Listed in no particular order are things I don’t like about blogs and blogging:
1. Bloggers who trackback to a post on this blog but fail to link to this blog in their post.
Rule of thumb: If you trackback to another blogger’s post, you must link to the post you referenced. I’d guess that 90 percent of the blogosphere would agree that sending a trackback and failing to link is highly irritating, and many bloggers will delete your trackback. What is the rationale? By leaving a trackback, you’re alerting the blog host and readers that you’re writing about the same topic. The blog host follows the trackback expecting to see what you wrote about his post.
(Update: It’s also about reciprocity. When you leave a trackback here, readers follow it to your blog. In turn, your readers follow the link on your blog to mine. )
2. Online news sites that don’t link to blogs mentioned in a story.
3. High-traffic bloggers who forget to link to my blog or mistakenly link to a different blog in a post where my blog is the subject.
4. Bloggers who write long posts about why they have no time to blog.
5. Bloggers who write about their latest illness, right down to the details of an infection and physical description of a rash.
6. Commenters who respond to a post without actually reading the whole post, or if they have read it, the comment doesn’t reflect it.
7. People who leave off-topic comments on a post to tell me they just e-mailed me.
8. Bloggers whose posts are mainly complaints against other bloggers.
9. Bloggers who don’t include any biographical information about themselves. Even if blogging anonymously, you can still supply basic, non-indentifying information.
10. Bloggers who either don’t list contact information or make it difficult to find.
This post will be updated as I think of other things I don’t like.
Update II: The Anchoress has ditched Blog*Spot! Visit her new WordPress home. And update your blogrolls.
Update III (4/10): A trackback is simply a way to communicate with another blogger. I will refer to a third-party trackback system called Simpletracks because each blog or commenting platform (HaloScan, WordPress, Movable Type, etc.) has a different method for tracking back to posts.
Let’s say you’re blogging about this post and you want me and the readers to know about it. If you click on “Comments/Trackbacks” and scroll to the end, you’ll see this:
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2005/04/09/peeves/trackback/.
URI is short for Uniform Resource Identifier. This is more information than you’ll need to trackback, but in case you’re curious…
When using Simpletracks, you will need to copy the trackback URI above (which is different with each post), the name of your blog, your post title, post URI, and an excerpt of the post, and post them in the appropriate place, and hit “Send Ping.”
Your blog will ping my blog, and the trackback will show up in “Comments/Trackbacks” like this:
The ten habits of highly irritating bloggers
According to La Shawn Barber, anyway: 1. Bloggers who trackback to a post on this blog but fail to link to this blog in their post. I’m usually pretty good about…Trackback by dustbury.com — 04.09.05 @ 3:06 pm
Clicking on “dustbury.com” will take you directly to the post where this post is mentioned. In WordPress, trackback entries are truncated and post titles are in bold. Depending on which blog publishing system you use, trackbacking will be slightly different. For instance, Movable Type automatically pings URIs in the post, so it’s unnecessary to enter URIs manually. In WordPress (version 1.2.2), I have to copy and paste trackback URIs just below the post. If you’re using HaloScan, you have to go to that site to send a trackback.
Trackbacking sounds more complicated than it should. The concept is very simple.
Does anyone else get tired of “catblogging” and “dogblogging” and “birdblogging”- when people post photos of their pets instead of actually writing something? I know it’s their blog…and it was cute the first few hundred times…but c’mon.
Comment by Shane Raynor — 04.09.05 @ 12:37 pm
“8. Bloggers whose posts are mainly complaints against other bloggers.”
You realize “Oh great One” that you just contradicted yourself.
Comment by FireWolf — 04.09.05 @ 12:54 pm
I’m gonna get just a little defensive here, Shane. Don’t take it personally.
A week ago, a beloved pet and my best friend in the world fell ill. He died on Wednesday. I’ve written about virtually nothing else ever since, and it’s going to be a while before I get back into the swing of blogging. My style may never be exactly the same, frankly, because I don’t think I’ll ever be exactly the same.
My point is this: I, like most bloggers, use my blog to write about whatever the heck I want to write about. If what’s important to me is a major, world-changing issue, then that’s what I write about. But if what’s important to me is writing about the grief I feel following the death of my best friend, then I write about that.
As a blogger, I feel strongly that I owe my readers absolutely nothing. Well, not ABSOLUTELY nothing. I owe them consideration. But in terms of my content, I write what I need to write and I don’t apologize for it.
The blogosphere is the ultimate free market. If you (the generic you) don’t want to read about what’s going on in my life this week, don’t click the links. Either just skip ahead until I write something that interests you, or stop visiting my site altogether. I won’t be offended. Blogging isn’t a popularity contest. I’d still blog if zero people came to my site, because I do it for my own reasons.
Like I said, a LITTLE bit defensive. But that’s over now.
Comment by Jeff Harrell — 04.09.05 @ 12:58 pm
FireWolf - I didn’t contradict myself. I’m referring to bloggers whose posts are mainly complaints about other bloggers, and they are legion. Big difference. I rarely blog about bloggers I don’t like and when I do, I refer to them generally the way I’m doing now.
You just illustrated #6, by the way.
Jeff - Couldn’t agree more! But since this is about blogging pet peeves, comments like Shayne’s will pop up. I actually like the cat-blogging because I’m fond of cats, but others don’t like it; hence, it’s one of their pet peeves.
Comment by La Shawn — 04.09.05 @ 1:05 pm
A clarification: I didn’t mean to imply that anybody’s pet peeves weren’t legitimate or valid. I was just…you know. Talking.
Comment by Jeff Harrell — 04.09.05 @ 1:14 pm
I like bloggers who post pictures of themselves as babies or children; hence, I like you.
Comment by La Shawn — 04.09.05 @ 1:18 pm
“Cat-blogging” is some people’s “pet peeve”? No pun intended, right?
Comment by antimedia — 04.09.05 @ 1:20 pm
Agree mostly with 1-8, but not 9 & 10. There’s too many scammers, spammers, and crazy-stalker-types crawling in the net looking for personal info.
(Also, I’ll sell you a little box you can plug in the back of your monitor for $19.99 so you can block out those #4 & #5 type of posts.
Just kidding.)
Other than that, keep up the good work.
Comment by hatless in hattiesburg — 04.09.05 @ 1:27 pm
Hatless, I think I serve as a living counter-example of your objection to La Shawn’s numbers 9 and 10. I’ve had a blog with my name, e-mail address and telephone number on it for more than five years now. Negative consequences: Zero so far. Positive consequences: Numerous.
I too am greatly annoyed when a blogger refuses to even adopt a pseudonym. I can’t think of any good examples off the top of my head right now, but I recall that it happened just a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to cite an article on a blog that was new to me. The blog had a silly name, as blogs are certainly entitled to, but the author didn’t include any information about himself, not even a pen name. I found myself in the unhappy position of having to cite “Purple Monkey Blog” or something like that on a very serious story.
My solution? I just dropped it entirely. I found somebody else who had written something close enough and cited him instead. By name.
(Note: “Purple Monkey Blog” is not the name of the blog in question. If there is a Purple Monkey Blog out there, and we all know darned well that there is or soon will be, that’s not the one I’m talking about.)
Comment by Jeff Harrell — 04.09.05 @ 1:49 pm
Blogging Pet Peeves
La Shawn Barber lists her top 10 “blogging” pet peeves on her blog.
I would have to agree with #1,2,3,4,5,6, and 10 on her list. Check it out. (Heh, I shouldn’t link to her post - I’d be breaking #1!)
I am not a huge fan of pet blogging, but…
Trackback by The Political Teen — 04.09.05 @ 1:58 pm
You mean to say you don’t want to see pictures of the two feral cats I adopted or the coyote and fox that I worry will eat them or the raccoons that eat my cat’s food and drink their water? I’m crushed! Wait! I don’t have a blog–yet.
Comment by Evon Bachaus — 04.09.05 @ 2:01 pm
Okay LaShawn, I put the link to my biographical information in a more prominent place on my blog. I know you mentioned that I should do that at CPAC, but your pet peeve list just reminded me again.
Comment by PajamaHadin — 04.09.05 @ 2:03 pm
What really boils my blood is #1
Comment by Ian — 04.09.05 @ 2:18 pm
Duly noted
Comment by Andy — 04.09.05 @ 2:46 pm
The ten habits of highly irritating bloggers
According to La Shawn Barber, anyway: 1. Bloggers who trackback to a post on this blog but fail to link to this blog in their post. I’m usually pretty good about…
Trackback by dustbury.com — 04.09.05 @ 3:06 pm
Heh. I so love your rants LB, although I am fairly sure I have not kept the whole law and am therefore guilty of breaking them all
Comment by Rae — 04.09.05 @ 3:24 pm
Thank you, LaShawn, for helping me to get the word out! Much appreciated, dollface!
Comment by The Anchoress — 04.09.05 @ 3:30 pm
Rae - I’m guilty of doing a few of these, too.
Anchoress - My pleasure. I made the move from Blogger to my own domain last year, and many bloggers helped me out, too.
Comment by La Shawn — 04.09.05 @ 3:30 pm
The list looks fine so far. All these things are inconsiderate or selfish as the least. Stupid in some cases. Boorish in others. I am with you, as usual.
Comment by Rod Stanton — 04.09.05 @ 4:10 pm
Update: #3 just happened to me.
Comment by Ian — 04.09.05 @ 4:54 pm
We can always use a reminder about netiquette. Thanks, La Shawn!
Comment by RepJ — 04.09.05 @ 5:57 pm
How about #11 - Bloggers who insult other bloggers instead of writing their own material.
Comment by antimedia — 04.09.05 @ 6:26 pm
Mea Culpa
I was reading all of my usual blogs and came across La Shawn Barber’s post about blogging pet peeves. The first one jumped off the page:
Bloggers who trackback to a post on this blog but fail to link to this blog in their post.
I am now asking …
Trackback by Northshore Politics — 04.09.05 @ 6:31 pm
Thanks LB for prompting me to put up my personal info on my site. I had it buried on my site back when I did it in HTML and before I used Blogger in the dark ages of 2000.
I use WordPress 1.5 now, as I see you do, but I haven’t done anything with it yet beyond the basics. I used the ‘pages’ feature of WordPress for my personal and about this site info. See it (http://www.prebleny.com/?page_id=1586) here if you want to see some small town political flavor. I’m on a Mac and use ‘ecto’ to post and ‘NetNewsWire’ to read your site and others. I often link to you and I’m probably violating one or more of your rules. Blame that on laziness and ecto/NetNewsWire which make it so easy to do. If you do check out my site I’d appriciate your comments on my About page but I know you’re busy so I’ll understand if you don’t.
Keep up the good work.
Frank Hogg
Comment by Frank Hogg — 04.09.05 @ 6:44 pm
Also on my to do list is figuring out this ‘trackback’ stuff.
Comment by Frank Hogg — 04.09.05 @ 6:50 pm
The thing I hate most about blogs is that no one visits mine. But at least that way I don’t have to share my Jolly Ranchers with a bunch of strangers who drop in unannounced.
Did I ever mention my dog?
Comment by RedBeard — 04.09.05 @ 7:22 pm
Thanks for posting this helpful rant…sometimes it is hard to figure out (for those of us lacking emotional intelligence) just what is the best sort of blog behavior.
I guess after starting out just being all excited that you get some pages online, it takes some further attention to finesse it!
Comment by ilona — 04.09.05 @ 8:43 pm
News Lull (Let’s Get Ready To Rumble!)
The mania surrounding the death of the pope has finally quieted down. Charles and Camilla are man and wife. What should we do now? We could always pick a fight. Look, there’s a brawl going on over there, and another over there! Usually no one win…
Trackback by PunditGuy — 04.10.05 @ 2:42 am
#11: people who put hyperlinks in comments right under the “NO LINKING” in bold letters in the comments box.
Not peeved by everything on your list but #8 rings a bell - I find it boring in the extreme reading continual posts about how some-one doesn’t like the blogs they read. I tend not to go back.
Comment by Catez — 04.10.05 @ 6:47 am
I was one of those bloggers that failed to use trackbacks. In my defense, when I heard that it was bad, I tried to start doing it.
The trouble is, I couldn’t find out how to do it. It took considerable digging to find out exactly what a trackback was, and how to use them.
I also run a technology blog, and I’m in the process of writing a post explaining about trackbacks. When I finish, I’ll ping this post.
Comment by Linda F — 04.10.05 @ 7:10 am
I am glad I stopped by this AM, been thinking about starting a Blog of my own and appreciate all of this good advice. Good manners always make life a little smoother. I would probably mention my cats once in awhile but a single subject Blog might become just a little boring.
Comment by Earl — 04.10.05 @ 8:38 am
La Shawn, Just reread your “About Me.” Maybe the reason some bloggers do not give out any personal information is that, if they were honest, they’d have to say, “I’m a mean-spirited do-nothing who likes to spend my time criticizing people who do
something. I especially like to criticize those who do it well.”
Comment by Evon Bachaus — 04.10.05 @ 10:18 am
I’m in the same boat with Linda F, except I’m too lazy to do my own research. Can anyone point me to a short tutorial on trackbacks, linking, etc?
I promise not to mention my dog more than once a day.
What blog publishing system are you using? WordPress? Blogger? - Admin
Comment by RedBeard — 04.10.05 @ 10:19 am
11. commenters who try to tell me what I should or should not put in my blog.
UGH!
Comment by Mustang 23 — 04.10.05 @ 10:37 am
Catez,
La Shawn will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there is a difference between hyperlinking and providing a plain-text link in the comments.
When someone clicks on a hyperlink (as in using HTML tags), the destination server can record and inform the owner as to where the visitor came from. I believe this is what La Shawn wants to avoid, especially for unsavory destinations. IOW, she doesn’t want to create a “Barber-lanche” on, say, ACLU or NOW.
OTOH, when someone provides a plain-text link, the reader has to copy and paste the link into the browser address bar to get there. When that happens, the destination has no clue as to why or how the visitor got referred there.
I think this method is preferable than putting the link in the URI Block of the commenter’s name, since it is still a hyperlink.
Comment by Andy — 04.10.05 @ 11:55 am
Hi, Admin! I’m using blogger.com.
I see Update III; I need to read that carefully.
Thanks!
Comment by RedBeard — 04.10.05 @ 12:34 pm
Blogging Pet Peeves
I completely agree with LaShawn about people leaving a trackback that does not link to them. There are three related Pet Peeves of mine
* I hate it when a blogger quotes me but fails to leave a trackback so that I can know I was quoted.
* I…
Trackback by Don Singleton — 04.10.05 @ 2:48 pm
Jeff, in your Purple Monkey Blog example, if I was going to quote them I would quote PMB. I would do it with a link, so that if someone wanted to go read their post they would see the entire name, but I would just quote them that way.
RedBeard, here is how to link.
<a href=”http://purplemonkeyblog.com/……”>PMB</a>
Comment by Don — 04.10.05 @ 2:59 pm
Oops, in the above example there just needs to be one > in front of PMB
Comment by Don Singleton — 04.10.05 @ 3:00 pm
Well, I tried to leave a TB … tell me if it works. I didn’t know how to do ‘em and nobody has ever answered my query re them.
Comment by Steel — 04.10.05 @ 3:48 pm
Blogging pet peeves
LaShawn Barber is listing some of her blogging pet peeves over at LBC. I agree with every single one of them.
Trackback by Commonwealth Conservative — 04.10.05 @ 6:19 pm
It would be great if blog coalitions and/or Blogrolling removed outdated blogs or blogs with dead links. Also, adding some text or character next to a blog’s name that indicates it was recently updated is quite beneficial- to you and me. I read those more often.
Comment by Abraham — 04.10.05 @ 7:54 pm
Andy,
I know what hyperlinks and a plain text links are. I was actually talking about my blog. Add #12 - People who don’t read or ignore comment/trackback policies.
#13 - Christians who do the above - get honest some of you people please!
Comment by Catez — 04.10.05 @ 8:17 pm
La Shawn:
Thank you for telling us how to use backtrack. Until now, I didn’t know the correct way to backtrack, and I was making mistakes.
La Shawn, your guidance illustrates why I chose you to be my blogmother. We novice bloggers need mentors like you.
L’Chaim!
Comment by Dodo David — 04.10.05 @ 8:31 pm
CRITIQUE THIS BLOG
Dear Readers: La Shawn Barber’s post about blogging pet peeves has made me wonder if there is something that needs to be done to improve this blog. Thus, I am asking you, the readers, to critique this blog. Is there…
Trackback by Lifelike Pundits — 04.10.05 @ 9:11 pm
I’ll be right back . . .
OK, I’m about to violate two of La Shawn’s Blogging Pet Peeves, so please forgive me La Shawn.
Trackback by JOLLYBLOGGER — 04.10.05 @ 11:01 pm
“Trackbacking sounds more complicated than it should.”
Problem is, it IS more complicated than it should be … my pet peeve, anyway.
LaShawn, thanks for the refresher course in civility. One of the things I like about your blog is your scrupulous insistence on courteous behavior among commenters; it makes for better blogging. You’ve also prompted me to post a few comment guidelines of my own.
Comment by asher abrams — 04.11.05 @ 1:53 am
La Shawn Has The Grumpies
Told ya.:)…
Trackback by Mythusmage Opines — 04.11.05 @ 6:24 am
But seriously, MT makes it easy to backtrack most of the time. Sometimes you’ve got to pop in the URL yourself. But I have yet to see it fail to include the URL to the post I’m posting on at my place when I use the QuickPost feature. Some judicious (or not) editing and the link fits in quite nicely.
Comment by Alan Kellogg — 04.11.05 @ 6:31 am
I Need… I Need
I need something funny- a couple good cartoons, a funny movie, something. If anyone has anything along those lines, share it please. I’m telling you I’m desparate. I need to laugh. Ok. Constipation time over…. I read over at Lashawn’s…
Trackback by truegrit — 04.11.05 @ 9:02 am
Catez, Wilco.
Comment by Andy — 04.11.05 @ 9:06 am
Blogging Order Out of Chaos
LaShawn Barber is once again taking leadership on blog etiquette with this post. (On reading it, I realize I’m probably guilty of several of these sins in my early, clueless weeks. I hope that she’ll forgive me!) Unwritten rules are always treacherou…
Trackback by Kobayashi Maru — 04.11.05 @ 11:02 am
“4. Bloggers who write long posts about why they have no time to blog.”
Classic! Thumbs up.
Comment by hirex — 04.11.05 @ 11:50 am
I decided to implement trackback on my blog Cerulean Sanctum. I researched it for a while and implemented Haloscan’s trackback feature.
That said, trackback is one big kludge. In theory it should be an automatic function, but it is not. You have to manually plug in a bunch of URI’s (one for your blog, one for the blog you’re sending the trackback ping to), then you have to ping the site. Sometimes you get a reply that the trackback ping was received and sometimes you don’t. The implementation and functionality of trackback is laughable.
In other words, this is the kind of nuisance setup that Apple Computer does a great job making workable while the Linux and Windows world just puts up with the kludginess of it all. If Apple ever came up with blog software that was cross-platform and included an auto-trackback feature, I’d buy it in a second.
Comment by DLE — 04.11.05 @ 12:21 pm
Hi.
I’m new to this blogging thing and I was wondering..
were you kidding about the things that irritate you
about what bloggers do?
Comment by eulalie — 04.11.05 @ 2:16 pm
Weekend Update, with Rusty Shackleford
Had a long weekend. Spent all day Saturday in Memphis. My first time in TN. It was one of those travel-in/travel-out on the same day deals. Can any one in Memphis tell me what the deal is with the pyramid?…
Trackback by The Jawa Report — 04.11.05 @ 2:32 pm
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you and thank-you for posting the track-back tool for those of us who don’t have trackbacking enabled (or are to dim to figure it out). Thanks!!
P.S. And did I say thanks?
Comment by DeputyHeadmistress — 04.11.05 @ 3:22 pm
La Shawn:
I did it! Thanks to your instructions on how to backtrack, I successfully created a post on my blog that backtracked to your blog.
Once again, thank you, Blogmother.
Where is the trackback? - Admin
Comment by Dodo David — 04.11.05 @ 7:02 pm
Wow you guys are easily annoyed. Personally I found rule number 8 pretty obnoxious. Sure you say ‘mainly’ but I think you would have given your “rules” more validity if you didn’t appear to be breaking one in the very process of writing them! It doesn’t help that you leave an opening at the end; “I’ll update this as more come to mind,” those don’t exactly sound like the words of someone who doesn’t have a lot of complaining planned. If it was me, I would have reconsidered including that one because it makes it easier to disregard the whole set.
And also rule 6. It’s common in any debate, from high school to CNN to newspaper pages, for people to just pick out the pieces of someone’s argument that they want to reply to. Then the first speaker can retort back; “but aha, I said this!” or; “but just before you mentioned that,” and the like. So it seems this is just the natural flow of argument that you are campaigning about? I don’t like your chances!
Comment by Ben — 04.11.05 @ 10:06 pm
Can I do it?
La Shawn Barber gives tips on trackbacks
Trackback by From the Mountain — 04.11.05 @ 10:16 pm
Trackback testing - I tried the “http://kalsey.com/tools/trackback/” tool, but I don’t know if anything happened. Am I supposed to see something?
Sorry for being so ignorant. Blame on fluoridated water.
Congrats on the trackback (above). You’re officially a nerd! - Admin
Comment by stephen matlock — 04.11.05 @ 10:22 pm
Carnival of the Vanities #134 years in the making
Here’s Carnival of the Vanities #134. My sack of goodies is positively groaning (regular readers will know that’s often the case at Zen Manors).
Okay, I did think about a clever format. Really. And what I came up with was exactly the same post I d…
Trackback by yeah whatever — 04.12.05 @ 9:27 pm
No. 6 has to be the most annoying thing on earth…on *any* blog. Just as bad are the ones who respond in the most current post to something the blogger wrote in a different post days ago. It confuses readers, and it’s pretty distracting.
And thanks for the trackback tutorial!
Comment by Miss O'Hara — 04.13.05 @ 3:11 pm
“8. Bloggers whose posts are mainly complaints against other bloggers”: I trust you see the irony here…
I wrote the word MAINLY (”For the most part; chiefly.”) You really don’t see the distinction between one blogger pet peeve post and bloggers who complain about other bloggers post after post after post? It’s comments like yours that really make me want to shut them OFF permanently. WHY do I suffer you people? I really need to figure that out. - Admin.
Comment by Jeff H — 04.13.05 @ 4:24 pm
Thanks so much for your posting about Trackbacking. I am getting ready to move my blog from Blogger to Hosting Matters and had never heard of Trackbacking. (Something is wrong with my template and Blogger is less than helpful in correcting the problem, so I can’t utilize the full blogsite.) I understand and agree with the principle of Trackbacking, however, and will try to add MoveableType for use with my new site. I have just been adding a link from original source at the bottom of the article. You have a great blog. Thanks again for the useful information. -Jacqueline
Comment by Jacqueline — 04.13.05 @ 5:18 pm
Carnival of the Vanities #134 - Avignon Edition
From Wikipedia: An antipope is one whose claim to being Pope is the result of a disputed or contested election. These antipopes were usually in opposition to a specific person chosen by the papal electors (since the Middle Ages, the…
Trackback by This Blog Is Full Of Crap — 04.13.05 @ 11:25 pm
A Woman’s Work is Never Done
if you are a newish blogger or a blogger with Things To Learn ABout Blogging, you will want to look at her post here. Thanks to Lashawn I have figured out to give trackbacks, although I’m still in the remedial class on many other blogging skills.
Trackback by The Common Room — 04.16.05 @ 7:29 pm
[…] La Shawn Barber’s blog peeves La Shawn has posted her top ten list of Bloging pet peeves, it seem when ever a blogger get more than X number of hits per day they […]
Pingback by » Blog Archive » La Shawn Barber’s blog peeves — 04.18.05 @ 9:21 pm