Blogging Etiquette (How To Not Sell Your Soul For Page Count.)

You do not have a right to a blog. You have the right to free speech -- a right given by God, not Congress -- but you do not have the right to any device to disseminate speech. Don't abuse the privilege of having a blog by ignoring standard acceptable practices.

If you change something in your blog post, tell us.

If you add something to a blog post that was posted days earlier without indicating that the blog post has been updated, you may be an amateur and a hack. This is how people slander their victims and they don't even know what is being written about them -- but the slander may appear as the result of a search.

Link to reliable sources.

Attribution. Attribution. Attribution. Don't post comments and other writings on your blog without providing links to the source. Similarly, don't copy and paste text; people aren't that stupid. They know that copy-and-pasted text is easily edited and manipulated. And don't use another site you own as a source; again, people aren't that dumb.

It's not "public domain" just because you say it is.

Don't think you can post photos or videos just because you are small potatoes. (And, face it, if you're not getting paid for your blog, you are small potatoes.) The same copyright and trademark law that protects what you write protects what everyone writes.

Do you allow comments on your blog? You should.

A real writer welcomes debate and criticism. This doesn’t mean that you have to answer every comment that appears on your blog. But you should welcome comments, if you don't, it's probably because your writing will not hold up to even the most cursory fact-checking.

Your page count should not be the raison d’etre of your blog

And it should never be self-reported. If you must show off your visitor counts, then link to the official page. Cut-and-paste page counts mean nothing.

~ The End ~