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MamaJD: Lately I’ve been pondering shutting my blog down. I’m tired and sometimes the people are creepy. Granted, most people who visit are friends and family. Every once and while though, I get a comment that is creepy. And then I wonder, “Why am I doing this?” as I am removing a post that attracted a creepy person. I can manage this contact better through Facebook and I could still comment on HBO. Why do I need my own blog?
Question: Any words of advice for MamaJD?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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toadman on March 13 at 8:25 a.m.
You get comments? What’s that like?
Stickman on March 13 at 9:03 a.m.
I have always enjoyed your blog, though I don’t comment much. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to write something creepy, it seems some go out of their way to do that sometimes though.
Frum Helen Back on March 13 at 9:49 a.m.
That’s terrible MamaJD. My site isn’t really a blog so they have to send me an email. Fortunately the only horrible emails are from people who don’t like me and so I figure that means I don’t have to like them either. Wish I could help you but I don’t like creepy people and creepy people write creepy things.
BethB on March 13 at 11:01 a.m.
re: the creepy stuff: I did a whole set of entries on extending statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes in WA and my statcounter indicated worldwide traffic - including out of Thailand - based on the viewer’s search for the terms “child sex abuse.” Very creepy.
hhuseland on March 13 at 12:05 p.m.
If you used Blogger.com, there is a comment moderation setting that you can select. The comments go to your e-mail and are only posted if you accept the comment. Before going to that, I used to get cranks that would use my blog to attack me.
marmitetoasty on March 13 at 12:39 p.m.
If you google ‘daft cow’ the 4th entry is for Twaddle LMFAO
Ive never got no creepy stuff before, got a spam thing once about the bible….. and a wellabit rude comment from an anonymous tosser…. but nuffin else…
probably until now lmfao…
x
Sam on March 13 at 2:57 p.m.
My comment won’t be positive re: sticking with blogging, so I apologize.
I found it a chore to keep up my blog after awhile, and because I’m a journalist I don’t share opinions so my blog was all about my personal life and my family and whatnot and I just feel like it’s too difficult these days to share your personal things on the Internet without people trying to use it against you.
Because of my job, and past relationships, I’ve made some enemies and I just don’t trust that they won’t misuse my personal life for their own gain.
So I sort of gave up blogging for now.
Perhaps in the future I’ll keep it up again, but I honestly found that not blogging, participating here and running my work blog was far more freeing to me. Sharing my personal life should never have started to feel like work and that’s exactly what happened.
My suggestion, Mama, is maybe take a healthy, thorough amount of time off from the old bloggings and then come back to it and see how you feel.
OrangeTV on March 13 at 4:56 p.m.
I’ve found that it’s much easier to blog about a particular subject, in my case food & nightlife etc, than it is to maintain a general personal blog. I could never come up with clever enough stuff from my mundane life and I didn’t like the idea of unwanted eyeballs learning certain details. Now it’s fun to blog about my subject and interject my own point of view within that context. Question for you HBO’ers - if you were to start a blog about a specific subject (i.e music, designer footwear, celeb gossip, artichokes etc.) what would it be?
JeanC on March 13 at 5:03 p.m.
I would suggest taking a hiatus from blogging for a while and then see. Yes, there are creepy people out there, of course there are creepy people in RL also, so it is just a matter of avoiding or ignoring them. I do occasionally have to turn my comments moderation button on, simply because of trolls who drive by and spew and run. So far I haven’t had any really creepy people stop by, at least not to comment. I really should do more posts on the search words people use to land on my blog, now some of those are really creepy!
Cindy_H on March 13 at 5:16 p.m.
OTV: I think I’d blog about books. Or boys. Or fireman.
hmoffsuite on March 13 at 5:25 p.m.
OrangeTV. I think that because of the vast numbers of blogs out there, the more specific you can be and targeted, the better. I don’t think you want to shoot a shotgun, but rather a rifle with a scope. My wife’s cousin is a Chef in SanDiego. He worked for the Firestone family in Palm Springs and has cooked for 3 Presidents. (he is gay and a super great guy). He cooked for us at Christmas and I got into a blogging discussion with him and enouraged to get out there on the ‘net. He has some spectacular photos and wants to do a blog specializing in “Exotic Deserts”. I encouraged him as best I could but don’t know if he got it. The power of the internet, that is. I have another guy that was a photo journalist at the Baltimore Sun. He started a blog specializing in strobe lights or something and was making a hundred grand a month from Google Ads. It is a big hit from what I understand.