers and their readers to discover your existence and, possibly, follow you to your resource. Reading other blogs can also provide you with inspiration for your own posts.
3. Pay attention to the post titles. I said it before, but I feel it bears repeating: for a beginning blogger, post titles are crucial. The best way to go is to imagine what a Google search that you want to take people to your post will look like and name the post accordingly. See, for example, the title of this post. I have absolutely no doubt that quite a few people will enter this phrase into their search engine and alight on my blog. In a while, I will even be able to tell you exactly how many readers came to the blog this way.
4. Ask questions. A blog is a great thing not only because you can share your ideas but also because you can get help and feedback on a variety of issues. My life has become so much easier since I discovered that I can simply ask for help on the blog and people will offer extremely valuable suggestions and advice. On the other hand, readers enjoy sharing their knowledge and being helpful. Posts that ask questions and allow people to enter into a dialogue are always very popular.
5. Listen to the readers. Of course, it’s impossible to accommodate everybody, but if there is a suggestion several readers keep voicing, it might be a good idea to listen. To give an example, I prefer to see posts that aren’t syndicated in full but just give you the first several lines in Google Reader. Readers told me, however, that they hated that and preferred to see posts in their entirety in their blogrolls. I don’t understand that but, since this is what people want, I changed the format of my blog’s syndication. There are obviously cases when accommodating requests is impossible for you. I still haven’t been able to honor the request of some of my readers to blog less. 🙂 Sorry, my friends, I just can’t help it.
6. Explore the widgets. Some blogs are more hospitable than others and make it easier for you to explore them. Sometimes, you alight on an interesting post and want to read more by the same blogger on topics that are of interest to you. However, some blogs make it very hard to find one’s way around them. Tag clouds, lists of most popular posts, random posts from the past, and easy to navigate archives make people spend more time on the blog and read more posts.

I did a search for a Blogging Code of Ethics but found nothing I like. Take this one, for example. I thought if it made Wikipedia, it must be marginally useful. But its stated aim is to promote civility on the blogs. I have no interest in that, to tell you the truth, especially if to achieve this dubious goal I have to ban the anonymous comments and never say anything online I wouldn’t say in real life. The beauty of online communication is precisely that it allows you to be more honest about things, and if you need to be anonymous to do that, then that’s got to be fine.

So I came up with my own Blogging Code of Ethics that will serve both bloggers and commenters. As everything on this blog, it is based solely on my personal opinions. Feel free to dispute or add anything. If you want to do it anonymously, that’s good, too.

1. Don’t leave links without express permission. When I first started blogging, it took me some time to realize that people don’t particularly enjoy it when you leave links to your blog in their comments section without being asked to. Polite people don’t promote their blogs on strangers’ websites. If you want to attract attention to your blog, simply leave comments that will be interesting enough for people to follow you to your own blog to continue the conversation.

2. Every quote needs a link. If you are going to quote a person, insert a link to the post you are quoting. And don’t quote people’s posts in full. Leave something for the readers to discover at the original location of the post.

3. Surfing the wave is good – if done respectfully. If somebody published a post and it’s proving to be hugely popular, it’s OK to surf the wave. Write your own post on the same topic to attract readers. It’s good form, though, to mention the blogger whose wave you are surfing. Start your post with something like “I just read an interesting/horrible/stupid/fascinating post at clarissasblog.com and it made me think. . .”

4. Say all you want about other bloggers – but let them know. If you are appalled by something another person wrote on their blog, it’s perfectly fine to express your outrage about it on your own blog in any terms you like. It’s not nice, however, to talk behind people’s backs. This is one of those times when it’s not only acceptable but necessary to leave a link to your post at the offending blogger’s site. They will delete it if they don’t like it, but at least they will know that you are talking about them.

5. Don’t investigate bloggers and use the information against them. Even if what a blogger says annoys you to no end, it is very stupid (and really creepy) to investigate them and send letters to their place of employment demanding that they be fired or punished for expressing their views online. (This didn’t happen to me but it did to Hugo Schwyzer – see how I linked back to him here?, and I think it’s absolutely wrong.) Unless the person in question is engaged in illegal activities of which you have evidence, it is not your place to censor them. If the desire to shut people up for disagreeing with you persists, try getting a life.

6. If asked to leave – just go. If a blogger asked you to leave their site, just do it. Believe me, even if it’s the most fascinating blog in the universe, the Internet still doesn’t end there. You will find other places where you can express your opinions. Or just start your own blog and nobody will be able to ban you from it. Don’t overanalyze the banning either. Who cares why this particular blogger doesn’t like you?

7. Read before you write. Before making outraged accusations, make sure they don’t make you look stupid and waste space. If a blog’s header says “Feminist Blog”, it might make little sense to inform the blog’s author “Oh, you sound like a total feminist!” If a blog announces itself as “An academic’s opinions on everything”, do everybody a favor and don’t exclaim triumphantly “It’s just your opinion!”

Everything besides this is, in my opinion, fine. Want to post anonymously or use 15 different identities? Feel free. Want to be aggressive, rude and obnoxious? That’s perfectly fine. If you can’t be your true nasty self on the Internet, then what’s its point, really?

I am beyond frustrated with this stupid Disqus commenting system, people. It either prevents me from commenting at all or attempts to reveal my real name. Which I never in a million years authorized it to do or entered into any boxes connected with Disqus. It simply accessed my private data without my permission and is now attempting to make it known to the world.

Recently, it has become fashionable among bloggers to adopt the stupid sucky Disqus as their commenting system. I, for one, have not been able to find a way to publish comments with Disqus in the format I prefer (one which would link to my blog, so that people know who I am and the blog gets promoted.) This means that I will not be commenting on blogs that have adopted this policy any more.

My advice is: if you thinking about adopting Disqus, think again. I can promise that you will lose commenters. One has to be really desperate to post a comment to subject oneself to the aggravation of this nasty system.

It sounds like Blogger is still unable to recover from its recent malfunction. Bigger sites that are hosted by Blogger have been having issues with posting and editing today and yesterday. Here is, for example, what the folks at College Misery report:

It is still impossible for most of us to edit posts. Commenting seems to be working for everyone. These problems are widespread. Many readers have asked me this, and I have tested WordPress as a possible location for this blog. But I do not like the formatting options available there. So I ask your patience as Blogger continues to recover from their major meltdown of last week.

Pros:

– WordPress is faster and has fewer glitches, especially now that Blogger’s programmers have tried to overhaul the entire system and failed miserably.

– WordPress remembers trusted commenters and doesn’t make you approve their comments every single time they post. This eliminates unnecessary delays in commenting which become especially annoying when a lively discussion is taking place and the blog owner can’t moderate because she is at work, asleep, eating, etc. The blog author is still in control and can easily unapprove comments but, in general, her work is cut in half.

– In WordPress you can answer specific comments in a way that makes it clear whom you are responding to. You can also quote other people’s comments without having to copy-paste them. In Blogger, all comments are placed underneath the last one, which makes it very hard to keep track of who said what to whom in long discussions. (Try participating in a discussion that had between 200 and 350 comments, like I had to several times on Blogger and you’ll see what I mean).

– Inserting quotes is a lot more difficult in Blogger. I quote a lot, so it matters to me that it is easier in WordPress to insert quotes and they don’t mess up the post aesthetically.

-WordPress doesn’t insert huge unnecessary spaces between paragraphs that in Blogger you have to remove manually by editing the HTML code.

– WordPress has an app for BlackBerry.

– The “Most Recent Posts” widget on Word Press does, indeed, show the most recent comments. On Blogger it took up to several hours for the widget to update.

Cons:

– It’s easier to moderate comments by email in Blogger. In WordPress it takes an extra step.

– Widgets are more numerous and more fun in Blogger (when you manage to get them to work). Some templates in WordPress offer better widgets than the one I chose but those templates had many characteristics that made them unsuitable for the purposes of my blog.

– Moving a blog to another url makes you lose visitors. Many regular readers will be understandably annoyed with the change. All of the backlinks that you have accumulated in the years of blogging will be lost.

– There is no way to make Blogger redirect individual posts to the same posts you have imported into WordPress. I scoured the Internet for a working code that would be able to do that. I tried many different bits of code. None of them work.

I’m sure I will have more observations as the time progresses, so keep checking in.