Tuesday, May 22, 2007

My top 6 commandments of blogging

1- Thou Shall Not drink and blog. This is the golden rule. Nothing good has ever come from drinking and blogging. And even though you may delete it the next morning the second that you realize what you've done, I guarantee that the ONE person you didn't want to read it had insomnia that night and has already committed every embarrassing word to memory.

2- Thou Shall Not complain about work on their personal blog. It is one thing to post shows or parties your office might be sponsoring, but never write about how you are mad at your boss or your failed office romance or whatever it is people write about work on their blogs. I've read an uncomfortably high number of blogs where people were caught writing about work and were reprimanded, or worst, fired for doing so. (Probably not a good idea to blog during office hours either) Always write with the assumption that your boss and your mother is reading every word and you should be OK.

3- Though shall not slag off one's own family no matter how far removed you are from them. You may have some hayseed cousins that you have heard a million crazy stories about. Stories that you love to tell at parties when the "You think your family is crazy, well listen to this!" subject inevitably comes up. Those stories are fine for parties, but if you write them on a blog, that will be the week that the hayseed in question buys a computer, and guess where the first place he goes will be? That's right, your blog!

4- Thou shall not post anything that you would not want the world knowing about on a blog. I don't care if you do LJ or you have a Myspace and you switch it to private/friends only. There are so many blog search services nowadays that will show at least a portion of ANY entry on the internet, private or otherwise. Any person with a little tech savvy has already discovered these tools and has read your "private" blogs. Nothing on the internet is ever private. (And this goes for Myspace as well, even if your profile is set to private AND your blog is private, your blog is still readable if the person knows the right service to use.)

5- Thou shall not blog details about where your children go to school, where they catch the bus, their friends names, photos that show details of places they may frequent. This should go without saying, but I read a lot of parenting blogs and you would be floored by the amount of information people post about their children's lives. (And this is true for teens with blogs. Don't give a possible predator a map to your day to day life. Blog with caution!! I can't stress this enough!)

6- Thou shall not complain about your relationship. You may think that a nice little passive aggressive blog targeting your partner in life is the way to go to get your point across, but it is really a bad idea. You must remember that not only your partner is reading this but so in your best friend, mom, cousin, boss, co-workers, guy who sells you coffee, their ex, your ex.... (You get the idea) enough blogs like this every other day when you get your nose bent out of joint and suddenly people will think your relationship is a joke and you won't understand why no one seems to respect the person you have decided to share your bed with. (Or you for putting up with them for that matter.) You won't understand why people don't invite you on double dates and none of your friends and family seem to like your significant other. Sadly, you will only have yourself to blame. If you are mad at him/her and don't have the balls to tell them face to face, maybe writing a private email to them is the better way to go. Keep in mind that people tend to have a much longer memory for the bad stuff than for the warm and fuzzies. Why do you think scandal magazines are so popular?


Now, Blog on my friends... Blog on.

1 comments:

Jennifer said...

I probably break rule number 5. I however think that if a predator wants you they are going to get you no matter when or where you are, blogger or not.

I do try to only tell details after the fact though and never say plans unless they are just basics no details.

I think being a positive person over all in life and showing semi- strength also goes in your favor here. Meaning there are much easier targets than me, next door even.

 

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