Notes for my blogging class

The following is a handout for my class at Hunterdon ESC, feel free to copy, print and use any of the info here as you see fit!


Blogger's Code of Conduct
originally proposed by Tim O'Reilly
1.Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2.Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3.Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4.Ignore the trolls
5.Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6.If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7.Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.




Blogging Glossary

Troll – as a verb, to post something controversial or abusive, to look for a fight, to “troll” for a reaction. As a noun, one who trolls.
Blog – a weblog, an online journal of some sort that can be read by others.
Blogroll – the list of other blogs linked from your blog.
Blogoshpere – the whole universe of blogs
Comment – a response to a blog, posted by readers below the original text.
Link – a symbol or piece of text that will take anyone who clicks it to another web page
Blawg – a law blog
Lurker – one who reads but never comments or posts
Flame – To attack viciously and often anonymously.
Captcha – a type of test used to ensure that those posting responses are real people, usually it involves recognizing some distorted bit of text.
Spam – unwanted advertising, digital junk mail
Meme – an idea or theme that takes on a life of its own
Podcast – a downloadable (usually) audio file, a combination of iPod and Broadcast. Kind of like a talk radio show to go.
Vlog – also Vog, a video blog
Photoblog – just what it sounds like a photo blog, usually a series of pictures with captions
RSS – Really Simple Syndication (or other acronyms) a way that people can “subscribe” to a blog
Thread – A series of comments and comments on the comments, a continuing discussion, often tangential to the original blog post.
Wiki – any of a type of collaborative databases, where users can add and edit information. Wikipedia is the most famous of these, but there are wikis for all sorts of topics and special interests.

For more blogging definitions see:
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/glossary.html

Popular Blogging sites:

Google Blogger (www.blogger.com) Easy to set up and versatile, also easy to install advertising.
Livejournal (www.livejournal.com) One of the longest-lived sites out there and still a home for a wide range of stuff
MySpace (www.myspace.com) Combines the ability to combine blogs, videos and music with social networking. Extremely popular for a while be lately mostly used for musicians to create web sites, for which the site is idea
Twitter (www.twitter.com) Micro-blogging site, allows users to post short updates (think cell-phone text messages) very popular as a means of driving traffic to other sites

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well
1.Don't abbrev.
 
2.Check to see if you any words out.
 
3.Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
 
4.About sentence fragments.
 
5.When dangling, don't use participles.
 
6.Don't use no double negatives.
 
7.Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
 
8.Just between you and I, case is important.
 
9.Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
 
10.Don't use commas, that aren't necessary.
 
11.Its important to use apostrophe's right.
 
12.It's better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.
 
13.Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.
 
14.Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop
 
15.Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase.
 
16.In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.
 
17.Watch out for irregular verbs that have creeped into our language.
 
18.Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
 
19.Avoid unnecessary redundancy.
 
20.A writer mustn't shift your point of view.
 
21.Don't write a run-on sentence you've got to punctuate it.
 
22.A preposition isn't a good thing to end a sentence with.
 
23.Avoid cliches like the plague.
 
24.1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.
 
25.Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.
[ANON.]




Recommended Books:

Associated Press Style Guide

On Writing Well Zinsner

Elements of Style Strunk and White

Tremendous Trifles G.K. Chesterton



Matt DeBlass
velochelonian@gmail.com