A Time For Action
17 Photo by Tonyelieh Today is Monday 15th October 2007, Blog Action Day. If you don’t know what that means right now, you will by the end of the day. Blog Action Day is one day a year when bloggers around the globe unite for a common goal.
This year, bloggers are dedicated to helping the environment. I’m not going to make a speech about our planet, what our shortcomings are doing to us, or what they will do to us. There are better, wiser bloggers who will do that much better than I.
I’m going to ask a single question; when it comes to our planet, have you done more harm than good, or more good than harm?
It’s a simple question. It’s one or the other. It’s amazing how many people can convince themselves that they are somewhere in between.
If you’re not too satisfied with your answer, like so many of us aren’t, then you may be interested in Blog Action Day’s list of charities. But doing your part doesn’t always involve cash. Doing your part is much easier, and starts much closer to home.
What’s Been Happening With Pro Blog Design?
Four weeks ago, I asked you what I should do with the sidebar space freed up by losing the adverts. You gave a lot of great suggestions, including photos, social media links, empty space and more.
I’ve spent 4 weeks thinking about the decision, and have finally realized that making a decision at all is the wrong decision to make.
Originally I was thinking that I had to choose either x, y or z, but I don’t. I’m not choosing a certain widget, but nor am I choosing empty space. I’m simply realizing that there is no need for anything, and until there is a need, I will do nothing with the space. Heck of a decision to spend 4 weeks on, eh?
Regular readers will also notice that my posting frequency has been changing. Sometimes I’ll wait one day before publishing the next article, but other times I’ll wait 2. It usually depends on the quality of the post.
I prefer working this way for two reasons. The obvious one is that I spend less time writing articles (More time reading around, replying to comments etc.), and the second reason is that the discussions are better. Giving a post that extra day at the top of the blog does seem to be allowing the conversations and debates to fully pan out (Whereas before, we couldn’t help but move on to the next topic). What do you think? Any comments or complaints?
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The posting frequency of a blogger does affect the way the other articles are read, and in your case, discussed. Based on what I see with your blog, you articles have a very nice discussion with lots of comments. That’s why the extra day or two of not posting is fine with me. It’s not a big deal at all.
Sly from http://slyvisions.com
I’ve been thinking what I will post for Blog Action Day for weeks. I’m still thinking! Lucky Australia is many hours ahead of much of the internet population…
I must admit that I did notice posts dropping back to every couple of days and I was a bit sad because I looked forward to reading them each day. I think it was mostly a fulfillment of expectations – now that I don’t expect them everyday it’s ok.
Sly, your dofollow comment wasn’t enough you decided to stick another link to yourself in there? Actually it’s not a bad idea, it did inspire me to click through to your site ;-)
(p.s. this time I got a 500 internal server error, don’t know what that means, but thankfully clicking back my comment was still here)
A somehow different post, but important. I just reserved some of my freshly redesigned sidebar space for this event. Unfortunately, I completly missed the build up to Blog Action Day, so it will remain a sidenote, and won’t become a full-blown post. :-(
Talking about the redesign/realign, I just came back from more than two weeks of offlineness and am rather thrilled that everything is back online. Micheal, could you take a peak? Please? ;-) Awesome.
I agree on the sidebar deal.
Don’t clutter up your web site if you don’t have a need.
As for the posting frequency, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
I do the same thing. I post every day to every other day.
It just depends on my schedule and if I have anything extremely good to post about.
Hi Michael,
I’ve also found my posting frequency more spread out these days. It has advantages and disadvantages, but I find the former to be more important, such as generating more discussion, leaving more time to respond to individual comments, allowing for a higher quality of blog post etc.
I don’t see it as an issue if I miss a day or two, which is how it should be, because if you’re under pressure to constantly churn out more blog posts, the content will suffer as a result.
That’s my opinion anyhow. Keep it up buddy!
Hey. As far as posting i think it is best to post when reason or content to post than making something less than what fits your blog. same for sidebar. you are making a wise decision.
On blog day and your question. I would assume I have don’t more harm to the environment. Overall… I mean my very living create’s toxins in the air right? But I do try to do things… i have been buying much less this year and creating less consumtion as a result. I also am planting 3 trees tomorrow and have planted many things over the past years. I have had children which create waste in those nasty diapers :) But hopefully I will succeed in rearing them to be responsible both to people and their surroundings. I don’t litter, hate litter, i don’t smoke, hate smoking. I never did drugs or that nasty stuff. I drive a minivan instead of a cool SUV. I stopped my Aerosals in the 80s. I don’t buy things made in china as much as possible. I try to support responsible companies best I can. Especially locally made/ grown so that is encouraged for our immediate environment. Also I will be planting a vegtable garden come spring along with my friends and we will be doing veggie swapping, all organic.
That was a LONG comment.
Interesting, isn’t it, how being the first post on the home page tends to get more comments. What web users need is a way other than email (more like RSS) to be notified of new comments on particular posts on blogs. Sure, som blogs offer comments RSS feeds, but not all of them.
Hmm deciding on posting frequency is an issue I’m working on trying to define for my blog. When I first started a Blog on StarCraft 1&2 I was posting every other day, now I have so much content and stuff that keeps pouring in I’ve got a backlog and post 3-4 sometimes 6 times a day! And I know others have the opposite problem.
Allowing a post to “saturate” a bit has its benefits for that particular post as well as gives users something to look forward too. However I don’t want to give them too much while may kill the opportunity for some comments.
Oh well I guess only way to find out what works best for a particular blog is to experiment.
I’ve done more harm. Sometimes ignoring a problem is worse than doing harm intentionally.
Sly – Thanks for the feedback. Glad that it isn’t annoying you. :)
Kristarella – Sorry for the disappointment, but is that still affecting you? Knowing that articles may be every day or 2, is that better? Would you like it if I made a real schedule? (Eg. If I said you’ll get posts every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, you’d know exactly what to expect)
And I’ll have a talk with the host. I’ve gotten a few random 403s today for some reason… :(
Dominik – Better late than never. I wouldn’t worry about missing the build up. (I signed on back in August, but didn’t do anything until today. I think that’s fine.)
And sure – I’ll go check it now! I remember the preview shots you posted a while back; it was looking good. :D
Brian – Thanks for the confidence boost; glad to hear that posting frequency is working out for you!
David – That’s what I’ve been thinking as well. It was a post on your blog a while back that sparked off these thoughts originally.
Over time, I’ve been struggling more and more to write daily posts, and I just don’t like it. The thing that scared me most was that I was enjoying blogging less, and I know that if I lose the enjoyment, I’ll lose it all. After thinking about it a bit I realised something important; I’ve never unsubscribed from a blog because of infrequent updates. (In fact, I usually prefer that to daily updates!)
Mommy Zabs – If you’ve done more harm than good, then what hope is there for the rest of us?? :o
Your MadeInChina blog jumps to mind here. Whilst not entirely related, it did show me you were a very world aware person. I daresay you’re doing more than your bit to help out, in all aspects of life. :)
Redwall – Hmm… I could offer comments RSS here, but as a reader, I’ve never made use of them. Do you use those feeds much?
Starfeeder – That’s good advice. Experimenting always works for finding the right answer for YOUR blog, not someone else’s. :)
Mohsin – I’m the same. Hopefully we’ll both have better answers this time next year! :)
It’s fine :)
Like I said, it was a matter of expectation, but I don’t expect posts everyday now. I don’t need schedules, most of the time I don’t know what day it is anyway :P Having to stick to a schedule might increase your burn-out factor too.
“I’ve never unsubscribed from a blog because of infrequent updates. (In fact, I usually prefer that to daily updates!)”
Neither, I’ve unsubscribed if the blog has closed or disappeared, but it’s hardly taking up room if it only updates every few weeks.
The posting frequency changes for those like me who don’t use RSS nor email updates on new posts isn’t completely in the blog’s favor. It resorts in checking the blog less frequent but just on those days you’d expect a new entry to be there, in this case today since I didn’t expect an entry to be there yesterday it suddenly were two.
Non regular entries has it’s good things but definitely comes with some downsides as well.
Kristarella – Agreed, and thanks for the reply. :)
Slevi – Thanks for the comments from a non-RSS perspective. Definitely going to have to think about this.
No, I don’t use comments feeds often. I wish there was a better solution for tracking comments. Currently I just keep a folder of bookmarks. So I can jump to posts I’ve commented on.
Fair enough. I don’t have any sort of system at the minute unfortunately. :(
The posting frequency changes for those like me who don’t use RSS nor email updates on new posts isn’t completely in the blog’s favor. It resorts in checking the blog less frequent but just on those days you’d expect a new entry to be there, in this case today since I didn’t expect an entry to be there yesterday it suddenly were two.
Over time, I’ve been struggling more and more to write daily posts, and I just don’t like it. The thing that scared me most was that I was enjoying blogging less, and I know that if I lose the enjoyment, I’ll lose it all. After thinking about it a bit I realised something important; I’ve never unsubscribed from a blog because of infrequent updates. (In fact, I usually prefer that to daily updates