Nice list Simonne.

1 : I see this on many personal blogs, and slowly, many non-personal blogs are experimenting with this also. I wonder if screen resolutions play a big part in this, where someone has set the font size relative to their screen resolution, and too high, and they assume others can easily read things the way they do on their monitor settings.

2 : Dark on dark. It’s not that something evil comes to light when darkness meets darkness; it’s just harder on the eyes. However, I read somewhere that using darker background saves electricity, as it is less strain on the monitors. I have to read further on that to confirm it.

3 : I have seen blogs where there is a lot of random writing in a header, and that writing cannot be clicked. Many site owners will add navigation links within such a header, such as an exclamation mark “!” being a link that points to the “about” page. I wonder if such bloggers are simply trying to create their own universe on their blog, where they intentionally want people to relearn how to use or navigate a website using non-standard or non-typical lingo.

4 : It is a nice thing to know what the page looks like, though I am not sure why it can be acceptable in its current form, or why we would want every link hover to result in a popup, disrupting our reading experience.

5 : How about why I’m not thinner? Ok, ok,I get it. How about personal blogs? Should they also not focus on such details, which may be non-trivial to readers, but may be important to the personal bloggers themselves? They probably feel that sharing such information makes their blogs more personal. Also, are you referring to the sidebar where people plaster such information, or the about page? Is it ok to put such information on the about page, since everyone has a different view on what is necessary and what is too much?

6 : I am guessing most blogs still do not display the RSS button on their own, unless the layout they are using display the button for them. For many people, RSS button is simply not important, as they depend on other sources for traffic.

7 : How about if you like my article, pay me to comment? I am sure we are moving towards that model. And you are right; these bloggers do not realize that time is indeed money! If a blogger wastes my time, they should compensate me, if they keep expecting me to compensate them. However, if the mentality is that they focus more on content and hope that users will donate, then I can be ok with it, I think. However, in reality, many of such bloggers, who want donations, revolve their blogs around donations. There is nothing wrong with that, other than the fact that such bloggers should be advertising their blogs as an income source, or an advertisor’s or marketer’s blog instead of a blog that focuses on helping others. Having a blog that focuses first on making money and then on people’s satisfaction very rarely provides something in return to the users.

8 : A very good point. I really like the subscription comment features and plugins, as it helps me find out how many comments were after me. We need more services like co.mment and cocomment, integrated with comment subscription plugins.

9 : Hmmmm, interesting. Do you mean only advertising networks, or social networks, or something else? True, more explanation in the beginning, that lets people know what to expect and what not to expect, can save a lot of frustration from the users. Otherwise, such networks simply advertise a lot to get a 100 people to come, and they do not care if 80 of those people leave really upset and frustrated for being deceived; as long as the network gets 20 customers, they do not care about the 80 frustrated souls.

10 : People who manipulate people and claim that they are actually helping people, and people who follow such manipulators with their eyes closed. A blog that advices other people to do things without any real experience, or with experience that comes from manipulating sales and customers in the offline world; similarly, people who follow such blogs without thinking “Just because this blogger makes money manipulating people does not mean he/she has something useful to provide to me. Let me think about this before accepting what he/she says as being something written in stone.”

Thanks for the great list Simonne.

Simonne,

This article was hilarious. I especially liked your point #7. It should work both ways, no?

Deaf Musician,

I luckily had the chance to preview Simonne’s post and agreed with her point #1. Since RA Project is using a pre-built theme, I didn’t do too much with the font size. Simonne encouraged (er, motivated) me to up the font size.

Thanks everybody for your comments.
@ Bes: No 9 referred to blog networks like Blogher or 9 Rules. I was not thinking particularly at those two, but there are also some good others, which invite bloggers to join them, and they never tell you what was wrong with your submission. This makes me think that they don’t have the intention of getting new members, but they just want to show off.

@ Deaf Musician: Too bad for you! I don’t have the donation button, so it doesn’t work in any way

@ Ronald: my eyes are saying thank you now

@ inspirationbit: You have enough options to subscribe to RSS, don’t worry. Buying a beer is OK, but I believe that one button in the sidebar is enough. Asking for RSS subscription at the end of each post is OK, in my view, because it is also a service we provide readers to help them read us easier. Not mentioning that RSS readers don’t have the ads to click on - so it is rather a favour to our readers.
Your no 11 is a good point. The funny part is that I had that thing enabled without being aware of it, and it was you the one who told me that I was using it I’m glad you did not leave my unintentionally bureaucratic blog.

I see. I don’t like those blogs too. You are also right about the Contact page.
And I just remembered one more thing that makes me nervous: blogs on Blogger which allow comments only for people who have Google accounts.

This RSS button is pretty groovy.

Thank you, Cynthia Blue. I’m going to check out your tips. It is nice to have you here