Syp, the fellow who runs Bio Break and who spearheaded this whole Newbie Blogger Initiative, has a great summary post of the proceedings thisaway:
There are a lot of new blogs and plenty of advice floating around thanks to this bit of blogging fertilization. I’ll probably make a post sometime in the next few weeks about some of my new favorites. Thanks, everyone, for stopping by and participating.
If I might offer one final bit of pithy advice, it would be this:
Do good.
Not “do well”, since it’s not about your quality of writing. Do good.
It’s not enough just to follow Wheaton’s Rule and “don’t be a dick“, though that’s a good start. Make your contribution to the world something that will make it (and you) better.
As a corollary, when the temptation to rant or indulge in flame wars with trolls inevitably rears its head, resist. That doesn’t mean you let them win. Your blog is your corner of the internet where you’re a near-sovereign and you can delete comments from people who don’t understand common courtesy. But even if you run a Wild West saloon of a place, where anything and everything goes, don’t let yourself fall into the trap of fighting. You can’t cure stupid, you can’t fix jerks, you can’t correct the internet.
Save your righteous crusader energy for something you can actually fix and do good with. This blogging thing isn’t worth the stress of dealing with idiots. Spend your most precious time with your family and friends. (Remembering that you can make friends online, certainly.)
Oh, and some music for the road, courtesy of the Bastion folk.
Edited to add: Bastion is part of the newest Humble Bundle… complete with soundtrack! Seriously, that’s a sweet deal, and you get some other good games along with it like LIMBO and Psychonauts. I cannot recommend Bastion enough, for both the game and the music.
Ooh, a nice live performance of a pair of the songs… very cool. I’m a fan of acoustic performances. That’s where you really see how much talent (or not) the artists have.
+1, gold star, A++++, would read again.
Words are important. Use them for good.
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The ol’ troll distinction. Sadly I’ve been accused of this at times – I find it ironic, given that a real troll would either A: not care about being called a troll, or B: get their jollies from it. Only someone who isn’t a troll can be hurt by being called a troll – never an actual troll. It’s kind of a homing missile that homes onto anything but it’s target.
Sometimes calling troll is just the easy way out. Granted, a real troll will use any hesitation to do more of their dirty work. But that’s why not doing what’s easy is not that easy.
Watch for the ones who actually ask questions (and trying to work from the answers) rather than just tell you what’s what. And watch yourself, to see you are asking questions (and trying to work from the answers) and not just telling what’s what.
And remember, having your values question is always going to be unpleasant in some way, otherwise it’s not really questioning. If you’re not cool with it, that doesn’t make the other person a troll, it means you are not interested in such questioning. Just say so – you don’t have to man it out!
That’s my advice on the topic!