There are a lot of long, lengthy posts on the planet these days, and I am guessing 90% of us probably ignore them because there are a lot better things to be doing with our time. If you want to make your posts more accessible to the vast majority of the population, let me lend a hand:
- Use bullet points. These will allow us to view lists more easily
- Use bold for key points. This will allow the reader to quickly digest atleast the key portions, possibly leading them to reading the rest of the idea
- Use heading tags. If your post is a very long and drawn-out, use headings 1-3 to better organize your post
As I am sure people here have noticed, Jono is able to write very well and his posts actually get read. One of the things he does is actually use HTML to help convey a message (although he does much more also). In further, since the planet is a opt-in, if we choose to write here, lets make it entertaining for the viewers.
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#1 by Jeremy on December 31, 2006 - 6:49 am
How true indeed. In fact, when I first saw this post on the Planet, my eyes naturally jumped to the “Use bullet points” point on your list, rather than reading the first paragraph.
#2 by Jonathan Carter on December 31, 2006 - 8:30 am
Heh, I suppose one of the entries you’re referring to are my entry about 2006. I didn’t intend it to be so long in the first place, but I’ll keep your tips in mind when doing future blog entries. I think they are good tips whether an entry gets aggregated to a planet or not, since most blogs get aggregates *somewhere*, and the more readable it is, the more reads it will get.
bullet points++
#3 by Jerome Gotangco on December 31, 2006 - 8:43 am
It won’t be a problem much if you are used to blogging in front of a PC using a web frontend or something like Performancing. But if you’re blogging using other means like I do, say using my mobile phone with a widget like Bluepulse or via an email interface, it might pose rendering problems for sure. But I guess the chance of people aggregated in Planet is like 1% meaning only me..hehe
#4 by Marius Gedminas on December 31, 2006 - 3:09 pm
Very good points! A couple of additional ones, from a dilettante blog reader:
* Write short posts. Short = posts that fit on a single screen, for the reader’s definition of “screen”. Your post is a good example.
* Add pretty pictures (or screenshots, when blogging about software). These are not included in post size.
And, slightly offtopic,
* If your blog has a comment system, make sure there’s a Preview button.
#5 by Matthew East on December 31, 2006 - 4:16 pm
I don’t agree with your last sentence – don’t forget that being “entertaining” is a rather subjective concept. No one writes a blog post which they feel is boring, even though some may enjoy it, and others not.
Being a part of Planet Ubuntu is not about writing for a particular audience, it’s a collection of various personalities which make up the Ubuntu community.
Planet Ubuntu is a window into the world, work and lives of Ubuntu developers and contributors.
I feel blog writers should write what they are interested in personally, that’s what blogging is about. It’s wrong to impose some kind of “be interesting” label for those who aggregate their blog to Planet Ubuntu.
#6 by mindwarp on December 31, 2006 - 4:59 pm
Matthew: Fair enough. I don’t have a good reason to disagree, I just know the planet gets a very mainstream audience.
#7 by Ben on January 1, 2007 - 2:04 am
Thanks,
They should also put in that thing where it says ‘Read the rest of this post’ so that those of us using RSS readers can gather the gist of something and move on if whatever.
Regards in the New Year.
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