I know I’m ripping-off but that won’t stop me
Michael from Low on Hit Points had a great idea I can’t help but re-blog. Instead of having some new people reviewing your blog, ask your readers. They have read you longer, they know you better. Michael asked his, and I am asking mine for critique. Don’t be afraid of telling.
Why do I support it? My arguments were born as I was reading Michael’s post, so he gets full credits for motivating them into my head. The Otaku Elimination Game started just a little while ago. They are new to the aniblogosphere in general, they have practically stated it. Following, they have read the blogs they review for this little time. Here I quote my comment on Low on Hit Points:
Moreover, I just have to tell here that reviewing blogs is a far more difficult thing than it seems. I’m following some blogs for more than a year already, yet still can’t describe one single of them just for a short blogroll page one-liner. Essence of a blog is very difficult to get. OEG looked at the blogs for a few days, and already tell their opinion on it. That seems not right to me.
Yes, if you have been wondering why the blogroll page looks so strangely missing something, it’s missing the one-liners. Back to the topic, the only thing OEG can say are their first impressions. And how the uncountable first impression posts I wrote tell me, they first impressions almost never say the same as final thoughts.
Because people can misunderstand me, I’m telling: With their OEG’s post on the word ‘otaku’ they have, in short, won my sympathy, and although I still have some more things I don’t like about them, since they can’t take it constructively I won’t tell it. Oh. I told it already. Nu well, the above is a different matter now — if they want, as I believe to interpret them, improve the aniblogosphere in terms of this word’s usage, it’s OK for me. And their reviews are actually quite to laugh about. But they can’t give true feedback.
Now, while I am drinking my colder-getting black tea, critique this blog. Don’t be afraid of telling, what’s good, what’s bad, what can be improved.
Further reading
- My first post mentioning the Otaku Elimination Game
- OEG on ‘otaku’ and my comment there
- Lolikitsune on OEG
Loading ...
27 Comments
The colonialist in me wants to tell you to work on your English, but I’ll stop myself
Don’t stop yourself. I definitely need to work on it, because this year’s English exams will be quite difficult. Although, if I get your colonialist joke right you are wrong because I am a Russian and in Germany.
It was a comment on how English has become one of the more wide-spread international languages.
lolikitsune´s last blog post: I endorse the Otaku Elimination Game
Then I agree on that.
What should I say about your blog? Hmm…
Nothing much, but just that you write really well on certain aspects of the anime culture. Keep it up!
p/s: man, I should pick up blogging soon…and change my way of blogging.
jusuchin85´s last blog post: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 EP 04
I look forward to it. :3
…damnit, I’m trying to think of something constructive to say but it’s really damn hard.Eh, I’ll give it a shot though.
You need a bit more energy in your writing. In a lot of your posts it feels like you’re just glossing over the subject while not adding that much opinion on the matter or you act like your opinion isn’t that important. That often requires writing more but it’s well worth it. Your post on the OEG was one of your better ones because it seemed to be a subject you felt strongly about, which inevitably means it was longer than your average post. It’s like if you read an episodic blogger who isn’t that enthusiastic about the show he’s blogging, that affects the quality of his writing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading pretty much any form of media is that the more opinionated you are, the far more fun you are to read.
The problem with that above paragraph is that it’s only my personal preference. Writing like that could actually be the oppisite to what most people think. That’s why I think this system of reviewing is flawed, especially since you will only get comments from people who read your site and therefore already like it. I think a OEG style site that a group of reviewers set up to critique anime blogs is a better option, providing you have enough reviewers working for the site to provide a diverse enough opinion. Doing that forces people who might not read your blog to actually review it. Plus, if these people are reviewing anime blogs every week, they’ll get better at giving out constructive critism. As I’ve just learned from trying to type the above paragraph, this critiquing this is hard. But hey, this is the system that’s supplied for now so I might as well go along with it.
Wow I wrote a lot there…
Scamp´s last blog post: Revisiting Full Metal Panic
I think I know what you mean. My problem is that I try to be as less ego-centric as possible, I don’t know why. I guess that inhibits my posts’ energy. Also, there are topics where I feel far more sure than when writing on anime — blogging, personal life, and webdev. I have to fix that, and to ganbarre more. Good that I didn’t yet write on some of my favourites of this season, I have some playground, so to say. But I definitely want to improve, so my readers are kept entertained reading my posts.
On the second paragraph, I think you are right in some points, but even if one likes something, it doesn’t mean they don’t have anything negative to say about it. And so I find readers doing the reviewing better. Or at least as good as the other one.
And yes, critiquing is hard. You did a good job here though! Thank you a lot.
Ego-centric is a good thing. It gives your writing personality and that’s what anyone should strive for in their writing, especially in a blogsphere that can be so full of sameness.
I didn’t know english wasn’t your first language, although I agree that one shouldn’t judge your blog with that in mind. That’s like people judging cencoroll less harshly because it was made by one man. It’s to be admired but that doesn’t make him excempt from critism. Then again I never noticed that it wasn’t your first language so I guess it’s just not an issue here.
I feel like such a ponce critiquing a blog. What the hell makes me an expert on the subject?
Scamp´s last blog post: Revisiting Full Metal Panic
Needs more GUNDAM. And Cats. And possibly kittens too. And more constructive comments.
Heyhey, a blog is however you wannit ta be.
Believe in me, who believes in nothing, that your blog is.…a.……a blog?
Shion963´s last blog post: 4444th Savage
Gargron: “I can’t help but re-blog”
That’s precisely what I thought other bloggers should do. I think that if we want the criticism, we should simply just ask for it on our site itself.
Scamp: “you will only get comments from people who read your site”
That’s why I wanted to work an angle like that from the blog pimping chain letter that took off a while back. The people who re-blog push some of their users back to the previous blogs who asked for criticism, thus giving them more critics.
.….
Now for the criticism:
On site design, you’ve come a long way. I like how your banner is thinner now (the text starts higher on the page). At this point, I would only tweak a few little things, and it’s hard for me to say much definitively without first trying it to see how it would look.
Though on the right rail, I would think the search bar would be better utilized if it were positioned second from the top (underneath the rss feed). I would also put the name/email/website textboxes above the comment form and let it expand the full width of this column.
As far as writing, I have all the respect in the world for people whose first language isn’t English yet they still put effort into blogging in English. That’s especially amazing when compared to people who speak English as their first and only language and can’t be bothered to write worth a shit in it regardless.
All in all, you’re moving in the right direction with a lot of things. So just keep on trucking and you’ll do fine.
Michael is LoHP´s last blog post: I invite everyone to come on in and critique my blog
Still, the re-blog thing is a bit difficult to do if scaried of plagiarism. When it’s a shitstorm everybody links to each other and talks on the same topic. But in this case, you can’t have too much of personal opinion and words for ‘gimme critique’ are limited too.
I hope this works. Well, this works already, I guess.
Just as a side note, to dynamically edit site’s CSS/HTML from browser to see what something would look like there is a FireFox plugin called Firebug.
I will move the widget, but I want to leave the comment forms as is. I personally like it, that’s it.
I think my next step in trying to make English a native-like language for me would be voice chatting. I need to find people who are not scared of Skype first, though. ^^
First off, it is very difficult to blog in a language one is not familiar with, so I salute you for that. With that said, I would suggest that maybe this is the part that you feel you should improve.
As records of discourse, blogs are naturally complicated. Being able to summarize them is often a feat that requires mastery of the language and the subject. Since the subject is not an issue for you, it is possible that you simply don’t feel comfortable enough summarizing them in English yet. (I know I wouldn’t be able to give one-line summaries of blogs in Japanese!)
“OEG looked at the blogs for a few days, and already tell their opinion on it. That seems not right to me.”
In my understanding, OEG doesn’t care about blogs in their entirety — OEG is a one-issue site. They can ignore all the complex issues and discourse that don’t involve the use of the word otaku.
I want to improve my English, but at the same time I don’t want to be looked at as a non-English blogger, whose progress in language must be respected or admired at that. So please people stop pointing that out, I got it already at the first time.
I don’t know whether I would be able to summarise blogs in Russian or German either, please also don’t move the problem to my language. If anything, you can move it to me being not smart enough. Perhaps it’s even true.
Also, I don’t care what OEG ‘cares’ about. In their first review they took some blogs which didn’t mention ‘oatku’ anywhere at all under their loupe.
Your first language isn’t English? Maybe I haven’t been reading carefully enough, but heck, you fooled me.
Blog-wise, I do think the items sidebars and the preview/post comment buttons could use better contrast. I can make the text out, but it’s not the easiest to read.
RP´s last blog post: Rabbit Poets featured on AnimeBlips? Hazukashi Serifu Kinshi!
Thank you, and it may sound impolite but I’d like to continue fooling everybody!
And I will take note on contrast, and fix it the next time I’ll open the theme editor.
Actually, your English is not that bad.
And I agree with Scamp’s opinion that sometimes it feels like you gloss over your point in your blog posts, but I think I do that too, so I shouldn’t complain.
Actually, it’s kind of a cool idea this critiquing peoples’ blogs. Maybe if a bundle of bloggers that aren’t out to get everyone started doing critiques it would be interesting. Because just critiquing through comments is less effective.
mefloraine´s last blog post: Ku’s little angel unicorn
Im basically just repeating what scamp said but your writing always feels a little bit overanalytical and too objective.This is of course a good thing when youre doing journalism but I dont think you wanna go that far with your blog.
I dont want you to write posts that are borderline subjective either but sometimes it would be a bit nicer if Gargon shines more through.
Most important thing is that you dont take the OEG critic that your blogs boring too personal.Your posts may not always have mainstream potential but seriously there are already so many bloggers out there blogging about the same things so why should you?
Beeing a bit more Personal and more energetic should boost up your posts quite a bit.
I wish I could add more but to be honest I visit too irregulary to give more constructive critic ^^;
Blowfish´s last blog post: Cospa Quality?
As every second person I meet you forget the second R in Gargron.
I’m happy to have succeed in my goal of objectiveness, but it’s like I’ve been running first but in the wrong race.
I don’t know but I often sense you hold back sometimes on your writing, similar on what other have said on your post being somewhat less personal. This is probably the reason why I’m sometimes discontented with what I’ve read—it’s as if it’s a bit lacking of your own flavor.
Because of that, it seems as if I’m reading a plain news article. Of course, it could still be improved
I will try improving. I must break my own walls inside my head!
The question that I’d like answered, is how long do i have to been blogging before i can actually get That kind of question answered. :p
but srsly. >.> This is my first time on this blog. In fact, I feel like i hardly go on other blogs, yet i have my own. Bloggers should communicate with each other I say.
It must be a serious time I think. Well, a month at least I’d say.
And you are absolutely right, bloggers must communicate with each other. That’s what we’re doing too, though commenting, pingback-ing, Twitter, Google Reader Shared Items and chats. In my view, this communication and this way of expressing oneself is the very point of blogging.
Indeed i it is.
I intend to comment on people’s blogs more often.
Alas, I’ve only been around for about 3 1/2 months, going on 4. I blog simply because i love it.
I have plenty of time on my hands, so why not express my thoughts to the world and do a little entertaining on the side? XD
I’ll have to look through and give a srs answer to the topic above though, But as for this month, I don’t know about it being like, a SRS time ya know.
Jubbz´s last blog post: Queen’s Blade Season 2 Episodes 6 and 7
Firstly, I don’t read for correctness, but having command over the language is important. Remember, I am required to read CS conference and research papers regularly, many of which come from non-English-speaking countries. Sure I tend to see some oddities in the grammar, but the content is still there, and useful.
Only literary majors, ocd, or serious nlp people are going to get offended by poor use of language, lol. Don’t be afraid to find someone that you can ask which is the more correct way to present a sentence. I’m sure others in the blogosphere would be helpful ^^ (blogs are the largest and most open social community on the internet… there is no comparison to closed networks hehe).
With all that said, I usually “get” what you’re writing about, though I tend to overlook any grammatical mistakes; replying with a comment about how sentence A should be such-n-such way isn’t necessary.
Honestly, the last 10 posts I just grabbed from Reader have been pretty evocative and meaty, which I enjoy. It could just be me, but I really don’t see any enhancement to entries which tend to be “well-written” but tl;dr waxing all sorts of literary mumbo-jumbo… “pretty” writing adds nothing to concepts. Not that pretty writing is bad, but short, poignant, and pretty entries are easier to enjoy and can provide the same level of “awesome” as tl;dr.
(omg, I’ll stop there, TL;DR) Write Better, Write Less… KISS.
Ryan A´s last blog post: Warm and Fuzzy
I actually like your site and subscribed to the RSS feed
However, my only qualm is that I wish you’d put the blog more to the right. I don’t like my eyes being flush to the left side of the page :p but other than that, I like it ;D
FaS´s last blog post: 10k Hits! Thanks Everyone!
Thanks!
Could you please post a screenshot of what the blog looks like to you?
4 Trackbacks
[…] happening, actually, not in their blog but in some other parts of the ’sphere, bloggers asking for feedback on how they can improve, being their own OEG, and all that). Still, I think the OEG needs more Baka-Raptor, […]
[…] the best idea was to simply ask on the blog for constructive criticism. This followed suit over at Anime² so now over to Bokutachi no […]
[…] http://anime2.kokidokom.net/every-blog-can-have-its-little-own-o-e-g/ […]
[…] Every Blog Can Have Its Own Little O.E.G. – We Love Maids […]