If I Were the Blogging Police…

This guest post is by Karol K of ThemeFuse.

Is it just me, or do you ever find yourself in a situation when you just want to lock someone up for the things they’re doing either on their own blog or while commenting on other people’s blogs?

You know, moments when you wish you were the blogging police … anyone?

I do. Quite often actually. And I am by no means perfect myself. But you don’t have to be perfect to have an opinion, just like you don’t have to be a musician to be able to tell that you don’t like a song.

So even though I am not perfect, I’ll tell you what I’d do if I were the blogging police. The list isn’t long, thankfully, just a handful of points. When I’m done, though, I want to hear what you’d do if you were on my blogging police taskforce.

1. Lock people up for publishing lame list posts

A lame list post in one that makes you immediately think “how obvious can you get?!” This doesn’t happen that often nowadays, but when it does it strikes hard, with no warning.

A lame list post is one where every single thing on the list—every piece of advice—is just so utterly obvious that the only possible reason for writing such a post is not to forget about all that stuff. You know, it’s the personal-reference-file kind of a post.

I’m sorry, but if you’re writing a list post on blogging and it includes “care about your readers”, you need to think your post trough one more time, for everyone’s sake. Which brings me to…

2. Lock people up for saying “you need to publish quality content”

Somewhere in the world a unicorn dies every time someone uses this phrase in a blog post. This one piece of advice has been around forever. Everyone knows this by now. You really don’t need to say it.

But I’m sure you did. I know I’m guilty of this too. Thankfully, there’s no blogging police. (Nor do any unicorns actually die.)

3. The rule of “3 strikes and you’re out” for spammers

“You’re out”?! Does that mean “no more internet for you”? Well, some people should really get a lifetime Internet-access ban for spamming in comments. You know—comments like this:

“Great post!” … submitted along with an anchored name of “web design san diego” or something.

Or:

“I find your opinion quite interesting but the other day I stumbled upon a completely different advice from another blogger, I need to think that one through, thanks for posting.” … with a similarly search-optimized name. This is actually a clever piece of spam because it seems legitimate, but you can actually submit it below every blog post in the world, and it would sound equally relevant.

Imagine how much better the world would be if every spammer had only three chances, after which they’re gone forever.

4. Lock people up for saying that “doing what you love is the only way”

No, it’s not, and it shouldn’t be. I love sleeping, for example. Is anyone gonna pay me for that?

Okay, I don’t want to be that harsh, but just bear with me, and try to think of all the possible professions in the world—everything that needs to be done to make the world go round, including things like moving out the trash, cattle breeding, and being a politician.

The reality is that “doing what you love” is only one of many possible scenarios. You can create equally successful career out of “doing what you should do,” “doing what you’ve been taught to do,” and “doing what needs to be done.”

5. Lock people up for publishing “sorry I’ve been away” posts

This is what happens: someone hasn’t been blogging for a while, say a month or two. And then they come back and publish a “sorry I’ve been away” post.

The usual construction of such a post is a short explanation of why the person was away, and then there’s a promise that now everything will change and the person will be posting like there’s no tomorrow.

First of all, this never happens. Chances are that the person will forget about the blog again very soon.

Secondly, no one cares.

6. Lock up everybody who’s just too much of a nice guy

Does everyone has to act like such a nice guy? The blogging world goes deep here. For some reason, many people believe that you have to be nice to everybody all the time. Well, you don’t.

If you’re nice to everybody, how are you going to distinguish someone who you really feel you should be nice to—someone who’s really special? If you’re nice to everybody, then your being nice simply means nothing. Besides, people who are nice to everybody are boring! Lock ’em up!

7. Give tickets for using clichés or words that are just too big

I love blogging. SkyrocketEngage your readers. You need to be an authority in your niche…

The list of clichés and needlessly big words used by bloggers every day has no end.

Clichés are just annoying. And using big words to emphasize your point is just stupid.

Do you really love blogging? Would you sit in your room and cry if you couldn’t blog anymore? Would you be depressed for a month if blogging had been taken away from you? Do you wake up every day imagining how happy you are with your blog, and then go to sleep in the evening dreaming all the nice things you’re going to do with your blog the next day?

If there’s at least one “no” in your answers to those questions, then you don’t love blogging, so don’t say you do. If you have all “yeses” … touché.

This concludes my blogging police wishes and dreams. What are yours? I’m sure there are some, if you take a minute to think about it. Of course, don’t treat this whole thing too seriously … but I would love to hear what you’d do if you were part of my blogging police taskforce. Share your pet hates in the comments!

Karol K. is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland and a writer at ThemeFuse.com, where he shares various WordPress advice. Don’t forget to visit ThemeFuse to get your hands on some original WordPress themes (warning: no boring stuff like everyone else offers).