3. The majority of the bloggers who participated in this blog carnival (26
all in all) reads almost every type of posts, be it reviews, commentaries
or editorials. It’s very rare that someone will declare that cares only
for reviews or only for editorials.
•Reviews are read with the purpose of comparing opinions and/or
validating the reader’s own opinion and sometimes they are used as a
forecast to save watching time. They are hardly ever used as spoilers,
since a big part of the fandom hates spoilers.
• Commentaries/ editorials have gained popularity the recent years
because they provide different perspectives thus giving a holistic
experience, as well as food for thoughts and discussion. They are
deemed illuminating and inspirational. They can be easier to read for
someone that doesn’t watch anime at their airing time.
From the info gathered, people usually visit regularly only one or two
reviewing blogs, but they can keep up with much more of the editorial
type, since reviews can get quite repetitive after awhile.
4. Before going on, it’s important to talk a bit about the terms used for this
question, hence reviews-commentaries-editorials.
The most troublesome for some was the ‘commentary’ by which I meant
something that is between a review/episodic and an editorial. It begins
from the series itself and goes to an idea. It’s a ‘comment’, something that
explains things seen in a series.
On the other hand, editorials, or what I’d like to call ‘essays’, begin from an
idea and end at the series. Of course, the idea comes up while watching
the series, yet the idea you want to elaborate on makes use of the series
(in your post) and not the other way around.
Naturally, it’s not always easy to distinct between these two. And every
blogger has his/her own way to go through things.
--
5. As for reviews flomu contemplates on their nature and their problems
and pinpoints the following:
Spoiler-free reviews ask the reviewer to consider an anime/manga/Katawa
Shoujo and write something intelligent about it without giving away any
details. This aims to convince people who haven’t seen the anime/played
Katawa Shoujo to go play it or never get near it. The intentions are good, but
the execution is often lacking in many areas. Since the reviewer cannot cite
any specific examples from the media, the review is inherently vague. And as
a result, you could apply a single review to multiple anime or manga without
too much conflict. Or worse yet, somebody else could write a spoiler-free
review about some terrible anime and a naive reader wouldn’t be able to tell
the difference, since the vocabulary for spoiler-free reviews is so
limited. Basically: a bad idea.
Reviews with spoilers try to encourage discussion about a show among
those who have already watched the entire thing. This allows for great water
cooler and/or twitter discussions, but betrays the very purpose of a review: to
give a good judgment on an anime that encourages/discourages people to
watch it.
6. First impressions – Visiting habits
WHAT DO YOU DO
WHEN YOU STUMBLE
ACROSS A NEW BLOG?
7. Most people will play around with the front page, a very few will just read
a single post or check the design, and then judge if they should follow the
new-found blog. There are many that will check the categories to dig in
deeper as well as the about page, because:
It gives me an idea of the voice I can expect and what motives/agendas said
voice may try to advance in addition to the type of content I can expect. […] I
can also determine if the writer has a sense of humor and how similar it may
be to mine as well as hints into other personality traits. Finally, it gives me a
taste of the caliber of writing I can expect.
~ The Paper
Links to other social media and a contact form are also considered a
must, but you can read more about this on the next section…
9. Animanga blogs are about visual culture, right? So I expect a great
animanga blog to have a template that involves colors and posts with
pictures.Yes, people do judge a book by its cover, the template is the first
impression, it's the environment where you read the content and if your
visitors find it unpleasant, dull or tiring, then it's simple: they won't stay to
discover your content.
If your posts are over 2 paragraphs long and you expose them in their
full form on the first page, I feel like you force me to read and rub the
content on my face- not very polite.
Also, you write for an internet audience. If I wanted to read a book, I'd go
pick up one, so walls of texts without images explaining or decorating
your thoughts are totally the wrong way to go; I won't read you unless I
know the content concerns me a lot.
Don't assume that the readers know your nickname. State it clearly in
the about section. Don't force them to go searching around comments to
guess it. ~ Foxy Lady Ayame
10. I generally like to read blogs that are consistently updated. By this, I mean
that they change designs, utilize new topics, and don’t go on month-long
“maintenance” periods.
There are many things that a person can write which will tick me off
straight away. First and foremost, one of my biggest problem with bloggers
and their writing styles is that their ideas feel like they’re joining a
bandwagon, just to appease their readers. Seriously, I don’t hop from blog
to blog looking to read articles with the same idea. I’m at a certain blog to
pick up what your unique thought is, not what some other person has.
Also, if you try to meddle with scientific/academic topics and you
truly lack a firm hold/expertise in the field, I will show disdain for you.You
try to make yourself seem so “high and mighty’, yet if I do know more
about that subject, I will mostly likely pick up on any discrepancies and
regard you as a charlatan. That’s simply a big no-no. ~ Sabishii Miruku
11. It seems common sense, but I have stumbled across blogs that didn’t
provide options for subscribing via RSS, E-mail,Twitter, or any
other medium. Sure, I could manually plug in the blog’s URL into
Reader, but why force your visitors to go through the extra steps? The
online world is a fast-paced beast always on the hunt for the next
quickest feast, so neglecting these short cuts can really bring down the
traffic of a blog. Make the links noticeable and hopefully tasteful
towards the blog’s overall colors and theme.
Bag the self pity. I know that sounds harsh, but I’m really not
interested in the occasional post bemoaning a lack of readers, topics,
or the quality in present anime. While negative posts can be fun and
clever in their own ways, there’s a clear difference between
negative criticism of anime and self-bashing/pointless complaining. The
latter lacks depth and pride in its own possible merits. ~ Marina
I’m not much of a tag person when it comes to episodic posts but they,
along with categories and widget setup are very important.You have
to give your new readers a “table of contents” to entice them into
venturing deeper inside your den of gas house gorillas. ~ Overlord G
12. Nevertheless, what does annoy me? Without a question, I hate it when
bloggers lack any particular viewpoint. There’s a tendency out there to
say as little as possible: “If I only express ‘self-evident truths,’ I can
never be wrong.” And while I do understand this sentiment, I believe that
it is counter-intuitive in the long run. ~ E-Minor
Arguing without basis. It is good to discuss and debate, especially
with people with opposing views, who can provide an in-depth outlook
of their own perspectives.Yet, there are some who does not read the
whole post, get the whole picture or even thinks from the author’s
perspective, who posts their selfish and biased opinions which
amazingly, does not even had anything to do with the actual topic at
hands sometimes. As E Minor puts it, disagreements should be food for
thoughts, and if one should disagree, he should be able to provide legit
reasons, and calmly retaliate at the other party. ~ Kai
13. Here are my secret tips for writing well, as I shared last year:
1. Have something to say.
2. Say it.
3. Stop.
Follow these rules and you can’t go wrong.
Two is the easy part.Your writing style doesn’t matter much to me
compared to what you have to say, as long as you use coherent English (or
Spanish works too). One and three are the hard parts. The way that most
people seem to screw up is in spending a lot of time saying nothing at all.
There are so many posts of hundreds of words that could be summarized
in a single sentence.
Here are some other ways to annoy me:
Write a letter. This is a blog post, not a letter. You don’t need to have a
greeting or sign your name.~ draggle
14. Now, amusement is not and should not be the only feature in a blog’s
posts, but it should certainly be always present. People perceive
entertainment in a multitude of ways; some enjoy being intellectually
stimulated, while others like themselves some humorous satire. At the
end of the day, nobody wants to read a boring animanga blog, and nobody
wants to write in one. ~ bobbierob
[…]a good blog should be presentable and must have an author of
promising mind. Balance between concision, elegance, and depth is
drawn from fundamental prerequisites. ~ Ryan
Do not lose focus. There’s always time that you want to write something
completely out of the context of your blog and it is okay to do so once in
a while. But if that happens too often, your anime blog turns into your
personal diary which no one cares about but yourself. ~ Canne
15. As I said, mindless bashing, generally disrespectful attitude (is
annoying). Now I think about it, it mostly has to do with the attitude of
the writer than of the blogging itself. You might write the best posts ever
and have a blog that's nearing perfection, if you're an ass, I won't read.
~ Kuuki
[…] a good anime/manga blog must have material that the writer(s)
actually care(s) about. Absolutely everything else is secondary – grammar,
layout, spelling, coherence, etc. The fact is, if a writer is bad, they can
improve, and the only way to improve is to keep writing. But if a blogger
just writes about what they think others will care about, then they never
will improve, because they will come to despise the blogging process. If
you are not interested in the material you choose to cover, you will
become bored and you won’t want to bother anymore. When you have
ceased to care, that is the point at which you cannot improve, because
you won’t feel any necessity to improve.
“This above all – to thine own self be true.” ~ A Day Without Me
16. The lack of a contact form. This is probably the one thing annoys me
the most. It’s one thing if the author states it in their about page that
they’re not trying to be a serious blogger or what not, just blogging for
the hell of it, then fine, I can understand. But if you had the bright idea of
saying a lot of good stuff in the about page, provide cool content, and act
like you want to be taken seriously, at least provide a way for readers to
get in touch, or provide an easy way to figure out how we get in contact
with you. ~ Justin
The idea has been put forward to stop using big words because it makes
your audience feel dumb, but that’s just silly. As long as the word is used
properly and doesn’t break the flow of the piece, embiggen your post with
cromulent words all you want. After all, it’s unproblematic to recognize
when intelligence is being obfuscated with egregious utilization of
infrequent parlance, expectedly through perusal of thesauri. ~ Inushinde
17. While I think it is alright to be harsh or critical in a blogpost, the blogger
should be polite those who visit their site and comment. I think it is
important to try to respond to all comments because not doing so is
disrespectful to the people who take the time to comment. Ignoring the
people who comment will make your site seem uninviting and discourage
people from coming back to comment. ~ Myst
Good writers will be able to form elegant sentences out of their thoughts.
Good thinkers who write well almost always offer an interesting connection
or perspective on a topic in addition to making their statements coherently;
they draw on analogies from other media genres in terms of formal analysis
or their personal knowledge of a particular subject that is being discussed.
~ Kylaran
18. You see the blog title? Is it Bob’s creatively named Bob’s anime blog?
Or is it something strange “The Pro’s electric rifle ” (That’s a clever
play on words which hopefully didn’t go over your head. ) Although a
blog name might seem clever to you it’s not to anyone else so keep it
simple. Sometimes you might accidentally stumble into a scary
place ”thekawaiidesu-onee-chansamareviewplace” and will give you
the urge to flee before you even read a line of text. So naming is
important. ~Ace Railgun
Continuously apologizing for posting late or being away. When
every post begins with an apology, it doesn’t reflect well on the blog or
the writer.
Join the community. It doesn’t matter how good your blog is or how
interesting your posts are, if no one knows about you, then no one
will visit your blog. Commenting on other blogs, exchanging links, and
participating in blog carnivals *hint hint* are good ways of getting your
name out there and meeting like-minded people at the same time.
~Nopy
19. Thanks for reading
(and participating)!
Good luck to the
aniblog newbies~
Warning: The aniblogosphere is a lot like Kyuubey!
Proceed with caution before signing your contract.
