Oh the SHAME!
Today I wrote an email to a lovely and charming lady who is one of my Twitter friends and also writes a beautiful blog.
I’m not naming her here on purpose, not because I don’t want to link to her here, but because I’m SO EMBARRASSED that I can’t quite bring myself to say who it was that pointed out my slovenly behaviour. Also I don’t want to get sued (see last two posts and commenters) for quoting someone without asking their express permission and I didn’t ask hers. I’m writing this on the fly before I get defensive and try to pretend this wasn’t really my fault.
Anyway. I’ve been reading her blog for ages. She’s utterly delightful. I’ve also been following her on Twitter and chatting away, thinking everything was fine and dandy. I’ve even met her in person – she’s very sweet and so much fun! But I tried to Direct Message her on Twitter today to ask her something and I couldn’t. For those of you who are not Twitterers, that means that she wasn’t following me. She had actually un-followed me, and for her to do this (knowing her as I do) I surmised I must have goofed.
Uh oh.
Fortunately I had her email address so I wrote to ask if I had caused offence.
It turned out that, unwittingly, I had given the very strong impression that I was indifferent to her blog, her wonderful writing because although for months she had been supporting my writing by putting me on her blogroll, I had not actually returned the courtesy. Therefore she had very reasonably assumed that I didn’t give a rat’s arse.
She did not put it like that. She’s more polite and puts things more delicately than me.
I was quite red in the face reading her response because she called me out on a very bad habit.
I AM A SHITTY BLOG HOUSEKEEPER
I don’t keep my blogroll up to date (btw, hate term blogroll, sounds like virtual toilet paper) because I hate going into the ‘admin’ section of the wordpress blog and tinkering around. I get sort of lost in a time vortex there and God knows I have very little of that anyway, and before I know it I’ve achieved pretty much nothing, failed to write a post (and my epic memoir) and also forgotten why I went in there in the first place.
HOWEVER
This is no excuse for being rude to people who read my blog, follow it and support me.
I can’t TELL you how much I appreciate the visitors, the commenters, the fellow bloggers, in fact everyone who comes here to read.
And I love going back to read all of your blogs, too, and I really like to support my fellow bloggers. I believe in doing that very strongly.
(Yes, yes I know you can’t tell. That’s the POINT of this post, I’m just getting to the solution)
So: A quick summary and solution
If you have been linking to me for ages (or even just a day) and I haven’t linked back. I am really sorry for being so rude!
If I have missed putting you on my blogroll it is because I am gobshite and will do almost anything rather than to go to the dreadful ‘add a new link’ bit on Wordpress.
However, I really DO want to put you there if you would like to be there, so please, in the comments section, can you tell me the name of your blog and give me the URL and I would be happy to link to you. (This does not apply if you are selling Vi*gra, penis enlargements or are a fan of Glenn Beck)
Disclaimer: My shitty housekeeping skills do not extend to my REAL house. My own home is a model of hygiene, tasteful decor and pristine order*
*anyone who has actually visited, please email for hush money
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Apparently I have access to LOTS of Viagra, Cialis and more. And there’s also a million quid waiting for me in Nigeria too.
Yr post made me chuckle – for MANY reasons – like when I forgot to put YOU on my blogroll – and you very quietly pointed it out! Or when my mother rang me VERY upset – because I had forgotten to put her on my blogroll. Or when I found out that someone for whom I was one of the major reasons she started blogging REMOVED me from her blogroll. (BITCH!)
I am beyond crapola at this stuff: when LLG was still toddling I was exemplary about returning links, but my blogroll is so vast now that I’ve kind of given up adding anyone except friends, unless someone get stroppy with me. ( But I don’t remove anyone unless they are EVIL.)
And you prob saw that I had to post on LLG yesterday for people to tell me when they had given me blog awards because I had basically ignored them all.
Hope you feel better now! LLGxx
I am reading quite a few blogs that don’t follow me back. I won’t expect John Irving to pay money for anything I have ever written either, although I am the first in line (or online) to order his new books.
I like my blog, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it belongs to ‘required reading’. Don’t worry, MTFF, you are not getting rid of me that easily.
ooh you’ve made me panic about my blogroll now!!! yikes i better get my act together before i upset lovely people, although i did manage to block a fellow blogger on twitter due to my itchy blocking finger. I felt so horrible i appologised A LOT….she was nice enough to forgive me
I love your blog whether i’m on the bogroll i mean blogroll or not xxxxx
I now need to write something on my blog as you are linked to me. I have lots of material, but my comments have been taken over by drug sellers, and not the cool hip ones we used to know. Some of these drugs arent even exciting or illicit. I mean, Lasix? Really?
I am sure your house is lovely. As is mine. I blame all the mess on the new puppy.
I can attest to the fact that you have a very lovely spic and span home.
I’ve recently removed two blog links from my blog roll after supporting these blogs and their authors for almost a year. The odd thing is they both follow many of the same blogs as we all do – such a shame really. xx
I now have blogg roll going over and over in my head as Bog roll, please let us rename it. I too need to housekeep my BR, but my house if far too slovernly!
Sounds like a minor misdemeanour. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
If you want to be on a blog roll so much you could ask or give the blog roll owner a gentle nudge. To unfollow you seems a bit childish.
I was blocked by a tweeter who tweeted to lots of other people I tweeted to. I am now unblocked and we tweet. These things happen. It’s hardly life or death stuff.
I can see the twitter list function being a bone of twitter contention. I’m giving it a miss. Admin was never my strong point
LLB x
I think bog roll is a far better name.
I didn’t even know there was this whole new way of offending people. Admin is not my middle name, I live in constant fear of being so far behind in blog etiquette that I can never show my face in a bloggy sphere again. I just presume that everyone else is like me (and live in fear of those who are not). I’m never heading onto twitter, I’ll never work out how to link to anyone and will be a bloggy pariah for the rest of my bloggy life. And I’d never have the guts to write a post to apologise about it either.
I too am a bad blog roll housekeeper. I have not added any for ages and need to find the time to sit down and check it all out, but to be honest if I have offended somebody, I am sorry but with so much going on, it is impossible to keep everybody happy although I do try.
The mere fact that you took part in my competition (one of only three, bodes well for prize-winning, eh?) and have left some very funny comments on my own blog suffices for me.
I am with Metropolitan Mum about reading blogs that do not ‘follow’ me back… and admit I can become very
analparanoid about it, but life is too short to fret about silly things like that.As for twitter, well, I signed up ages ago (no idea why) but still have to activate it or actually figure out how it works….
One day. Maybe soon since I am now officially unemployed.
LCM x
I disagree with the notion that someone should expect to be linked to or ‘followed’ on Twitter just because they’ve linked to or followed someone else. Maybe this sounds terribly snobby or rude but I only put people on my blogroll whom I read on a regular basis. I have many more blogs in my RSS reader than on my official blogroll and though I dip into them all from time to time, the sites on my blogroll are my ‘regular, must-have reads’ and they are merely a reflection of MY interests at this point in time, not a slight to those who aren’t on there. Subsequently, every couple months or so I will take some blogs off and add others on. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve stopped reading the ones I took off (though sometimes I have) but just that what they’re writing about isn’t of significant interest to me right now. I do this because otherwise my blogroll would be about a mile long! I hope that no one is offended by this but if they are, well…I can’t get too worked up about it. Blogging is not a group activity/popularity-o-meter for me so I (selfishly, I guess) do what feels right to *me*, not what I’m expected to do according to someone’s idea of ‘blogging etiquette.’ There are only so many hours in the day and spots on the ol’ blogroll so some kind of system has to be in place for me to keep my sanity and not feel like a fraud by having blogs on my roll that I don’t even read very often.
Just been catching up on your blog and laughing out loud at the last 2 posts!!
I have all the blogs I follow on my blogroll (when I update it!) because I only read blogs I really like! There are bloggers who don’t follow me back and that’s ok…but I do like it when they do
There’s an award for you over at my blog x
There should be some sort of home study course for blogging etiquette
.
It’s a minefield.
I have 2 lists, one my absolute favourites at any given time and the other my ‘I often pop in on which contains the other approx 300 (I kid you not) blogs that I attempt to read.
This really surprised me. I have loads of blogs on my blogroll that do not follow me or link to me at all. But I think that is because their writing is better or that they are just much cooler than me! I do not lose any sleep over it and I certainly wouldn’t stop linking to something that I enjoy reading just because they do not know that I exist.
I’m not very good at blogging etiquette, but I tend to go with Noble Savage’s ideas on blog rolls and following. I only put people on the blogroll that I read everyday, but I follow lots more and dip in and out. I’m not offended if people don’t have me on their blogroll (well, not much anyway…) although I do update mine on a fairly regular basis. I recently took someone off my blogroll because although I visited their blog regularly and left comments, I was never acknowledged by that particular blogger. I thought that was just plain rude.
Gosh, I’ve hardly even though to look if I am on someone else’s blogroll. I used to put other blogs on mine as a way to keep track of them for myself, but since discovering the google reader I use that instead, so haven’t put many of the blogs I love on my blog roll thingy. IN fact I get rather confused by all the options! I think of my blog as something for me that other people may happen to read. In fact it has many on it that I don’t read at all any more. Like you, I never have the time to go tinker with it (and I’m always slightly worried that I might blow it up). I have still not tried twitter. I’m afraid that it would be a time sink. However, your post has made me realize me that I should go and change the bogroll, that there is some relationship building and community spirit that I should do more of, so thanks!
Wow, there certainly seems to be a wide range of attitudes over the blogroll thing. I’m glad I’m not alone in my slovenly habits, anyway. I can totally see how it’s a two way support thing, but another shameful thing is that I don’t even KNOW when I’m on somebody’s blog roll because I never look at them.
I think it might be a more of an easy win for people on Blogger too because, and I have LLG to thank for this tidbit of knowledge, there is a widget that helps with mutual blogroll alerting following but on my platform they don’t really make it easy for you so I have pretty much avoided it except at the beginning or when someone specifically asks me to do something about it and I am sitting at the computer RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT with a few minutes to hand.
I have decided that my policy on blogroll is as previously stated. If you want to be on it and share reciprocal links, I’m up for it if you are a like-minded blogger. If I think you’re truly awful (and by that I mean an awful person who is racist, sexist or does not like my new shoes, not that you can’t spell or something) then I might not say yes, but really it’s only the three commenters from the ‘teacher abuse’ post who wouldn’t make the cut so far.
BUT you have to drop me a line and let me know because I have not yet developed my psychic online skills. I’m still working on that/
I totally agree with The Noble Savage (who’s blog I’ve now added to my RSS feed, but not yet to my blogroll and who’s Twitter-feed I’m now following..).
While I’m like MTFF and sloppy with updating my blogroll, I have only one prerequisite for putting a blog on there and that’s whether I find it a good – or even great – read or not. I’m always ridiculously pleased when I find out that another blogger has me on her (it’s usually a her) blogroll and sometimes I do get a bit perturbed when I find that I’m not on one. But it makes no difference to which blogs I follow in my reader, who I follow on Twitter and who I refer to on my blog.
i can imagine it’s hard to keep your blogroll up to date. i agree, blogroll sounds like an awful word). your kindness shines through in every post- including this one (yes, even in the ’sea it my way post’, you care for your child and others in the class- the teacher is bonkers).
i am new to the blogging world and i am most grateful to a lot of my new &old friends from twitter, like you, MrsT, Jacob Wrestling, Tania K & LLG who have added me to their blogroll. being new, i dont expect it- am so thankful. sadly, a lot of the food bloggers i admire on twitter, have not been very ’supportive’, they already have a tight-knit group of seasoned and experienced bloggers, so why would they want to add a newbie’s blog to their blogroll, (I have 4 posts only)? sometimes even the blogosphere feels like a playground. ‘So Lovely’, good for you for removing their blogs from your blogroll.
Just read your sweet homage to your grandmother, and now this. I do hope you’re feeling better about the whole thing.
I use Google reader, and display it’s feed on my blog, so while I don’t have a Blogroll, you CAN see every blog I read. But I don’t think technorati or any of the other widgets will capture it in the way that some people seem to need. Honestly, unless you’re trying to support your family off of a blog, I think people should relax a little about the whole quid pro quo mess. Some people maintian a blog roll, others don’t – I don’t think we can ascribe any maliscious intent to either action.
OK, high horse descended from now, sorry about that!
xoxo
Sinda
Blog netiquette is a very strange bird indeed…I regularly read your blog, occasionally comment.
But, I never really blogrolled you. Why? sheer laziness? I have been so very bad with my blog link maintenance that some of my closest friends are off the list.
Anyway, after this rather scary I will motivate myself and update my links and add you to my blogroll.
I am even more lazy when it comes to Twitter, but I”ll keep that for another day.
I am now panicking! I have had my blogroll “in constructions” for months now.. oh oh about time I sort it before I offend anyone… I have to say that I follow lots of people and do not expect a follow back. I can understand that she might have been disappointed, but offended that might be pushing a little… I hope that you have managed to get things sorted by now though.
Funny that, because I was just about to write a post about the death of the blogroll and how no-one pays any attention to them any more, because there are so many other ways of keeping in touch, and hopping from blog to blog.
So I wouldn’t have been offended AT ALL if it had been me (and I very much fear that I am on yours and you are not on mine, because I, too, am very bad at blog housekeeping).
Ooh I am pleased I’ve scrolled down and am re-reading your old posts (you see – that’s dedication for you)…Yep, Missy have had you on my blogroll since the very beginning…and I’m not ashamed to beg. I’m on my knees now…. Please put me on yours too?!!
x