We all love the blogosphere… it’s such a unique, user-driven content engine. Experts in their own fields offer their own stories, advice, tips and tricks of the trade. You can learn how to mistreat windows, use photoshop, make jam in 30 minutes, apply makeup like a M.A.C pro, make a herb container garden, or totally make fun of what a dork I am.
But there are some things that can totally make a girl batty. I’m going to talk about some of mine.
gratuitous image of my boys acting batty that totally cracks me up
- CAPTCHAs. Specifically the ones that appear *after* you’ve already written out the whole long comment. Look, if you’re going to have it, at least be up front about it so I can leave before I’ve bothered typing everything out. They’re annoying in general but the ones that try and trick you are just plain wrong. The whole point of CAPTCHAs is to limit the number of comments left. I am happy to honor that request. Rule of thumb: if you want feedback, make it non-tricky.
- Partial Feeds. I get that you get paid when people come to your site. I understand it. Still a pet peeve. Let’s assume I have 120 blogs in my feed reader. If they each required only an extra minute of my time, that would be 2 hours. I use a feed reader so I can read everything in one place in a time-efficient, easy to manage way. It’s not personal when I delete my subscription to your partial feed. There’s just no point in subscribing to it. The time | effort equation is off-kilter.
- Husband, mother-in-law, sister-in-law bashing. This one doesn’t need an explanation. I simply assume if the blogger can’t respect her own family, she certainly won’t respect any effort I might make toward friendship.
- 298,423,578,536,458 categories. Or none at all. Categories, especially clickable ones, are really great navigational tools. Used well, they encourage people to stay on your site and follow up on topics that interests them. Your categories are also great indicators for what you blog about and what’s important to you. They are the roman numerals in your blog’s outline (remember those from high school??).
- Autoplay music. Awwww, c’mon. You knew this one would make the list right? Music is emotional. I totally get it. It sparks sensory reactions and attachments. It can also scare the criminy out of you if you’re not anticipating noise. And for me, I’ve already got Pandora or iTunes going. I don’t need your music interfering with the perfection of Idina Menzel. And one last thing about music – it’s one of the most polarizing things you can do to your readership. You can very quickly alienate would-be readers by scaring them or not sharing the same love of Run DMC. Country music and gospel music are especially polarizing. Very few people feel lukewarm about those. Do you really need to offer people another reason to leave when you work so hard to get them there?
- No search bar This is a must-have navigational tool. In nearly all the above links, I remembered the posts, went to the blogger’s site and searched for them. There was another great one I wanted to include, but I couldn’t find it on the blogger’s site. Make your content findable, please. I promise people use it!
- Okay this one is totally petty but this is my pet peeve list, remember? Blog with no images. I cannot do it. Large blocks of text. Cannot do it. Writers – good for you. I need illustrations, like a pretty little picture book. I’m so gone without them. Blogs have totally spoiled us, haven’t they? Odd since the book I’m currently reading has 700some pages with no images.
Okay, I confessed my pet peeves. What are yours?
Thanks for this list…I can agree with most of what you are saying! Especially the one about NO PICTURES….I gotta have those too!
I could go off on a new thread about grammar and spelling (sneek PEEK, not peak! Lose, not loose! ahem…) but I will just say that I agree with your list, Darcy. 100%
But, about the search feature — don’t have one installed on my blog (hindsight: should’ve had you help me with that) and Blogger’s search feature is a joke. Am I missing something? How do I get Blogger’s “search” to work?
Wendy Lijit has a great search box – you just install the code in a gadget……I’ve had it on my blog for over a year and love it
Just installed it — thanks for the tip!
Nice list ! I agree.
My pet peeves are not only CAPTCHAs but people who only allow people with Google accounts to register a comment. I almost only leave comments if I can register with a name and a url. Badly written posts, full of spelling errors. Music, auto-play of course. And I don’t want to insult anyone but Jesus talk when people leave ME comments. Oh and comments like I should get married before having kids. Please refrain thyself. Blogs about praying with only a long list of people they pray for but no real posts.
Ok, I had already taken off the CAPTCHAs per your suggestion but am not wondering about the partial feed and the email, ugh?! I will look into it… I definitely want to be appealing:) And perhaps I should see if I only allow Google accounts to comment. I started getting an anonymous comment of someone, somewhere, selling something so I changed it. Thanks for the tips:)
I mean I am now wondering about partial feed.
Heather –
You have a full feed. I just checked!
Ditto, ditto, and – yep – ditto!
But most especially the music.
blogs with tiny photos!! i hate it when someone has a nice camera {or even a crappy one} and they take pictures and post them — but they are so small you really can’t appreciate the point they are getting across!!!
and one day i will categorize my blog… but until i can do it correctly, i won’t do it at all… that actually goes for several of my blog- to do’s….
oh, and the music thing makes me CRAZY. I hate it. I feel like, I didn’t ask to listen to their ipod, and I really don’t want to.
great post!!
I always love your posts about blogging—-and what a treat to be a link—-and not a pet-peeve link!! I spoke badly of you on my newly refreshed blog today—not really—but you always seem to drive me to some kind of change. So, will you visit and tell me your latest thoughts on sidebars. And then will you tell me why some people can’t view my very simple logo–that I made my very own little self in photoshop.
And then will you tell me if you could add my bird somewhere to my new look.
That’s all. I think.
love you,
edie
That remains – to this day – one of my favorite posts ever. Cost me a small fortune and my kids might have to go to community college – but I learned a lot!
on my way!!
Music?? We don’t need no stinking music! Thank you so much for that one. I click away as soon as it begins to play.
Hi, Darcy! I found your post through the Nest Files, and I agree with all of your ideas. My biggest pet peeves include the music and comment verification, but I also hate signing up for a blog that starts out with some great material but turns into a constant guest post-Giveaway-blog swap bonanza. Everything in moderation, right?
I’ve been meaning to do some reorganizing with my Categories and make them more user friendly. Thanks for the kick in the pants regrading the search option as well. That makes complete sense. I plan on working on that while my kids nap today!
Thanks for your ideas…I’m planning on linking to this for next week’s Weekend Bloggy Reading on my blog.
I know your tips will be good for my readers too. 
EEeeek, how do I make mine a full feed? Mine’s a partial feed and I can’t seem to do it…in any case, thanks for the list. I concur!
Puna –
Are you on WordPress.org or WordPress.com?
Here’s how it works for .org and I think it’s similar for .com, too.
Dashboard> settings> reading> “for each article in a feed, show”> full> save changes.
Hope this helps!
Thank you Darcy! I just changed my settings. I didn’t know about this.
I do have this checked. Maybe I don’t have the updated version of wordpress or something…in any case, I’m still trying! I am on .com.
You’re welcome, Terry.
Puna, I just peeked and your feeds are still partial. Check the theme settings? Is that lifestyle or revolution theme? If so, maybe it has options for “archives” or feed that are only truncated? Not sure on that theme.
Great topic discussion.My pet peeve is several links within a post, just makes it hard to read. And the ad links in the post that pop up when you scroll over a specific word.
GREAT post Darcy!! I agree 100% with every subject you mentioned!
No search box drives me insane – I use them a LOT!
Word verification AFTER I type out a comment….I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked away thinking my comment posted, only to see the word verification pop up as I’m leaving!
If you don’t have full feed, I probably don’t read your blog….just don’t have time for the extra clicks.
I also don’t like the “magazine style” for blogs. Again, this requires extra clicks. I want to read all content in one place, I don’t want to have to click around for each post.
LONG wordy posts annoy me. Don’t get me wrong, we all have them occasionally….but I have found some bloggers who write a novel for every post.
People who link up to blog parties, but don’t bother linking back to the party, OR the ones that say “here are the parties I link to” and you have to click away somewhere to see the links……that really annoys me too. That’s like saying “I have the time to link to you, but I don’t have the time to put your link in my post.
Someone mentioned no email for the blogger – I’m surprised at how many times I try to contact a blogger who has entered a giveaway and there is no way to contact them other than leave a comment on their blog……..and this goes along with the people who still don’t have their email attached to their blogger profile.
I had NO idea that centering a post was annoying! lol……99% of my posts are all centered, I thought it was easier to read that way…..guess I need to change that!
Yes – participation in blog parties is there to help send you traffic – I agree that it’s good manners to link back to the party so other readers can play along, too.
I see a lot of comments about center posting. I didn’t know that one either, but it’s coming up a lot. I have several clients who center-align – even those who’ve gone through Blog Boot Camp. I’m adding that one to my list!
Agree with everything that you listed and most of what others have added. I really don’t like embedded music either but a centered post does not bother me in the least. What does bother me is when people are inspired by someone else’s idea they read/saw on a blog and use that idea but didn’t bother to take the time to give the originator a mention or a link on the post. Goes without saying the same applies to content/photo *poaching.* It hasn’t happened to me but I’ve seen it done to others and that is truly a pet peeve of mine. If you are going to blog, do so with integrity.
Ahhhh yes. I’m actually surprised that hasn’t come up yet.
I had several of my images stolen and then sold on a stock art site. I’ve gotten no where trying to communicate because it’s a foreign name and no responses to emails.
To try and thwart it, I have the context menus disabled. I though for sure I’d see that in the comments!
“blog with integrity” love it!
How do you disable the context menus & what exactly does that do? Thank you! I have been enjoying the great discussion on this post.
I’m astounded at the poor grammar and other language errors on some blogs. I don’t want to be mean, but I truly think we should try to maintain the basics of good language. My biggest peeve is in pronouns and possessive. I wish I could actually get a penny for each time I’ve seen “it’s” when it should be “its.” The first usage replaces “it is.” The second is the possessive, for example, “in its proper place.”
I agree with Richella that we needn’t be the Grammar Police. I’m not trying to be William Safire, and I’d rather leave parsing the more nuanced complexities of language to sites for English grammar and copy editing. But I’m talking about grade school level errors in simple matters like pronouns. “Her and I went to the quilt market yesterday,” is NOT correct.
Amen! While we can’t all be pro copywriters – the basics covered in 3rd and 4th grade grammar books definitely makes it easier to read.
I agree with all of this; however, my blog is mostly a diary for myself of fun events or stuff that I’ve seen written and I love. Only my family looks at it ( I assume), and so I play music so that when I look at it one of my favorite songs will play spontaneously and without knowing which one. But I still agree when I’m looking at other people’s blogs.
I get bummed when you find a blog you really like and they don’t have a “subscribe” button for Yahoo – or worse, they request that you subscribe to their blog through email.
Aren’t most subscribe buttons neutral? I know mine allows you to choose which reader you’d like to use. I guess I’ve never seen one that doesn’t allow you to choose – but that would be a very good example of limiting your subscribers!
I like the option for email, but I wouldn’t want that to be my only choice, for sure!
I have to say that using just a basic, free WP.com set up, there was no choice about how to subscribe. (become a subscriber)
Then, that being said, I have been told it is possible to do an upgrade, stay free, but I have not learned how to do it and I am sure other new bloggers also do not even know it can be done. People have asked me how they can subscribe, which is good, I know there is interest. It is something I need to learn how to add or make easier.
Right now there is no indication of my followers visible. I wish there was.
So- if the blogger is new, cut them some slack or even offer to help them upgrade.
You can subscribe without having a button. Most browsers have the option up in the browser bar. On Safari, for example, you can click RSS.
If you have a feed reader, you don’t have to subscribe from the blogger’s blog. You can simply paste in the URL in the reader and the reader itself will find the feed.
Wow, all VERY well said! I must admit that the music thing is my biggest pet peeve. Some of my favorites have it, and I just don’t even bother looking at their blogs half the time because I don’t want to accidentally start up some music when I’d prefer not to, grrrrr!
These are also some good reminders to me of things I don’t want to do {i.e. complain about hubster
} because I definitely want to make sure it’s not just a place where I vent unnecessarily, but do what I intentionally set out to do which is encourage and bless people, be there for those also struggling with chronic illness, share the gospel, share my life and passions, etc. It’s such a fine line sometimes between just sharing steadily about your life and knowing where to stop before you approach complain-too-much status!
Thanks for getting a good topic going!
P.S. How do you add a search box to your blog in Blogger? I would LOVE to have this {drives me bonkers too and I don’t even have it on my own blog!}, but have NO clue how to do it. Egats!! Anyone know? Pop me an email at rochellelearning@gmail.com. Thanks!
Rochelle I use Lijit search box on my blog and love it…….go to http://www.lijit.com sign in, go to publishers….then wijits – follow their instructions from there
I believe Blogger offers a default search box now, as well. Go to add a gadget> html | java> and search through the list of available gadgets. I’m 95% sure Blogger has one.
ditto to your list! [i can't stand the bashing thing]
pictures are too small, having to jump thru hoops to leave a comment, readers leaving ugly comments, page is too busy / takes too long to load
Readers leaving ugly comments? Never understood the point. People get brave behind the veil of the internet – saying things they would never say face-to-face. While I do believe sometimes blogging requires thick skin, it shouldn’t be hurtful.
I think I have a new item for the list. I really don’t like it when the font is all over the place. I’m not certain how they are doing it but some letter are randomly huge, others are small, some are caps, others are normal. Drives me crazy, it just not easy to skim. Just found you off of Nester. I’ve already learned several things from this one post – guess I’ll subscribe!
Thanks. I’ll try to keep up the interesting posts, but I usually post stupid, mundane stuff. ‘Cept on Tuesdays where this blog rocks. Since, um… I do nothing and the readers post pretty pictures.
Music, yes! Totally annoying.
I hate BLACK backgrounds–won’t read them.
Too tiny fonts.
Not enough paragraphs, and/or no space between them.
Not knowing where a blogger lives–doesn’t have to be too specific, but I prefer “suburban Detroit” to say “the Midwest”.
Bloggers who don’t follow up. Read a blog recently where the writer detailed her purchase, renovation, and flip/sale of a house. She told us how much she paid FOR the house and the reno, but never disclosed how much they made off the sale. Arrrghh. I felt duped.
ohhhh how i totally agree with all of these!! i cannot make a post without pictures, it’s too boring for me and prob for my readers hahaha!! and yea, i totally use that search bar extensively!!
Some of these comments are hilarious! Also very, very true…
I don’t enjoy reading a blog where the background of the post area is so visually busy that I have a hard time reading the posts. Maybe it’s because I graded papers for a living but I can’t stand a LOT of misspellings, etc. I understand the occasional one here or there (no one is perfect!) but not a post full of them. Hubby bashing is a turn off for me, too.
I do enjoy picture filled posts (spoiled, I know), a blogger who makes an effort to respond to my comment, and it means more to me when a person *shares* their story instead of complaining about everything…all the time.
I’m guilty of not being overly specific about where I live. I’m married to a Marine…he had no problem with me starting a blog but he did ask that I not give our exact location out to the world (as well as the deets of his job and deployments). I also need to be more aware of my categories and how to use them for myself and for my readers.
I didn’t know about the geographical thing either, but several have mentioned it. It doesn’t bother me, but often people’s photos will help give away roughly where they are. I mean, if they’re wearing shorts in February – they aren’t anywhere near Iowa!
i think you about nailed it.
i agree about the music, but i do have one, just one, blog i read who uses music and i usually love it. she must put a ton of thought into it b/c they always add to her post and never detract. it’s always instrumental (makes reading easier in my mind), and it reflects the image or her words.
I have to come back and finish reading comments when I have more time.
This discussion is great not only for the post itself but for the comments and followups.
I have my comments set up that you go to moderation for the first time and then if approved, you get published immediately every time after. So far no problems.
What bugs me is when I write a nice comment on someone’s blog, hit submit and it just disappears. I do not know if it went to moderation or is just gone!
I don’t have time to retrace my steps later.
If I asked a question or expect a reply to a comment I will return, but not just to see if it was actually received.
Also – where you have last posts or comment love below this box with the check mark,
mine reads no last post. I contacted Wp about it and they verified my feed. So what else can I do?
Try a third party feed service. Feedburner is one that comes to mind. Feedblitz is another, although I’m not sure it’s free.
I couldn’t agree more with this list but my biggest pet peeve are captchas! I hate them! And yes especially the ones that pop up after you’ve written your comment but I find that this is what most blogs use! So time consuming and annoying! I hadn’t thought of using a search tab though thanks for that!
Found you via serenity now… Love the blog and the list!
I like this list. Many are my same pet peeves. I linked your post to my Monday Morning Favorites. Hope you don’t mind.
http://longwaitforisabella.blogspot.com/2010/07/monday-morning-favorites_26.html
Blessings!
Amen!! Nothing bugs me more than Captcha or auto-play music! I was so sad for a long time because I could NOT get my feed to show full feed in the readers. It was SO stupid. It literally took me months to figure it out because all of MY settings were for full-feed. Once I finally found someone who could fix it I was ELATED!
What a great post! I don’t like the music either. I had it on my blog for a while, and scared myself when I would come to check out my blog. So I took it off. How does one put a search bar in? I’m on Blogger. I also don’t know if I have captchas or if my email is linked to my comments
How does one find that out? I also don’t know if I have a partial feed. These are great things for me to check out…maybe this is why I don’t get many visitors 
Thanks for posting this!
Kathryn
I’d like to address the linking back to a linky party. I’ve just starting to do the parties and they have contributed an unbelievable rise in traffic to my site. I’m trying about 100 parties a week to see which ones work and which don’t. I agree that it is polite to link back but:
1) I can’t put 100 buttons on my posts or my sidebar without my blog looking like a dog’s breakfast.
2) I like to do some kind of drop down menu but for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to do it.
3) In the short time I’ve been doing this, many of the blogs hosting parties suddenly and without any explanation, stop hosting, so I’m supposed to advertise their blog and send my readers there when no party exists? Is this some sort of scheme?
It is a lot of work to link to these parties. I must spend an hour or more each day linking. I just don’t have the time to manage the buttons also. I dropped my blog roll for the same reason. I’d put someone on my roll and they’d stop blogging.
It seems to me that by putting my post on their blog, I’m providing them with a post they don’t have to write. I provide them also with at least one visit – sometimes several more. When blogger makes the button thing easier, I’ll do it. In the meantime if the host removes me because I don’t put her button on my blog, so be it.
Well, that wasn’t on my list – but I agree with that for the most part. However 100 parties a week a lot. Wowzers. That’s ambitious. I’ve never heard of anyone doing so many.
Usually, they simply want you to do it in the post – not in the sidebar. Simply let people know where the link is if they’d like to participate as well.
I don’t think anyone expects you to make a long sidebar list – although I suppose I cannot speak for everyone. And if they do want you to include a button in your post, they should provide the code for you to simply paste.
Pasting in a provided code should take no more than 10 seconds.
I do a linky each Tuesday. I don’t require anyone to use the button, although I provide the code for it. I do appreciate when participants let others know how to play along, where to go to participate. After all – the more the merrier!
Thanks for visiting!
Darcy,
I’ve been reading all your “better blogging” posts, and they are really helpful. I just added a search bar to my blog — and I KNOW BETTER (thanks to helpful ladies like you) than to put music on my blog. At my house, every time I click on a blog and music starts, my inquisitive 13yo says, “Oh, what’s that?” I agree that it is disruptive. Thanks for all your help — HERE, and on Twitter! ~Sally
Okay – YAY, and Thank You for the Gravatar link. I came back to check, and sure enough my picture appears in my previous comment. Thanks so much Darcy!
I feel like many of these are fairly obvious, but the one that drives me the craziest because it seems to be most often forgotten? SEARCH.
In my mind, it’s the equivalent of having a contact page on your business website. Why *wouldn’t* you have it? It only makes sense. Please, put it on there!