OJ’s rants What would OJ do?

Things that Suck about Blogs

Why is it that people are still doing stupid things on their blogs? Blogging isn't exactly a "new" thing any more. The things that you can do wrong to annoy your readers have been blogged over and over again, yet still the mistakes are being made.

I feel the need to rant

Here are but a few things that suck about people's blogs (Note: these points may include my own blog )

• Cloaked links - By cloaked links I mean links which have to go via the site you're reading to be able to view them (eg. http://www.foo.com/redirect.php?site=http://www.bar.com/, http://www.foo.com/openlink.aspx?id=SOMEGUID). This is poor form in my view. Search engines and blogs use cross-linking information to aid in determining the quality of the site (the more links that point to it, the higher the quality... apparently ). If the links are cloaked then this information is essentially kept hidden. I feel all bloggers should leave links in the raw.
• Opening new windows for intenral content - I used to force my links to open in a new window if the link took the user away from my site. I don't do that any more, as I feel that it should be left to the user to make that decision. The only time I would consider opening a popup to my own content would be if the user clicked on a link to a screencast (which appears to be a standard practice, and one that people are happy with). New windows to other pages in your site is a no-no. Stop it. Now.
• "Top 10" posts - For some reasons I find these really annoying. Top 10 reasons to blog. Top 7 ways to bring in more traffic. Top 13 ways to not be an idiot. Top 100 books you should read if you want to consider yourself an elite software engineer. There can be only one Top N post.
• Blogs without an RSS/Atom feed - Who does this?! Really! This is 2008! If you have a blog, you should have a feed. While you're at it, don't cut the feed content short and force people to go to your site to read the entire article.
• Blogs without comments enabled - This has been talked about all over the tubes, but I'm going to say it anyway. A blog without comments isn't a blog. you're not a blogger, you're a preacher. Open up the lines of communication. Let people express their views. While you're at it, don't force them to sign up! If you do want to keep track of who the people are, then use OpenID.
• Blogs that get good comments/questions which are never answered by the author - People have taken the time to read your post and give you feedback. Yet you don't take the time to read what they write and give them some feedback too? You suck! If there are questions directed at you, you don't just suck, you suck badly.
• Blogs which recycle content - I've talked about this before. I have no problems with cross-linking. I think it's great when someone blogs as response, or some detailed thoughts, to content that appeared on another site. What I hate is when the same content appears, sometimes in its entirity without modification, on multiple sites. And no, I'm not talking about those "autoblogs" which blatantly rip off content, I'm talking about bloggers who do this knowingly.

So what do you hate about the bloggosphere? And more importantly, what do you hate about this blog Feel free to let loose!