I love reading blogs, but sometimes I run across minor “features” on blogs that are simply annoying. They generally aren’t annoying enough to make me stop reading the blog, but just enough to ask, “Why?” The following list is concerned with technical aspects of blogs and are not related to the content matter of any blog. I don’t have any specific blog in mind, but this post is the product of things I have been thinking about for some time. I’d love to hear comments from others of things they find annoying about blogs as well, whether or not it has to do with my blog.
- Snap Shots. These are those little windows that pop up and give a preview of the link’s contents; they come standard on all new Wordpress.com blogs. They’re obviously of the devil since they cover real content, sometimes pop up unexpectedly, and only rarely display accurate information. By looking at this page, one can learn how to disable them as some of the Wordpress.com bibliobloggers have already done.
- Separate page for posting/viewing comments. When you click to post a comment, some blogs (especially ones hosted by Blogger) take you to a separate page to enter your comments. No big deal, except sometimes you want to interact with the blog post itself and be able to have the text of the post in front of you when commenting. The same goes for reading the comments especially when it’s a long post and you want to be able to refer back and forth between the comments and post without having to open a new window or tab.
- Truncated RSS. Most blogging software packages allow the administrator to post their RSS feeds as summaries instead of displaying the entire content of the post. This usually just means that they show the first fifty words or so of the post. As far as I understand it, by truncating posts in the RSS feed the blogger is forcing their reader to visit their site. This, of course, is great for the blogger, but a tad annoying for people reading their blog through RSS aggregators. Perhaps their is a legitimate reason for syndicating your blog posts in a mutilated form. I just don’t know of one.
- Advertisements. We’re all used to advertisements and we see them all over the internet, but why are they necessary on a personal or academic blog? I’m not talking about those Westminster Bookstore banners that I see on various blogs, but what’s so annoying are those auto-generated spam ads. What’s with those? Also, as if advertising on a blog wasn’t bad enough, some make it worse is by including advertisements in their RSS feeds. Shame on you!
- Cluttered Sidebars. I forgot about this one, but Nick Norelli mentioned it in the comments and I heartily agree. Here’s what Nick said: “Also annoying to me personally are extremely cluttered sidebars with every widget and/or graphic you can imagine. These look ghastly and make the pages take forever to load.”
Thoughts?
I’ll let the defenders have their day, but for me the most egregious blogging crime is #3. The sole purpose of it in my mind is for the blogger to get actual clicks through to his/her blog which will either help that persons ego (look I have people actually coming to my blog!) or pocketbook (if there are advertisements that depend on page views and the like). Are there any other reasons? If you (in the generic sense) make me click through to your site, I’ll eventually get tired and drop you from my RSS reader.
Well said. I also find all of these to be annoying.
no you’re quite right. especially on the advert thing. preposterous. i went to see – on one of the two times a year i bother to do so- a post by scot mcknight on befouled beliefnet and i couldn’t find anything he had to say through all the stupid adverts.
beliefnet clearly believes in hawking its bloggers for a profit.
And Beliefnet is one of those who advertise in their RSS feeds. I think it deserves a Jim West total depravity post.
I agree 100% with everything you’ve said! And I think Jim is right, Beliefnet is certainly making a pretty penny off of these big named bloggers. I have my suspicions that the bloggers who switched like McKnight and BW3 have received some kind of compensation for doing so. Also annoying to me personally are extremely cluttered sidebars with every widget and/or graphic you can imagine. These look ghastly and make the pages take forever to load.
Thanks Nick– I forgot to mention the hideously cluttered sidebars, so I’m adding it to my list and quoting you on it.
Amen! I especially hate those pop-up links, though I think it might be possible to turn them off on the viewer’s end.
P.S. I like the new look!
norelli agrees with me? its the end times friends, the end of days is here! ;-)
Jim: We agree on quite a bit, just not the recent CT article. ;-)
Thanks for #2! I didn’t know that there was a way to do it otherwise.
Hopefully that’ll get my blog rolling… :)
Mike, you need to blog more often too! :-)
Haha. You are right. It’s just been a very hectic July! Will try to follow your advice
Nice! I especially hate the blogger commenting format. Come on!
I agree on ALL counts!
I agree on all counts, but almost panicked at #4. :-D
I think I find 1 the most annoying
In defense of truncated posts: I wouldn’t trust an automated script to truncate my posts. However, when I publish longer posts, or graphics-heavy posts, I often do put only the first paragraph or so on the main page, with a “continue reading” link at the end of the post.
In defense of widgets: I like widgets. :)