Open Invitation to Criticism

2008 October 11
tags:
by Kevin

I would like to ask all of my readers to criticize this blog.  You can say whatever you like about this site, even if they are harsh or demeaning.  This open criticism will help me grow and help me become more aware of what my readers want.

Requirements

  • Tell me what this blog is lacking.
  • Do so in the comments, and interact with other commentators.
  • Is there anything that should be changed?
  • What do you want to see from this blog?
  • How can I separate this site from others?
  • Do not be afraid to ask questions or harshly criticize me.

The main goal of this is not because I have a lack of post ideas, but I would like to gain some insight into what my readers truly want.

This post will be deleted/closed after a some criticism has been received.

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5 Comments leave one →
2008 October 12
ThemeLib.com permalink

I think most of us don’t have enough time to read your entries because they’re too long

Btw, I sent you an email. I’m waiting for your reply.

2008 October 12
vivek permalink

the header is too boring.change it!

2008 October 12
Jodith permalink

My only real criticism is that it’s all text. There’s nothing to break up the page. If you scroll down, you just see a wall of test. Try adding some photos or something that will at least show you at a glance where one post ends and another begins. Or maybe use a slightly different text color for titles. Or throw some adsense ads between posts.

2008 October 12
Rarst permalink

Stylish clean looks and content is excellent.

You could try to interact with readers more. I mean out of ten recent comments one is reply to reader. Talking to air really makes you question is it worth wasting time talking at all.

It’s hard to browse back. Only two posts per page and bad tiny arrows. I instantly forget which one is forward and which one is back as well.

By the way it’s bit weird to see such rules on feedback. Comment “requirement” ? So if I have something I’d prefer to email you personally for feedback it isn’t okay? Closed/deleted? Like this week you are looking for feedback but not next week? :)

From my experience it’s extremely hard to get feedback out of visitors (which is natural - for them it’s time wasted on something hardly interesting). It’s a process not an expiring offer.

2008 October 12
Kevin permalink

Thank you for all of your feedback.

Areas Addressed in Feedback:

- Post Length: I will try to vary post length more frequently, rather than have all posts greater than 800-1,000 words.

For example, I would be able to cover more news stories, which tend to be less than 500 words.

- Header: I don’t have great design skills, the only thing that I could change would be integrating/adding the RSS links or a banner ad there?

- Images/Breakup: I have nearly 700 images within 252 posts (3 per post), although I haven’t added any in the last 4 days. However, I will work on this issue - the theme was originally designed for post excerpts, which I don’t particularly care for.

- Interaction: I’ll be working on adding a better forum, responding to comments (an area that I’ll admit to lacking in).

- Navigation: I’ll either add pagination or textual links, rather than images. I may possibly need to change the entire theme around, in that case.

- This Post: The “requirements” from the responders were to “open” up feedback, and share thoughts with the author/blog owner. I guess it should have simply been a list to help you provide feedback.

Other Areas and Concerns:

The feedback will be used to grow this blog and give more/information back to readers. To date, I haven’t received much feedback, so that is the main reason I wrote this post. Other blogs do not invite their readers into feedback, or avoid any criticism, but this has opened my mind up to what needs to be done, not what needs to be bypassed.

Some of these changes will involve increasing advertising, and to this date, I haven’t generated much income, relative to the amount of traffic the site receives. Should I increase advertising, post frequency would also increase, to counter the increase.

Additionally, this feedback gave insight into design changes - going with a shorter/excerpt main page, with smaller images aligned to the left/right to enable more content. I’ll find or customize a theme to keep the fast-loading, simple aspect that is currently in place.

I may keep this post open, but the way I viewed it, I would be implementing the changes, then these comments wouldn’t necessarily be valid anymore, as I would already have changed/improved in those areas.

Additional:

I’d further like to hear some more insight into what types of content you’d like to see/areas that should be addressed - should the blog change focus from “general” tips to more specific areas?

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