What I wish you’d do in your blog

Posted on January 31st, 2008

I read a lot of blogs. I’m not that picky about what I read, but I do like techy blogs and personal blogs. However, recently a lot of blogs seem to be a bit stale, my own included. We seem to be re-hashing the same stuff with different words. What we need is some “oomph”, so, here’s my list of things I wish you do with your blog.

Educate me

I’m a fairly intelligent person, but I always love an opportunity to expand my knowledge. So, educate me with your blog! Tell me something I didn’t know already. Show me a new CSS technique. Teach me about PHP security risks. Englighten me!

Give me advice

I tend to offer a fair amount of helpful advice in my blog. As I learn stuff and overcome problems, I share those solutions with people in case they’re having the same problem. Beat me to it! Offer advice on choosing a colour scheme for my next layout. Tell me about why I should care what screen resolution my visitors are using. Help me out with making my site more compatible for mobile phone browsers.

Challenge me

Tell me everything I know is wrong. Show me why I should stop caring about IE6 users. Tell me why I need to keep my code up to scratch and why it’s important to validate my markup. Challenge my thoughts on usability. Force me to think differently about the way I do things.

Ask me a question

I don’t often comment on a lot of blogs; I tend to me more of a lurker than a commenter. This is usually because I’m not sure what to say in response to an entry. I find it a lot easier to comment if I’m asked a direct question as a visitor. So, ask me a question! Ask for my opinion, ask me for advice, ask me for anything.

14 lovely people have commented

Aisling said:

I once educated people about photosynthesis. It was random, but I got a lot of comments… :P Do you have any other burning Biology questions?

Vera said:

Um… I’m not that good at PHP. Plus, I do enough coding at work… I really don’t feel like educating outside work…

Also, I asked a question the last two blogs… but sometimes I don’t really feel like asking anything. I just want to tell a story.

Kaylee said:

I like asking questions when the opportunity presents itself, but I can usually comment with anything related about myself. I think I talk about myself too much in comments :P

Hmmm, I think I have something educational to say about coding…

Maren said:

Everything you know is wrong. ;p

Lil said:

So, we can only blog about coding is what you’re saying? OBJECTION! *blogs about stupid* :D

Rachael said:

You can blog about whatever you’d like. These are only things I’d *like* you to blog about. :P

Nika said:

But you already know why you should care about the resolution your readers are using and why it is important to validate your code, don’t you?

Anyway, I just blogged about shortcuts. I hope that’s (at least a bit) helpful.

Carly said:

I just blog about whatever is in my head. I’ve written a few of my own unique illustrator tutorials, based on tricks I’ve learnt randomly myself.

But I wouldn’t really bother teaching any CSS or PHP for fears of it being basic.

I guess I could teach a few people on focus for forms and boxes, changing the colours…but I learnt that off rose first about 2 years ago!

hm…

Kristina said:

Great post :)
I usually post questions at the end of my post, but I hardly ever bother with advice or help, since I don’t really have anything to advise on.

Emsz said:

I educate people! :P I educate people about Holland.. Surprisingly enough, there aren’t that much people that want to know stuff about it xD

Tiffany said:

I feel the sudden urge to delete my last entry, and make a super-fantastical entry and follow your wishes! :)

Clem said:

Thanks for the tips - I’ve been having a bit of a blog-ideas drought recently, although I’m slowly overcoming that by writing my ideas down (Google Notebook FTW!)

Lene said:

My blog entries don’t fall into any of these categories… I don’t think I’m capable of doing anything you listed (doing it right, anyway XD)

Holly said:

This was interesting actually, I KNOW my blogs are usually rather boring, lol.
Problem is, I’m most likely less-skilled than most people to begin with, so I can’t teach anyone anything! :P

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