Quality Control

Newspaperman-turned-blogger Dave Knadler, whose site, Dave’s Fiction Warehouse, was recently added to this page’s protracted blogroll, shares some rather clever ruminations on “The Seven Stages of Blogging.” I am particularly fond of his stage five:

5. No wait, I’ve already done that. Now aware that people occasionally look at your blog, you also become aware that you have only so many thoughts on the subject, and those thoughts confine themselves to the shallow end of the pool. At a loss for topics, you begin to stare blankly at the screen. Just like at work.

I frequently experience such moments of brain freeze. Which is when I turn to writing about other people’s thoughts on writing blogs.

But seriously, every would-be blogger should read Knadler’s “seven stages.” Slowly. Sound out every syllable. Keeping a blog going sounds like something elementary for those of us who have both opinions and some writing skill. However, it’s a job to maintain an active Weblog. That explains why the rule of thumb is that blogs usually last about a year. That’s when their authors decide they want to embark on something different, if not less tedious. Like building a garage. Or knitting cat blankets for animal shelters.

Others try to extend their interest by reducing their blogging efforts. This may result in intermittent postings, or in the tendency of authors to go heavy on excerpting from outside sources, such as newspapers, magazines, or simply other blogs. Or it may lead to guest-posting at other blogs, rather than doing work on one’s own site. After putting in a solid year of blogging, I don’t yet consider myself any sort of expert at this game. But I have managed to build up a list of pet peeves that finally demand sharing. These are the five things that most annoy me about other blogs:

1. People who copy from other sources (especially news releases) without attribution. When I was studying journalism way back when, this was called plagiarism.

2. Poor spelling. While the Web is a great democratizing tool, allowing even those people who never trained as professional wordsmiths to publish their ruminations, it also reveals the inadequacy of our educational institutions, and of parents, when it comes to teaching folks how to spell. Or even employ correct punctuation. Younger people who write predominantly for the Web often dismiss their own spelling deficiencies by saying that old rules are destined to change, and that they’re simply on the cutting edge of simplifying the English language for a new generation. Bullshit. They are just poor spellers, and are trying to find excuses. They should buy a dictionary. And maybe a copy of The Associated Press Stylebook to go with it.

3. The tendency to substitute opinions for facts. Just saying something doesn’t make it true, no matter what George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh might believe. The mere opportunity to vent your spleen doesn’t absolve you of the requirement to back up what you say with reason and substance. And putting your opinion IN ALL CAPS does not necessarily make it more credible.

4. Writing too often about yourself. Sure, go ahead and tout your debut novel when it’s coming out, and tell us when your granddaughter is graduating from high school (provided that you don’t have a dozen grandchildren matriculating in successive years). But frankly, it’s more than a little boring to hear every week what you’ve been reading and that you’re still slogging away on a mystery that anthropomorphizes leatherback sea turtles as detectives. Not everyone is cut out to blog. And not every indiscriminate thought it worth blogging about.

5. Sloppy blog design. Most folks are not Web-design experts, and I don’t believe you must be one in order to blog. However, try to at least be a little consistent. Why indent periodic paragraphs, without indenting them all? Why leave white space between some paragraphs, if you’re not going to do that without fail? And for godsakes, people, learn how to regularize the framing around drop-in art, so that you don’t leave white space on three sides, but shove one side into the type. Learning how to do it right isn’t rocket science, though it does demand a bit of experimentation with HTML coding.

I know: I’m a dinosaur for thinking that the Web should be about quality, as much as about the quantity of thoughts and rants and vacation photos shared. But it’s amateurishness that allows media critics to dismiss blogs and other Web publications as inferior work, hardly worth noticing. Those of us who can get past Dave Knadler’s “Seven Stages of Blogging” and institutionalize our work on the Web ought to hold it to the same high standards that newspapers and magazine demand.