|
Hello. My name's Liz Plummer and I'm a Textile Artist. I love the texture of fabric. I love dyeing it and painting it and stitching into it. This blog is about the influences on my work, inspiration, my daily life, and the processes of creating. Enjoy! My WebsiteEmail me at liz AT lizplummer DOT com (sorry I have to write it like this but the spambots have been hitting me!  Subscribe in a reader |
What everybody ought to know about bloggingVia Sharon B’s blog, I found this useful set of links to blog posts entitled What everybody ought to know about blogging. I have only worked my way down to the third link so far, which is 50 tips to unclutter your blog. My sidebar is very full – what links do you like and which annoy you? Should I move the archives and the blogroll to separate pages, or don’t you care? Any thoughts and comments will be carefully considered! 8 comments to What everybody ought to know about blogging |
|
|
Copyright © 2010 Dreaming Spirals - All Rights Reserved |
||
You know I”m not sure that’s a really good question as I often think that mine is a bit overloaded and then people email me and complain if I take stuff away, especially the family history stuff or the earth’s current events links.
I’have also been following some of the links, but this one puzzles me, if sidebars are separated from the important business of the day, I don’t see how they can be intrusive. It’s more annoying when everything seems to overlap, the really big no-no for me is the black or very dark backgrounds when reading the text is difficult, so I don’t bother. Yours is fine, Liz, as far as I’m concerned :}
I like all the links in the margin – in fact if pressed I’d say I like them on all the pages – too lazy to keep navigating back to the home page! I think the writer of the article is basing some of this on personal preference – for example, she doesn’t like the ‘recent comments’ widget, but I find those are really useful on popular blogs with a lot of comments. Who’s right? – it’s just a matter of taste. And she says ‘remove timestamps’ – but those really give me a sense of the international nature of blogging and I like to see them on both posts and comments – I love knowing what time it is for the person whose post I’m commenting on – maybe I’m just weird!
I think to some extent she’s missing the point of a blog – it’s as much (more??) about the writer as the readers. If someone has a widget showing which countries their visitors are coming from, it shows that they’re interested in that, it reflects a bit of their personality. And I really like the way you have ‘buttons and badges’ in your blogroll – another no-no apparently – it’s colourful and interesting. As they say ‘you can’t please everyone, so you might as well please yourself’!
Love your blog as it is Liz….. easy to read and I know I can visit if I want some-one else’s blog, as you have the link….. ;o)
Best wishes
Maggie
Thank you, everyone, for your comments. I’m glad to see that my sidebar is appreciated! And Fiona, don’t worry, I am keeping the buttons and badges – I like the pictorial element too. I think it breaks up all the text links. So if anyone else wants to put a button on their blog for people to put in their sidebars, I’m happy to put it in mine!
I really like the look of your blog and don’t find it cluttered at all. I have a list of blogging tips on mine too-I think they are good thought provokers but not to be adhered to slavishly. The great value seems to be in getting people talking and interacting together, like this!
I know I’m a little late in answering, but I don’t think your blog looks crowded. I recently had the same thoughts about my blog and decided to try a 3 column format – it eliminates some of the background colored margins but I’m happy with the way it turned out.
I still have too much stuff but I think that having the things you want to get to quickly at the top of both sidebars makes it feel less cramped. I tweaked mine a little bit but it started off as the Glorious Day Free Wordpress theme #3 http://wpthemeshop.com/free-themes/
Deb at Red Shoe Ramblings also went to 3 columns recently.
Thanks for your thoughts, Deirdre. I think we did a postcard swap a year or two ago! Do you find that changing Wordpress themes is straightforward? I’ve never tried, I’ve only tweaked the default theme. Do the posts transfer without problems to the new format? I might try giving it a go – I quite like the ones with three columns where you have a sidebar on the left and the right and the post text in the middle.