lol 1st i laugh a lot, but this post is too good man.

Your rocks..

dinesh

Cool article, made me laugh. I may try some of these tips out myself.

@Rob O.:

Wow, what you went through is a good example of someone making it really difficult to contact. Thanks for sharing.

You can absolutely value your privacy and safeguard against stalkers, predators, et al and still avoid the “No Transparency” problem. At a bare minimum, respect your readers enough to give them a way to privately contact you!

Just this evening I had to track down an email address via WHOIS to try to submit a blog topic suggestion. It just happens that the blog in question is one that I really like or I would’ve probably long since just given up when I couldn’t find any means of contacting the author on the site.

In my case, I actually give my readers the option to send me a standard email (via a MAILTO link) or use an online contact form to send me a comment. Either way, my readers have a means of conveying a question or suggestion to me without having to resort to simply posting a comment publicly for all to see.

“Require a Registration to Comment” is a classic!
Nothing could make me laugh louder

I liked the humour and sarcasm in your post. And I’m sure most of us might be found guilty on some of the cases, especially the one about answering the comments people left on your blog. And it’s not because of ill intentions, but because of time lack

Hey, thank you all who voted for me on Daily Blog Tips. I am really honored you all liked this post.

i just followed the link from daily tips that said you won the contest so congratz

Adding on Bes’s point i agree the transparency is some situations is good but in others your own safety is paramount; the no 1 reason for transparency in my opinion is there for industry leaders etc or critics so they can build a name but this is also possible i feel with pseudo-names though possibly harder to do.

Great and enjoyable article

Hi again. I have to add one more ["exception-type"] thing: after having stalkers follow me from the offline world to the online world, the “Have Absolutely No Transparency” can also usually be very justified. I am not obligated to have any of those, and if I lose readers because I value my safety, then that means I have decided I value my offline safety more than my readers.

A real good example of this is Spoken-for.org; if she gave her address or more transparency info online, she would probably have many morons driving up and down her house or area multiple times a day looking for her within 24 hours of her putting any more of the information you listed. She is not one of the few exceptions; thousands of personal say thins that others do not like and they value their safety a lot.

Basically, just because me or you or some other commentor here does something does not make it right.

I think I’ll make an extra post soon outlying the exceptions to what you are saying, or outlying how what you are saying can be exceptions to what should be the norm, or something along those lines.

Very interesting. About the “Fill Their Feed Reader With Non-Sense”, many people may consider those topics important, so it becomes a perspective of what one wants to talk about and what one values, the same way many people may consider my site or yours or this very site to have crappy or boring topics. Each person has their own favorites and dislikings, so when it comes to actual topics and not the way how people are treated, it becomes more of what the other person is thinking also and how they can think differently than us, even if it is a topic we may consider to be of no value to anything in the universe.

Great anti-how-to That made me smile.

Great and funny post Ronald. You have unique ideas about losing readers

Haha, I like these posts Good job.

@Linda,

Shame on me, right? Of all posts, this is one to not reply

What a hoot! Thank you for this. And I note you reply to commenters too–great stuff!

Thank you all for the comments.

@Tejvan, Of course we’ll all be guilty of one or two of these from time to time.

@Bilingual Blogger: ¿Hablas español? Estoy aprendiendo y buscando blogs buenos.

@Sucker, The path to improvement is realizing you’re on the wrong path

@Amberlynn, Thanks for the vote and your compliments.

Thank you for this post. I was laughing the whole time, and it’s very refreshing to read from the other side of all those popular “increase your readership” articles. Well done! You’re getting a vote from me on the DBT Blog Writing Project.

According to this my blog would probably get an F for reader appreciation! Hehe

Clever take on a sore subject. The ad deluge on some blogs kills me. I really wonder who their audience is.

Very good article. Although at times I might be guilty of 1 or 2 of them

I had “dummies” in the title at first, but decided to keep it short.

You should’ve titled it an Absolute Guide for Dummies to Losing Readers

How about posting on the same topic that hundreds of other blogs are talking that same day – like the super thin new MacBook? Oh, wait, that won’t help you to get rid off your users – even the prominent bloggers are doing the same and their readership only increases.