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Being inconsiderate offline

Almost every week I talk to some friends who tell me about how they ran into some people who had no manners because they did not respect the culture, religion, political view or something else that my friend believed in. However, people usually do not talk about their own character not having any rules or views on how one should be accommodating of other views. For example, if a certain culture dictates how someone should eat, it can be very hard to find any rule or cultural characteristic that dictates how one can let someone eat anyway they want, if they did not subscribe to certain cultural trends.

If a culture, religion, or any other guideline view about something in life about is not accommodating of people who want to do things their own way while not hurting others, why can we ourselves not be more considerate to and of others and still follow our culture and our rules? If our culture or religion does not consider other conflicting views, does that mean our culture and religion is not good? Why can people not be all right with others doing the same thing in different ways? Does everyone have to have the same religion? Does everyone have to have the same culture? Does everyone need to have the same political view? Does everyone need to do everything in the same exact manner? As long as someone is doing something and not hurting others directly and intentionally, why can we not be happy with them, coexist with them, and even incorporate them and their views into our own lives?

Being inconsiderate online

I run into many blogs daily where people get upset over someone having differing view about something then them. A blogger may get upset and feel offended if someone else talks about contradictory views on religion, politics, or even blogging. However, should we not have the quality of being considerate to other views? Why can our own online views, such as blogging rules, dictate something like “We will treat and deal with the people who have the exact same views as us, in exactly the same manner as the people who have different views“?

Why is it that I cannot write something, like saying that blogging is just a stupid fad, without getting people to attack me without any reason? Being inconsiderate does not mean that you do not disagree with others. Being inconsiderate means that you cannot live normally while knowing that people have different views. The only reason we may be upset at others online, and thus be inconsiderate to them, is because those other people are going after ideas that we ourselves have either not thought of, or we have decided not to utilize them. We do not disrespect and disagree with others people because we believe we are right; we disrespect and disagree with others because they have a different view and because they do not subscribe to our views.

This mentality creates a little dilemma, if one believes in the concept of applying a theory to different things; does everyone then, when following the concept of being considerate to others, need to follow the same standards online? Why can we not have more blogs without any RSS feeds? Why can we not have nonstandard, and strange, labeling around a site, like the word “Backroad” instead of “Archives“? Why can we not have more blogs without the comment feature? One of the grand questions of all: if we want to be considerate to others, why can we not be comfortable with blogs that deliberately aim to be inconsiderate?

Do you think the concept of being considerate to others has any value for you?

What is your view on this? Do we have to criticize or hate every instance of something that we disagree with? Could that be the reason why many married and dating couples look like brothers and sisters, because many people want to find someone who not only acts like them but also looks like them? Can human beings, as a whole, ever have a mentality where they not only respect different views and people, but they also make it a part of their own character to revolve their own views and character on such a thing? We we, as individuals, easily have a mentality where we are not only considerate to others, but where we also revolve our own ideas and beliefs around the idea of letting other ideas and beliefs prosper within our own life domain?

I am touching the introduction of this touchy subject very lightly, as this subject probably defines the lives of many people out there, and deserves more than just a single post that was written while Bes was hungry. Do you agree or disagree with this?

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1. Infatuated with Stats

   Your blogging depends on checking your blog stats. If you get a lot of traffic on one day, your whole life seems happy. Otherwise, you feel depressed and may think that you are doing something wrong. For you, RSS feed subscriber count, site visitors, and similar numbers are more important than blogging or your blog content itself.

2. Yearning for Comments

   You write to get comments, even if what you write does not deserve any comments. You think about commentors not to appreciate them, but to get their comments on your site in order to get more comments on your site. You do not care if you get a useful or a useless comment; you are happy as long as you get a comment.

3. Failure to Have a Back Bone

   When you get criticized, you may feel like shutting down your blog. Just as in real life, there will always be people who may disagree with you. Same is the case with blogs; it is very easy to leave a comment that says “I think that’s stupid.” Be prepared; otherwise, you will not last long in the blogging world, which is fast becoming a very vicious, competitive place. You should probably figure out the Art of Reacting to Criticizing Comments, as you probably do not know how to react to criticizing comments.

4. You are Blinded by Money Prospects

   You blog for money without caring for readers. Period. You write in order to gain sponsors, and you write in order to gain readers who will click on ads. You value and thank sponsors more than your readers. Whether or not you actually ever earn money is a different thing, though you do not focus on what you offer to your readers. For you, the idea that you can try to make money signifies that you are on a noble path, and that you are a hard working person who wants to earn a living. The idea of making money blinds you with such a misconception.

5. You Think You Will be Famous

   Many bloggers simply focus on getting attention for the sake of getting attention, and if you are one of them, you will do many random, weird things, including posting random things to please people, just to try to be famous. You do not realize that being a real famous person means you do things naturally that result in someone noticing that you do those things, thus making you a famous person. You do not work on becoming famous. You work on doing important things that can make others believe that you are famous. You also do not realize that becoming famous does not mean you did something good; you could be doing relatively evil things, even in your own view, and getting attention. All you want is attention.

6. You Think You Can Actually Make a Difference

   We all want to do something in our lives, hopefully. Many people think that they can change the world or the blogosphere overnight. If you are such a person, you may be wanting to change things right away, without changing yourself first. Sure, it is not necessary to change yourself all the time, though if you do not know first hand what the change feels like, how can you expect to change the world, since you would not know how to achieve such a change. If your blogging relies on making a difference, you may be disappointed. Blogging in order to try to infuse an idea of a change in people is a much more realistic goal, as voluntary change is more permanent and more effective than an overnight, emotional, emotionally manipulated or forced change.

7. You Think You Can Make People Change

   It can be next to impossible to convince many people to stop drinking coffee. Yet, many people think that they can change the entire lives of others simply by giving them a lecture or two. Blogging in order to tell people that they are wrong and that they should change can be a sign that you do not know how human interaction works.

8. You Blame Others for Your Blog Problems

   If your site goes down, you blame your host. If the number of commentors you get on a regular basis goes down, you blame others for not linking to you enough. If your RSS feed subscriber base shrinks, you blame the blogging advice others give you. You never blame yourself. Every choice you make on your blog is your choice, so blaming others all the time for your blog problems is a very naïve thing to do. If someone forced you at gunpoint or threatened to do something, like shutting down your blog if you do not do what they say, then sure, go ahead and blame that someone. Otherwise, stop blaming and start thinking. Thinking while crying is better than crying and blaming someone else.

9. You Rely on the Latest Blog Fad

   If a famous blogger talks about it, you talk about it. If others are using the same gadget on their blogs, you want to use it on your blog too. You follow the trend simply because there is a trend to be followed. You do not follow things because they make sense. You follow things because you are naïve.

10. You step on others to get ahead without realizing the political consequences

    This may be surprising to you. If you use people for your own personal gain, you are probably a naïve blogger. You have to understand that using tactics to manipulate people may result in many people being blinded easily at the moment, but as time passes and new trends and views come to surface, more and more people will start realizing that you used them without appreciating them, or without giving them anything useful in return. You are naïve because you try to use people without realizing how such an action will be noticed by others. You simply want to use people and get away with it.

This list will surely help me focus on my blogging more. I hope such a list will help you also, by allowing you to identify similar traits not only in your own blogging style but also in others. Sometimes, a blogger may simply be naïve and may not want to hurt others intentionally. Other times, a blogger may be naïve because they want to use others and they do not think of any consequences.

What is your view on this? Do you agree or disagree with something? Can you think of more points that may be a signify someone being a naïve blogger?

Thank you for reading.

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1. Be honest:

   Hiding a fact is one thing. Hiding a fact to manipulate someone to their own disadvantage is a completely different thing. Being honest means you do not lie to others, and that you do not try to manipulate others without their knowledge, to their own disadvantage, by keeping them in the dark about something.

2. Do what you say:

   This can be noticed on many blogs and in the offline world, where many people will make promises and then later either not keep them, or fulfill them in ways differently than originally proclaimed. Some people even pretend to do what they say by simply preaching others repeatedly about good things, like telling others to be honest or to appreciate others.

3. Focus on both your and other’s well being:

   What many people both in the offline and online worlds do not realize is that being in a situation where two people are doing a trade does not mean you have to focus only on the money you can make. You also have to focus on what you are giving to the other person to ensure that the other person gets a fair deal too. If you pretend to offer a fair deal to someone else, when in reality the deal is only fair for you, you are not being professional. Many online blogs and businesses today make a lot of money, but they are not professional as their customers and readers are getting nothing but an illusion of a fair trade.

4. Be respectful:

   Being respectful means not hurting the other person’s character or personality directly if you have the chance, even if the other person hurts your character or personality. If you disagree with someone for any reason, you focus only on disagreeing with arguments, not with people who disagree with you. If you want to disagree with someone or something, you express your frustration without forcing the other person to become frustrated on purpose.

5. Not getting too personal:

   Not getting too personal involves not divulging unnecessary information from your end, and not asking for unnecessary information either. Telling someone how your boyfriend/girlfriend had an argument with you can be an answer to a question “How did he/she argue with you?“, but telling someone bad things about your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s friends and family can be too much information. Similarly, if someone you meet for the first time only wants to be your friend but you want an intimate relationship right away, that is getting too personal. Getting too personal also involves asking too many personal questions just because you are bored or you want to make a conversation.

That is my list of 5 of the many things that make you a professional person. Professionalism is a word that seems to stem from the concept of having a profession, but professionalism itself is not limited to any profession or even the idea of having at least a work place. In theory, you can be professional anywhere, anytime, no matter who you are or what your age is.

What is your opinion on this? Can you think of something else that can make a person professional, or more professional? Do you think being professionalism means you must have a job or a profession, and that you must be in a business or job related situation?

Thank you for reading.

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Stereotypes about money prompt many bloggers to lie that they do not blog to make money

Many bloggers will use different topics like death, charity or even personal family pictures to lure you to their blogs. However, these bloggers will usually not admit that they blog only to make you click on ads. Not admitting that fact is a sign of a narrow minded mentality, stemming from generations of stereotypes against the idea of someone being rich and good at the same time. Why would anyone want to admit that they post pictures of their parents and children only to make money, right?

Even supposed selfless causes depend on making money, so why would you hide the fact that you blog just for money?

Avoid portraying your blog as if it was a stereotypical Non Profit Organization (NPO) that focused only on helping others and not on making money. In reality, even NPOs have to make money in order to pay their employees and operations, so why would you want to feel guilty and hide the fact, through deception, that you want your blog to make you money?

The less you deceive your blog readers about your true intentions related to making money through your blog, the more transparent and comfortable you will feel in actually providing something useful to your readers.

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Does being popular or an A-list blogger mean that you are mature?

Some of the A-list bloggers I have met so far do not know how to interact, communicate, help others, or even how to give and take at the same time, both online and offline. They simply focus on taking and not on giving anything back. Because of A-list bloggers being famous, many people assume that these “famous” bloggers are mature. That makes me wonder whether some people actually care about maturity or not when it comes to a blogger and the content that blogger produces.

How do you measure a blogger’s maturity level?

In order to measure a blogger’s maturity level, you probably need to have at least an idea of how to measure maturity level in general. However, how do you measure anyone’s maturity? Why are rich bloggers being cited as being mature simply because of the traffic their blogs generate, even when people do not know anything personal about those bloggers? Does the level of maturity depend on the amount of traffic and money ones generates through a blog?

What do you think? I am going to post more on this soon.

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How people are misunderstanding some of the results

The survey ran from November 20th to December 4th, on around 40-50 English language blogs, and on 12 Spanish language blogs. The number of people responding to each survey question varied. You should realize that just because a survey was done consisting of many blogs does not mean the same rule will apply to you and your blog; that survey helps many blogs, but you have to find out if it helps your blog. It also means that you now have a conflict on your hands, since if you aim to do what the majority of the survey respondents wanted, you will not be pleasing the rest of the blog readers.

Following are some results from the report, and how people are jumping to conclusions based the results:

• 67.3% people surveyed follow links on other blogs in order to find new sites.

  This is an impressive number. 67.3% would be considered the majority in a democratic society. Online, such a survey percentage means that if you link to another blog, most of the people will click that link. I am noticing that many people online are assuming that such a result means having links in posts is guaranteed to work for majority of the readers. My question is simple: How can you assume something to work on the almost billion of online users or even millions of blog readers based on a survey question taken by 214 people? Are you too desperate to hold on to numbers in order to stick with what you stubbornly believe in?

  Also, what about the other 33.7% of the people who do not follow links on blogs? They find blogs through other methods. Should you try to please everyone, or should you only please the majority?

• 43.6% prefer a topical focus.

  It is funny how in other areas of the report, people focus on the majority numbers, whereas in this specific question, many people focused on the 43.6%. A topical focus means a specific topic. That means 43.6% people like to read a blog that has a specific topic that it talks about on a regular basis. While people are jumping and saying “Yes! I always knew having a focused blog was good!“, I would like to remind those people that they also jump for other parts of the survey when majority of the respondents agree to something, but in this case, they are not jumping to the majority 57.4% of the blog readers who read blogs that do not have a topical focus.

  Again, should you apply this very result to your site when it was taken by 263 people? We also do not know about all the topics involved, and we do not know if the topical blog readers were influenced because of finding topics based on language. Can you really go ahead and jump to conclusions based on this? In this case, having a topical blog actually makes you disappoint the majority 57.4%, the majority which you were trying to please in other questions.

• 76.9% of the readers do not post comments on blogs.

  76.9% of the people on the survey, which consisted of 281 people for this specific question, do not like to comment. Does that mean you have to get rid of comments from your blog? How come we all say we value commenting and we say we love pleasing the majority of the people, but we skip this very important result from this survey?

  Again, we should see whether or not the results are affected because of the language, and also because of the time frame when the survey was done, which was for most part a busy holiday season. Also, are the blog readers from the survey the same as the blog readers you have? That is an important question that you need to survey yourself to find out the answer to.

• Spanish speakers read more blogs than English speakers.

  This is also an interesting one that is making many people run around in circles with joy for unknown reasons. According to the survey, there are 2 major results:

  1. 30.8% of the 263 English speaking blog readers read 3-4 blogs regularly.
  2. 43.3% of the 300 Spanish speaking blog readers read more than 10 blogs regularly.

  These two results are making some believe that Spanish blogs are more fun, while some are saying that this means Spanish speaking blog readers are simply hop from one site to another without reading much. My question to such people who are happy with such results is: have you noticed the number of Spanish blogs surveyed compared to the English blogs?

  Comparing 300 people from 12 Spanish blogs with 263 people from more than 40 English speaking blogs is far from a balanced comparison. Such a result means that the 300 Spanish speaking people have more things in common because they hang around those 12 blogs, while the survey for English readers was done on more than 40 blogs meaning there will be more people who will have differences because of the large number of blogs involved for English readers compared to Spanish readers. How can such a result be applied to any blog out of the blue?

I hope the above examples show you that such a survey is extremely important in understanding human behavior on blogs. However, such a survey is also a very bad reason to use when implementing things on our sites or sticking to what we believe unless we know our blog and our blog readers are compatible with the survey. Of course, many blogs love claiming that they have always been right because of the survey results. I would like to claim that generalizing ideas about millions of blog readers who visit millions of blogs based on a study of around 200-300 people visiting a total of around 52-62 blogs is something that people would do in the offline world if they wanted to create stereotypes.

How should we report and react to such surveys then?

I like the way Daniel reported the Blog Readership Report on Daily Blog Tips; he mentioned some of the important facts, and left the analysis of those facts up to you. I think all facts should be mentioned that way without jumping to conclusions, instead of saying things that do not have any ground to stand on.

Learn from the survey and see how it applies to you. Instead of only promoting numbers that you find attractive, understand everything. If you do not read the report yourself and understand it correctly, why would your blog readers read your analysis of the report? Do not rush to conclusions simply because it makes for a good blog post. When studied carefully, the number of people and blogs in the survey shows who can use the information from the survey. It also shows who needs to do their own survey on their own blogs to confirm the existence of specific trends.

This survey gives us an idea of what happens on some blogs. It does not give us proof that the same will happen on our blog. I would recommend doing your own survey or even contacting Vizu to see how they did the survey as they already have experience doing a great job with this report.

If you wish, you can download the Blog Readership Report PDF file, which requires a free PDF viewing software like Foxit PDF Reader or Adobe Acrobat Reader. Both are free to download and use.

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Hmmm, magazines? There are all different types of magazines here on the table, so many of them. Parenting, world news, gardening, automobiles, entertainment, business, and even furniture. There is, however, no computer magazine. Nothing on internet. Nothing on technology. There is absolutely nothing here that even mentions the word “internet” or “technology” or “computer.” In fact, even the business magazine is a 2 year old magazine that talks only about flier miles and what to wear for a meeting. It’s just like every other hospital waiting room, where you will never ever find any computer magazine, or anything related to computers.

Maybe sick people are not support to read about computers or technology. Maybe you’ll get sick even more if you see a computer on a magazine. But stuff about fast cars, slow business, gardening gloves and having sex during pregnancy is going to cheer you up for sure. The people who design hospitals and waiting rooms know exactly what works best for their sick customers while they’re bored and waiting, don’t they?

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