Teflon's Rules of Blogging Pt 1

MoltenThought is my first foray into blogging, although in its original form several years ago the website was quite similar to a blog. We've been up and running now since January 15th, 2005, and over this short period I've learned a few things others might find useful.

1. Never denigrate your readers.

Nothing grates on me more than hearing a blogger make comments in a post or in comments on another blog about how few readers they have.

Instapundit started with one reader, just like every other blog out there. I seriously doubt Glenn Reynolds spent much time if any complaining about how few hits he was getting in the early days.

We track our hits at MoltenThought and use the data to spot trends and figure out ways to make this site more useful to our readers. We are grateful for everyone who reads, everyone who comments, everyone who takes time out of their busy lives to check out what we're putting out.

Blogs are media. Media without eyeballs is pretty useless, like shouting into a dead phone.

Regardless of how much you might wish to have all 6 billion Earthlings waiting with bated breath for your next post, never, ever talk down your audience.

Isn't that what the LWM does all the time?

2. Be polite to your guests, no matter what.

I know it's hard to do sometimes, particularly with trolls lurking about. Yet the trolls ultimately don't matter---your readers do. How you deal with people criticizing you says an awful lot about you to your readers.

We've had some fairly critical comments here. WordGirl and I have always striven to treat commenters like guests in our home, and to avoid taking comments personally or responding in a hostile fashion. We do this because we want comments, not flamewars, and because readers don't check us out for the sake of drama.

I apply this to my comments on other blogs as well. One fairly well-known columnist for a conservative magazine had some harsh words for us over a post where we insinuated that his position on allowing convicted felons to vote amounted to enfranchising child molestors. I commented at his website, noted how much I admired his work and the website, and asked him whether he favored restrictions on reenfranchisement for different levels of felonies. He never responded, but no matter---there was no flamewar, we each made our points, and I still respect this columnist, no matter how I might disagree with him on this issue.

3. Give credit where credit is due.

We don't hotlink here. We give hat tips whenever appropriate. And I strive to quote snippets while pointing readers to the full post at the original source at all times. It's tricky sometimes, because when we're generating a high volume of posts, you're never really sure you've given all the hat tips and links you ought to.

When opinion is your currency, failure to give proper credit is like taking money out of someone's wallet.

4. Give thanks whenever possible.

I check our logs frequently to see who's linking to us, and I try to pop over to their post and post a thank you comment on it. Links are like gold in the blogosphere, exposing your blog to a wider audience. When bloggers call attention to your work, it's the right thing to do to thank them for their generosity.

Michelle Malkin is the most generous blogger among The Bigs in this regard. She's linked to us a couple of times, and invariably will send off an e-mail letting us know she's sending folks our way. She sets a wonderful example for the rest of us in this as in so many other respects.

We don't do reciprocal links here for the same reason that our BlogRoll is kept small: we want our readers to be able to find bloggy goodness easily. It's not about inflating our hits. You'll note that the blogs we link to tend to be the ones in our BlogRoll. I check them out regularly trolling for great posts which deserve wider attention. If I don't check a blog routinely, it's a candidate for getting dropped, as you'll see tonight when I cull the herd a bit and make room for more.

5. Don't discriminate with links.

What I mean by this is it's a mistake to link only to bigger blogs in the hopes that they'll notice and link to yours.

It's no secret to readers of this blog that I get most of my political insight from National Review, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post. We link to stories from this handful of publications every day.

For blogs, I check out the bigs, but also look for great smaller blogs like Brainster, where Pat Curley always has an interesting potpourri of posts. Pat's a one-man cure for blogger's block, and while he may not sit on Technorati's throne yet, he richly deserves a wider readership.

Moreover, Pat's been a huge help and a mentor to WordGirl and me. The connections with Pat and the host of other bloggers with smaller readership have been invaluable to us, providing insights, links, and a sense of community.

We'll post more on this in coming days. Please feel free as always to comment.