What do you want from a blog? [no names please]

lazygal · 09-03-2016 04:15PM

And also the phrase "Can we just take a moment to appreciate ....... ".

SB_Part2 · 09-03-2016 04:33PM

Excessive use of exclamation marks.

on_my_oe · 09-03-2016 04:57PM

The phrases "I was excited to see / hear..." And "I knew I had to try...." are so, so overdone

anothernight · 09-03-2016 05:37PM

I'll say what I want from a blog rather than what I don't want, to try and keep things positive.

I very rarely read lifestyle blogs, but when I do, I like to see:

A clean and neat interface. I personally favour neutral themes with accent colours rather than in-your-face everything, but that's just me. Rosemary's site looks lovely imo.
Good writing and tight editing. I don't want to feel like I'm reading someone's ramblings.
I prefer conversational writing for most blogs. I want to think the blogger is my friend and is talking to me, not at me, and not lecturing me. Some bloggers do this so well that when you meet them in person you feel like you've always been good friends!
If pictures are used, make sure they're high quality for their format. Unless the blog topic warrants it, I do prefer bright and positive pictures. I like to stay away from things that depress me!
Well optimised sites which don't take an age to load. I have a very fast internet connection, but it's amazing how many blogs out there were set up with no regard for how long they would take to load.
Interaction. I don't use Snapchat and my chosen venues for interacting with readers are the comments section, Reddit and Twitter. Whichever venue a blogger uses, I like to see that the blogger's personality when interacting with his/her readers matches the personality they project in the blog itself. It makes things more authentic.
Related to the above, I like it when there is interaction on the other venues, as opposed to just using them to repost the content from the blog. Some people use Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/etc to repost everything from the blog, or purely to notify followers that a new post has been published. I don't mind this as long as reader interaction still occurs.
Make it easy to post comments. If I want to comment on a post and I run into some sort of hiccup (doesn't recognise my login details, or I absolutely need to make an account, etc etc etc), I simply won't bother to try again. This seems to be a problem with Blogger more so than any other blogging platform I've seen (well, technically Ghost doesn't allow comments at all, but everyone just uses Disqus for that anyway). I personally don't like Disqus and I have it set to be blocked by Ghostery, but I know many people prefer it and it's actually quite handy for everyone involved.
I don't mind advertising but only when it's not intrusive (I do use Adblock, sorry!). Nothing flashing and nothing moving. I like useful ads though: if they help me to find a new great vendor, or if they give me a discount, I will happily click through them. Even if the ad doesn't give a discount, if I like the blogger enough and I was going to use that vendor anyway, I will also click through
the ad. The ads on the right hand side here are exactly what I'm talking about. Plus Adblock doesn't block that type of ads on its default setting, so the blogger gets more impressions and click throughs.
For image-heavy blogs, I prefer to get a small fragment of the post on the main page, rather than the full post. It saves on scrolling, and if I want to read a full post I can always just click through. On the other hand, I don't like infinite scroll.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I hope it's even a tiny bit useful!

I suppose overall I want the site to be useable, and the blogger to be genuinely friendly.

dudara · 09-03-2016 08:25PM

anothernight wrote: »

[*]Make it easy to post comments. If I want to comment on a post and I run into some sort of hiccup (doesn't recognise my login details, or I absolutely need to make an account, etc etc etc), I simply won't bother to try again. This seems to be a problem with Blogger more so than any other blogging platform I've seen (well, technically Ghost doesn't allow comments at all, but everyone just uses Disqus for that anyway). I personally don't like Disqus and I have it set to be blocked by Ghostery, but I know many people prefer it and it's actually quite handy for everyone involved.

This is an issue for me on my blog. I use Blogger, which was a great platform to start out on, but has its limitations. In order to prevent the blog from getting inundated with spam messages, I have enabled Captchas. The problem is that this does not encourage readers to post comments. It's a pity.

anothernight · 09-03-2016 08:59PM

dudara wrote: »

This is an issue for me on my blog. I use Blogger, which was a great platform to start out on, but has its limitations. In order to prevent the blog from getting inundated with spam messages, I have enabled Captchas. The problem is that this does not encourage readers to post comments. It's a pity.

I must say, Captchas don't actually bother me at all, even though I'm disgustingly bad at them.

I use Wordpress with Akismet and I have it set so that I must approve each comment by a new commenter, which is fine because I can do it very quickly from my phone. According to the stats, 99.77% of all spam was caught by Akismet. The other 0.23% would've required approval from me to be published anyway. I've never had a false positive, and repeat commenters's comments are published automatically so it's not that much extra work either.

I've never used Blogger but does it have any anti-spam plugins? If so, I would definitely recommend installing one.

My issue with Blogger's commenting system is that it's very hit and miss on whether it'll allow me to comment. I've got the "Your OpenID credentials could not be verified" message before, which is a known issue, but sometimes I'm unable to login by any means, including by using a standard email address (or 5 different ones!). I know some Blogger blogs had these issues with their comments until they stopped having embedded comments, and other blogs had issues until they added or removed Captchas! And yet many have no issues at all, or only some readers have problems.

As a result, I've given up on trying to comment on a Blogger blog, especially if it's a free one.

SB_Part2 · 09-03-2016 09:05PM

I have the Facebook comments plugin added to wordpress so anyone with a Facebook account can comment on my blog. I was concerned it would put people off commenting but I was getting comments from people who were just trying to troll me so opted for Facebook.

doireannod · 10-03-2016 12:00AM

Are we allowed to name the bloggers that we'd like to discuss? If we spot a blogger doing something unethical or saying something misleading can we discuss it here?

And if not, why? I've made the point before and I want to make it again; I feel it makes absolutely no sense that we can name politicians, models, chefs, tv personalities, sports stars etc but not bloggers. Why is this? And using the excuse that people don't want it to descend in to bitching doesn't work; there's plenty of bitching done across countless other threads.

I don't want to knit pick the minutiae. But it would be good to hold bloggers accountable for their actions if we were "allowed" to say "XXX said she was 'feeling generous' so she gave away a voucher for a dress retailer. Clearly this was sponsored, she didn't notify readers of same and it was the retailer being 'generous'".

Bloggers review products and brands. Can we not review bloggers? Isn't that what boards is about? The double standard, to me, is inexplicable.

Toto Wolfcastle · 10-03-2016 12:09AM

doireannod wrote: »

Are we allowed to name the bloggers that we'd like to discuss? If we spot a blogger doing something unethical or saying something misleading can we discuss it here?

And if not, why? I've made the point before and I want to make it again; I feel it makes absolutely no sense that we can name politicians, models, chefs, tv personalities, sports stars etc but not bloggers. Why is this? And using the excuse that people don't want it to descend in to bitching doesn't work; there's plenty of bitching done across countless other threads.

I don't want to knit pick the minutiae. But it would be good to hold bloggers accountable for their actions if we were "allowed" to say "XXX said she was 'feeling generous' so she gave away a voucher for a dress retailer. Clearly this was sponsored, she didn't notify readers of same and it was the retailer being 'generous'".

Bloggers review products and brands. Can we not review bloggers? Isn't that what boards is about? The double standard, to me, is inexplicable.

As a mod of Beauty, my reasoning was always that naming led to bitching and that was completely against the ethos of the forum. Eventually the bitching continued without naming so now the discussion is in a different forum. This forum may have a different ethos so it may be worth contacting the mods.

on_my_oe · 10-03-2016 12:49AM

Who is the mod of this sub forum?

There were a couple of articles in the Sunday Business Post (24th and 31st January) talking about the issue of ethics in blogging. The articles discussed which agency has accountability- the self regulating ASAI or Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. That's why bloggers are falling through the cracks. The CCPC is 'watching' the blogging community, and the ASAI and the Public Relations Institute will run training for bloggers so they meet legal obligations. Both the ASAI and the CCPC want to hear complaints and issues on bloggers.

Revenue are looking at bloggers for not reporting income, including earnings from selling products supplied to them or exchanging services.

Ireland is great for letting things slip under the carpet but there will be some bloggers who should be worried.

biko · 10-03-2016 11:38AM

I've added a title request to not name names.
First of all to make sure this doesn't get personal/handbags at dawn, and of course to protect boards in case someone named decides to go legal in case they feel defamed or libelled by comments here

Hope everyone understands

onthemitch · 10-03-2016 01:04PM

on_my_oe wrote: »

Who is the mod of this sub forum?

There were a couple of articles in the Sunday Business Post (24th and 31st January) talking about the issue of ethics in blogging. The articles discussed which agency has accountability- the self regulating ASAI or Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. That's why bloggers are falling through the cracks. The CCPC is 'watching' the blogging community, and the ASAI and the Public Relations Institute will run training for bloggers so they meet legal obligations. Both the ASAI and the CCPC want to hear complaints and issues on bloggers.

Revenue are looking at bloggers for not reporting income, including earnings from selling products supplied to them or exchanging services.

Ireland is great for letting things slip under the carpet but there will be some bloggers who should be worried.

Revenue is the only body there with any heft – and even then, Revenue will only be able to get people for not declaring income, in the form of real money. Exchanging services is called bartering, has been going on for donkey's, and does not fall under the Revenue's remit. Ditto selling "gifts"; they're not taxable unless they go over a fairly high bracket (can anyone clarify?).

As far as the ASAI goes, all they can do is suggest guidelines. But if bloggers decide to flout them, they have no teeth – who do they send after them? The gardaí?

Hopeful2016 · 10-03-2016 02:59PM

onthemitch wrote: »

Revenue is the only body there with any heft – and even then, Revenue will only be able to get people for not declaring income, in the form of real money. Exchanging services is called bartering, has been going on for donkey's, and does not fall under the Revenue's remit. Ditto selling "gifts"; they're not taxable unless they go over a fairly high bracket (can anyone clarify?).

As far as the ASAI goes, all they can do is suggest guidelines. But if bloggers decide to flout them, they have no teeth – who do they send after them? The gardaí?

Does it really meet the definition of a gift though if it's provided in exchange for promotion by the blogger such as mentions on their social media etc. ?

onthemitch · 10-03-2016 03:21PM

Hopeful2016 wrote: »

Does it really meet the definition of a gift though if it's provided in exchange for promotion by the blogger such as mentions on their social media etc. ?

I'm not sure – but I would be 99% sure it doesn't meet the definition of payment. Revenue can't – as in, physically is not able – to police gifting. How would it even be possible? How would they know who had received what, and for what reason?

ALSO: this seems to come up a lot, "in exchange for mentions". That is so incredibly rare you'd barely believe it. Most of the time, PR gifts are sent in the hope that you might mention it. I have never, ever been approached by a PR company and asked to mention something in exchange for it being sent to me. The only time anything like that happened with me was with the coat I mentioned further back – and in that case, I had approached them. I didn't ask for the coat "in return for..." anything. I said, "if you would like to send me one, I would be happy to post about it on x, y and z". (Not to bring up The Coat again!)

doireannod · 10-03-2016 03:33PM

biko wrote: »

I've added a title request to not name names.
First of all to make sure this doesn't get personal/handbags at dawn, and of course to protect boards in case someone named decides to go legal in case they feel defamed or libelled by comments here

Hope everyone understands

I don't understand it. Why the double standard for bloggers? People have named and attacked Rosanna Davison for her comments on gluten. A recent thread about Conor McGregor has innumerable accusations of racism. I can't understand why boards are upholding this double standard. Legal action can be taken by a blogger who feels affronted by something mentioned here but they won't win the case in court if only facts are stated. Eg "XXX sold a dress on Depop for more than the selling price on Misguided. In my opinion that's not a nice thing to do". Statements of fact can't be labelled as slander or libel.

onthemitch · 10-03-2016 03:39PM

doireannod wrote: »

I don't understand it. Why the double standard for bloggers? People have named and attacked Rosanna Davison for her comments on gluten. A recent thread about Conor McGregor has innumerable accusations of racism. I can't understand why boards are upholding this double standard. Legal action can be taken by a blogger who feels affronted by something mentioned here but they won't win the case in court if only facts are stated. Eg "XXX sold a dress on Depop for more than the selling price on Misguided. In my opinion that's not a nice thing to do". Statements of fact can't be labelled as slander or libel.

Well, it's only slander if it's speech anyway; what's written on Boards would be libel. And, interestingly, even if something is a lie, it's only defined as libel if it lowers the standing of the accuser "in the eyes of right-thinking people". So, for example, if I wrote on boards that blogger Jane Doe send me an insulting message, and I then called her a cow, even if I WAS lying, it could be argued that it's not libel if Jane Doe has a reputation as an insulting cow anyway. Just think that's interesting! 😝

lazygal · 10-03-2016 04:05PM

onthemitch wrote: »

Well, it's only slander if it's speech anyway; what's written on Boards would be libel. And, interestingly, even if something is a lie, it's only defined as libel if it lowers the standing of the accuser "in the eyes of right-thinking people". So, for example, if I wrote on boards that blogger Jane Doe send me an insulting message, and I then called her a cow, even if I WAS lying, it could be argued that it's not libel if Jane Doe has a reputation as an insulting cow anyway. Just think that's interesting! ðŸ˜

There's no longer any difference between slander and libel in Ireland.
I don't think it's libellous to call out bloggers who provide factually incorrect posts on things like baby feeding. I've seen this repeatedly with a well known Irish blogger.

onthemitch · 10-03-2016 04:09PM

lazygal wrote: »

There's no longer any difference between slander and libel in Ireland.

Ah, I didn't know that! My brief knowledge of media law is now defunct. I want the cost of my MA back!

Ilyana 2.0 · 10-03-2016 04:17PM

onthemitch wrote: »

Ah, I didn't know that! My brief knowledge of media law is now defunct. I want the cost of my MA back!

Libel and slander both fall under defamation now, covered by the Defamation Act 2009.

Although it stipulates that defaming statements must be published, this isn't a requirement for statements made on the internet.

There's a good overview of the Act here

meeeeh · 10-03-2016 04:21PM

I get it some of you joined boards just to mention bloggers by name but whinging about it in every second post is getting a bit tiring.

Anyway I am sure there are some limitations to samples but revenue clarify on their website they are not taxable if given in reasonable quantities. I don't know how services are treated.

http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/guide/supply-of-goods.html#section5

retro:electro · 10-03-2016 06:09PM

biko wrote: »

I've added a title request to not name names.
First of all to make sure this doesn't get personal/handbags at dawn, and of course to protect boards in case someone named decides to go legal in case they feel defamed or libelled by comments here

Hope everyone understands

Well then can we have a middle ground where no accusations are made, only facts? Like if someone obviously states something on social media, or in the case of the blogger selling the dress on depop, why can't they be named? It's only libel if it's untrue.

SusieBlue · 10-03-2016 06:38PM

I just feel that it's a massive contradiction that they make their living from (paid or unpaid) reviewing and critiquing everything from restaurants to make up to hotels and so on, but we aren't allowed to critique their methods of doing so without them crying out about defamation.
Such a double standard.
If they have nothing to hide and are honest then they'll have nothing to worry about.
As I said on the previous thread I'm not advocating a free for all on bullying bloggers, but I do feel they should be held accountable and discussed as other public figures would be if their methods of earning are unethical.

anothernight · 10-03-2016 06:57PM

Imo, a person who chooses to keep a public life should be prepared to be exposed to the opinion of the public.

doireannod · 10-03-2016 06:58PM

WhiteRoses wrote: »

I just feel that it's a massive contradiction that they make their living from (paid or unpaid) reviewing and critiquing everything from restaurants to make up to hotels and so on, but we aren't allowed to critique their methods of doing so without them crying out about defamation.
Such a double standard.
If they have nothing to hide and are honest then they'll have nothing to worry about.
As I said on the previous thread I'm not advocating a free for all on bullying bloggers, but I do feel they should be held accountable and discussed as other public figures would be if their methods of earning are unethical.

I agree. I don't think bullying is anybody's intent. Clearly a lot of us have been annoyed/confused by bloggers' behaviour at some point. So why can't we discuss them on Boards? We have not received a reasonable explanation as to why ALL other sectors of society can be named on this site except for bloggers. It's actually ludicrous. Going back to the accusations of racism made against Conor McGregor on this site, can you imagine if I called one of the fashion bloggers racist!?! There'd be chaos. I'd be told I'm a jealous hater. Moderators would be up in arms saying we are risking legal action. Why does this apply to bloggers only?! It doesn't apply to anyone else. Boards is laughable if it can't move on this. I'm not exactly sure what constitutes censorship but I feel like this is what's happening. And all to save a bloggers' feelings and to prevent them being held accountable? I can't get my head around it.

When you think about it, it would be like a thread entitled "The Big Boxing Match between 2 guys that's happening tonight in Vegas; No names please" with comments such as "I think the boxer from Dublin is going to lose" and "can someone pm me the name of the boxer?". The way fashion and beauty blogging is being discussed on Boards is bizarre.

SusieBlue · 10-03-2016 07:12PM

doireannod wrote: »

When you think about it, it would be like a thread entitled "The Big Boxing Match between 2 guys that's happening tonight in Vegas; No names please" with comments such as "I think the boxer from Dublin is going to lose" and "can someone pm me the name of the boxer?". The way fashion and beauty blogging is being discussed on Boards is bizarre.

When you put it like this it does seem absolutely ludicrous!!!

doireannod · 10-03-2016 07:58PM

anothernight wrote: »

Imo, a person who chooses to keep a public life should be prepared to be exposed to the opinion of the public.

Whatever about being exposed, they have to tolerate being simply discussed at the very least. Boards is creating a very bizarre culture whereby they aren't "allowed" to be discussed.

DryBalls · 10-03-2016 08:16PM

I don't think anyone here is wishing to defame or bully bloggers, people just want a forum to able to discuss their ethics openly. I understand why Boards.ie is reluctant due to possible legal action, but if that is the case, then why is named discussion allowed in all other forums and just bloggers who cannot be named!! It is ridiculous how they have been given this special status and this rule only applies to them.

As regards the reasoning of possibly defamation and hence legal action;

1. This is a poor excuse given that in every other forum and people in the public domain, their actions and statements can be discussed and people can give their opinion.

2. If something happens, it is NOT defamation to discuss it. People here have simply wanted to let others know what bloggers have said/ done to them or what they have seen, they can discuss it and give out about the blogger or praise the blogger - it could not give rise to legal action as far as I'm aware.

3. People can give their honest opinions. You can say Blogger Y just called me a hater and blocked me after I commented on a photo. You can then say that it is your honest opinion that she is mean/ horrible/ a b!tch..... whatever your honest opinion is because honest opinion based on facts cannot give rise to defamation.

Following on from the example above, what if a GAA player punched another player during a match. And lets say on the same day, a blogger blocked someone and called them a "hater" for questioning a post. Both happen in the public sphere (GAA in front of crowd, blogger on her facebook page and to that person).

The difference is, the GAA forum would be able to discuss, analyse and give opinions on the player and event. They can bring up previous situations where the player behaved the same way. Whereas with bloggers, no you can't name him/ her, it could lead to bullying/ legal action.

Can you imagine that users in the GAA forum would not be allowed discuss this using names in case of possible legal action?? Even though event actually happened. Or they stated oh you can't say that it might lead to a "handbags at the dawn" or get too personal as one of the reasons given above for the blogger ban. No they would not say that because it is irrelevant and a lame excuse being used to block down discussion.

It is very easy to prove what bloggers said or did with the power of screenshots. If they put something on the internet and deleted it without a screenshot, Im pretty sure if it came to it, some tech person would be able to verify it.

TL/DR

Basically its not defamation (as far as I am aware anyways!) if something is true and/ or an honestly held opinion that you can back up. So why can't bloggers be discussed or what they did? So what if it gets bitchy, its a public forum discussing people who have chosen to make their living in the public eye.

Why are the people who make their living through being in the public domain, yet appear to be the only segment of people on a discussion forum whose actions cannot be openly discussed? Ridiculous.

(sorry rant over)

meeeeh · 10-03-2016 08:18PM

doireannod wrote: »

Whatever about being exposed, they have to tolerate being simply discussed at the very least. Boards is creating a very bizarre culture whereby they aren't "allowed" to be discussed.

At least half of your posts are about why you are not allowed name bloggers. Unlike you I have been around when bloggers were named. The threads were a despicable bitch fest. I have no love for a lot of bloggers but comments there nasty, immature, personal and completely over the top. They made any discussion completely off putting.

But then again someone who joined couple of weeks ago just to name some people wouldn't know that.

bridgettedon · 10-03-2016 08:26PM

meeeeh wrote: »

At least half of your posts are about why you are not allowed name bloggers. Unlike you I have been around when bloggers were named. The threads were a despicable bitch fest. I have no love for a lot of bloggers but comments there nasty, immature, personal and completely over the top. They made any discussion completely off putting.

But then again someone who joined couple of weeks ago just to name some people wouldn't know that.

It would be good if some middle ground could be found. I wish more discussion could be allowed regarding bloggers. I find it good to check out new bloggers and get information on bloggers I already know. For example if a blogger keeps recommending one brand however other posters may notice this and actually say the brand isn't that good. Just little things like that.

onthemitch · 10-03-2016 09:00PM

bridgettedon wrote: »

It would be good if some middle ground could be found. I wish more discussion could be allowed regarding bloggers. I find it good to check out new bloggers and get information on bloggers I already know. For example if a blogger keeps recommending one brand however other posters may notice this and actually say the brand isn't that good. Just little things like that.

Well, we could start a whole separate discussion on brands that are frequently mentioned, and suspicions about said brands! Like, "brands that are overhyped by bloggers – our honest opinions?"

That's not, unless I'm misunderstanding, something that would be verboten under these rules for sacred cows – sorry, I mean, bloggers. 😂

What do you want from a blog? [no names please]

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