Blogging Frustrations

~ beetleypete

Since starting this blog in 2012, I have spent a lot of time trying to help other bloggers. After struggling a lot myself, and getting advice from blogging friends, I tried to pay that forward, by posting advice and suggestions about how new bloggers could possibly get a more rewarding experience from blogging.

Some of this advice has taken the form of gripes about the way some bloggers go about the process of blogging, and how an increasing number of bloggers treat it like the more instant social media platforms, like Facebook or Instagram. But I was always trying to help, I assure you.

The two biggest irritations have been mentioned by me more than once, and one of those was a subject of a ‘reminder’ blog post very recently.

‘Please follow my blog’, or ‘Please read my new post’ are not valid comments to leave on the site of another blogger. If you have read something they have written, then you should comment on that subject, not just ask to be read in return, or followed back because you have liked a post, or followed a blogger. I cannot even remember how many times I have complained about this previously, yet just this past week it has happened no less than a dozen times on my blog.

So to anyone thinking of doing this in the future, I have this warning.
If you do this on one of my posts as from tomorrow, I will not only refuse to ‘Approve’ that comment, I will mark it as ‘Spam’.
That’s how much I am fed up with people who constantly do this.

My most recent advice was about how to connect your site to your Gravatar image. On the same day I posted that, I had no less than six new followers who had failed to do this. So I could not find their own blog. Since then, I have counted more than three new followers every day who have not bothered to attach any link to their name or Gravatar image, so cannot be ‘found’. I know that these are not ‘Email only followers’, as WordPress kindly lets me know if someone is only following by email. Annoyingly, some of those bloggers had even ‘liked’ my post advising them to do this link, but had patently not bothered to read it.

My recent post about positive blogging spoke highly of the great community we have in WordPress, especially the committed new bloggers who have arrived in 2019. But there is still the ‘follow me back gang’, and the ‘no link followers’. It doesn’t seem to matter how much advice is put out there, they choose to ignore it.

After all this time, I do start to wonder why I bother.

74 thoughts on “Blogging Frustrations”

  1. I like your posts! They actually help new bloggers like myself. I have only been blogging a short time but seem to be doing alight with my following. Interestingly, I’ve also come across the follow me back syndrome – unless their blog interests me, I don’t! Lol
    Please keep sharing posts like this 👍

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  2. I think this a great post! I must admit that in the past I was guilty of liking some posts that I didn’t even read. But then realized that is terrible form and incredibly rude and insulting even. Stopped it immediately. If I cannot take the time to read and appreciate the article, then exactly what am I “liking”? I love all your advice (hope my Gravatar actually works) as I am not too tech savvy so I love it when things are made simple 🙂

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    1. Your gravatar works perfectly. 🙂 I am not remotely tech-savvy. I cannot even use the Block Editor, and still operate on ‘Classic’. But there is always help out there, from other bloggers. You only have to ask.
      Thanks very much for reading these old posts, and leaving a comment. It is very rewarding to know that they might still be helping people.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  5. Great post 🙂 I think your blogging advice has always been spot on 🙂 I think my problem has always been trying to come up with coherent paragraphs when it comes to writing full-blown film reviews. I still need to catch up on the Ken Russell tv films I started back in March. In the future, I would love to do a Nicolas Roeg series. Speaking of British filmmakers, I got two video links for you to bring a smile to your face for the week – the first is Mark Kermode talking about Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) and the second one is a video from 10 years before Roeg’s death featuring Roeg talking to Kermode about the timelessness of Don’t Look Now. Anyway, keep up the great work as always 🙂

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  6. If I were teaching blogging again, this would be a very important lecture. I really don’t if there is any other way to know this, other than what you write, Pete. So do not apologize. You did good!

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  8. It’s so annoying! If someone leaves a general comment with their link in it I edit it and delete the link 😆

    You left a comment on my blog when I first started out and I really appreciated it. I’ve been a silent follower ever since. Please know that your advice and general posts are a joy to read ☺️

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  10. Hey Pete! If there are 10 people who don’t bother to take your advise, there are at least 5 who do. I added the blog link to my gravatar the same moment I read your blog the other day. And it increased the frequency of getting followers for me.
    It is like in real life–most of us appreciate advise but not all of us follow all the advices we get. So, please continue writing for at least those who follow it.

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  12. I think it’s inevitable that most people won’t bother to read posts and for sone reason will “like” as many posts as possible all the time. I fail to understamd why, but that’s how it worlks, apparently. Luckily, these are not the only bloggers out there!

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    1. Thanks, Sam. I have never understood why people do that, and so many do. There seems to be little point in having a blog if you don’t want to engage with the blogging community.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. I’m as surprised as you, but some people are just like-hunters. And the blogging community is still ok by my standards, Twitter is all about ignoring the others! Like, retweet, and that’s as far as engagement goes!

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    1. Comments are the main reason that community engagement makes blogging so enjoyable, I agree. Maybe that’s why I get so frustrated when some try to use them to promote their own posts without any relevant involvement.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  15. I want to thank you for your kind suggestions, Pete. The Gravatar thing was brand new to me. I sincerely appreciate your helpful nature, along with that of other bloggers I have discovered in the past few months.

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  16. I love this because I can actually relate to it so much! It is so frustrating to find people just commenting random stuff on your blog as if they didn’t even read it and end it with a “Please visit/follow my blog *inserts link*”
    I think many bloggers are losing the ‘point’ of blogging… To engage with others and build a community or join a community. Instead, they are more interested in gaining more and more followers more than anything and it doesn’t matter to them if you like their content or not, they just want the focus to be on them. And when you have followed their blog, forget about them every reading anything you post on yours 💔

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  19. Connecting blogs to Gravatar profiles is very important. Thanks for pointing that out. Often, I visit the blogs of others who have made an appearance on my blog, starting with “likes”. Clicking on their gravatar returns their gravatar profile. It disappoints me when they have not included a link to their blog. In a way, I feel somewhat deprived of having the opportunity to pay it forward.

    Regarding the other issue about people who post to follow or visit their blog, there seems to be people who think they are entitled to disrespect our internet homes and use them for their own benefit. Back in 2013 there was a “showdown” on my blog that was initiated by a woman who was trying to sell her book. She did not participate on the blog otherwise. Around the third time she did that, I told her nicely, but directly, that my blog was not her advertising site. She became irate and I blocked her.

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  20. Pete, I always appreciate your sage advice. I will say that having a Gravatar profile is not intuitive to new bloggers. Some think it is a privacy issue. But, that being said, to come to your blog and then do what is in opposition to your advice tells me someone really didn’t read your blog at all.

    I love reading the pointers you give after years of experience. I have my own frustrations (white font on black background kills my eyes and makes my vertigo tick off). I think everything hinges on those who truly want to be better bloggers Vs. those who are just playing a numbers game.

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    1. I think that’s what tipped me, Maggie. The people who supposedly read that Gravatar post, ‘liked’ it, then didn’t bother to take the advice. I had a bit of a ‘snap’ last night, but will no doubt continue to keep trying with the advice.
      I can’t read that white on black well, or red on silver. Some colour choices amaze me.
      Thanks very much for following Redflagflying, by the way. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  21. I have tried to teach bloggers how to set up Gravatars and How to set up categories and tags and they can’t seem to figure it out. But I’ve done my best to try to help and other than that I’ll just do what I need to do for my blog and to read the blogs of others that I enjoy. Don’t let it get you down.

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  23. Loads of us have benefited from your help. As for the others–phooey! I am more frustrated when I try to find someone and end up with a page that says something like “this wordpress page has been discontinued”. So their Gravatar may be there but linked to a nonexistent blog. These ones baffle me.

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  24. They should know they are playing with fire when they cross you Pete! Seriously, there seem to be a number of “less than ethical” bloggers out there, trying to get “numbers” across many social media sites, which I find also happen to push products…not buying from them, and not following any longer….I have NO issue with someone monetizing their blog as best they can – including product links – there are many of those who are forward and honest about the links they have embedded…it’s the others who raise my ire…

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    1. Those money-makers are also fine with me, when they are honest or obvious. I just had so many ‘Follow me/Read this’ and ‘No links’ contacts this last week. I think it must have got to me in the heat! 🙂
      Thanks,John.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  25. A different perspective here: the blogosphere is populated by millions (???!!) but even if it’s just the size of London or NYC the odds of ‘those kinds of bloggers’ is high – yet still only a percentage within all of blog-dom.
    I don’t get it tho – if ‘they’ are wanting a following, the gravitar connection is the easiest way to access a blog from a blogger’s comment.
    Oh well…their loss…
    Have a great rest of the weekend, Pete.

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  26. I completely agree, Pete. I started blogging in October 2018 and I am learning something new everyday, which i love. It quickly became apparent about the ‘follow/unfollow gangs’ and quite frankly, it’s very sad!

    I absolutely love engaging with new bloggers and readers, I know my posts can be lengthy at times and receiving comments like ‘Great post’ just makes me question if the reader actually read the entire post, which then questions my writing ability.

    I love your advice, it’s simple and to the point, not like the bloggers who beat around the bush with fancy words and what not. If you aim to help beginners, actually write with a beginner in mind – like me, I had no idea what people meant with technical terms and complicated articles, none of it was ever made simple.

    But yours is Pete, aside from your short stories which i love, i appreciate your advice too and i wish i had found your blog months ago!

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  27. 🙂 To put it simply, those people do not know better.

    Unfortunately, people’s failure to update their Gravatar profile whenever they delete a website and move on to a new one is quite common.

    And, I view someone asking me to follow their blog via my comments section as being desperate.

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  28. Well, all I can say to that Pete is: continue to bother 😊 Because for the few people that maybe don’t care about your advice, or maybe choose to ignore it, there are many more people out there who do value your advice. So, don’t lose heart, and keep handing out these great tips. There are many new bloggers out there who have just started out, and can definitely use help like your’s.
    As for the follow me/follow you gang, that will probably never go away. No matter how hard we try. I never really bother about things like that too much. Yes it can be annoying, but at the same time, ignoring it usually is the best way to go about it😊 (that or treat their comments as spam lol 😂😂).

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