Thursday, January 24, 2008

A Bumpy Bloggy Ride

Who knew blogging could be so "dangerous"?

I'm naive. About a lot of stuff.

I know there's trash on the internet. Fortunately, I seem to miss most of it.

I love visiting bloggers. I explore mostly blogs that have to do with design, crafting and art. There are some really cool, imaginative, creative people out there and I have enjoyed drawing inspiration from them. From one blogger's blogroll, I'll be drawn more deeply into the forest of blogdom. I can get lost for hours.

I flit around leaving a comment here or there. Or not. No pressure, no expectations. I read certain bloggers everyday. I'm addicted-what can I say? It has never occurred to me that if I left a comment with them they would come to my blog. (Well, maybe briefly.) My point is, I don't comment to try and increase my readership here. (If I had...well, I've failed miserably.)

As I flitted yesterday, I discovered "the dark side of blogging". Apparently there is a "code of ethics" in blogging. That's great. I would expect it to be something to the effect of "treat others the way you would like to be treated."

Ah, no.

I stumbled upon a blog that shall remain nameless where a reader emailed the blogger and said that she liked what she had read could she link to this blog? The blogger's response took me by surprise. It sounded harsh and ungrateful. After reading comments and going back today for an update, I realized not everyone is naive me. There are spammers out there. There are people who grab your content and paste it on their site. I remember when that happened to me and I was hot to trot. Spamming was the issue here and this blogger responded accordingly.

I think what I love most about blogging is that it gives me the opportunity to say what I want to say how I want to say it. These are my opinions. Take it or leave it.

There's no tried and true "netiquette". I thought it only polite to ask someone beforehand if you could link to them. I've been informed "that's lame".

Somebody hand me some crutches.

2 comments:

HeyJules said...

If you are linking to their content or even presenting a quote or section of their content on your blog because it inspired you, I think it's perfectly okay to do. If, however, you're just butt kissin' for readership, or wanting to spam, watch out. People don't take kindly to those...

I link to people's blogs all the time but when someone takes my stuff and uses it to spam me or my readers, oooohhhh....do I get MAD!

Crystal Gable said...

Wow, it's a lot to think about. I never knew people would be upset by a link but I'm coming from an innocent perspective of why would they mind? I'm glad I read this.