PostADay2011 – Topic Suggestions are Suggestions!!

At the beginning of every post Scott Berkun says:

“These are entirely optional – if you don’t like it, no problem. Post something else. Or post about why you don’t like this topic, or the topic you wish we’d mentioned here. It’s all good.”

Yet over and over again I am reading replies from bloggers asking what if they don’t like the topic. This is what’s bugging me today.

I enjoy reading the comments and visiting other sites. It’s like hitting random in Delicious or the Google “I’m Feeling Lucky” button when you are doing a search.

Some think they have to post about the challenge and posting every day – this would be pretty boring after a few days, could you imagine a year of this.

But, then there are those who take the suggestion and turn it around to have it fit their blog. The “Topic: who deserves more credit?” posting gave one person an idea to write about something else which did fit into their website.

Great suggestion. I ended up writing about book dedications … giving credit to those who inspire us.

You can see how she did it it here:       Opening Credits

That is what the topic suggestions are for. You can write about the topic if you are stuck or just want a change of pace. Think about it and see if you can come up with your own idea. This isn’t a question and answer challenge!

Another great way to get ideas is to visit other bloggers who have already written their post for the postaday2011 or postaweek2011 challenge. Depending on where you are in the world, others could be way ahead of you on this one.

You can do this by checking out any one of these links:

http://en.wordpress.com/tag/postaday2011/
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/post-a-day-2011/
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/post-a-week-2011/

That’s another thing bugging me today. So many people forget that WordPress is global, so their topic suggestions get posted for the first people who welcome the new day. Most global sites use UTC time.  Remember, the international date line is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! It’s already tomorrow there.

So what do you say bloggers, if you don’t like the topic:

• write about something else
• write about why you don’t like the topic
• visit another blogger for ideas and leave a comment or two behind if you like their blog

This is what’s bugging me today!

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© 2010-2011 Things in life I find annoying

or not – A Post A Day in 2011!

I’ve decided to blog more. Rather than just think about doing it, I’m doing it!

Starting now, I am pledging to post to this blog once a day for all of 2011.

I know it won’t be easy, but it will be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. I just started this blog but I’m promising myself to make use of The DailyPost and the community of other bloggers to help me along the way. Including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments, likes, and good will along the way.

Rosemary

© 2010-2011 Things in life I find annoying

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Is Yahoo Shutting Down Delicious?

[Update: Yes]

This is what’s bugging me today.

I really just started using it a couple of months ago after signing up with them years ago.

I have 300 hundred bookmarks, 400 tags, and I have made sure to tag properly, create tag bundles, and subscriptions to make things easier to find and tag.

And then this happens. The first item when I signed into Delicious this morning,  is the  headline:

Is Yahoo Shutting Down Del.icio.us? [Update: Yes]

I was stunned. I finally start using it, and organizing everything, and now I have to find something else.

I haven’t seen anything on when they are shutting it down, but I’ve already made a backup of my bookmarks, so I don’t lose them.

Then I departed on a mission to find an alternative to Delicious.

Then, right in my lap, arrives an article with the 10 Alternatives To Delicious.com Bookmarking.

I thought okay, here it is, some writer was quick and put something out already.

Ran down the list, checked out some of them, decide upon StumbleUpon and proceeded to download and install on my FireFox browser.

Everything was going smoothly, registered at the site, set up a basic profile, started finding my way around, checked out the toolbar in my browser. And I said yeh, I could work with this. I was set, had a new bookmarking service, I could stop using Delicious.

Well, that’s what I thought, until I went to use one of my neat little shortcuts that I do with the right-click button on my mouse and it wasn’t there!   arrrgh.

I use it all the time.  This little FireFox add-on, Text2Link, lets me highlight any word or sentence, right-click and search Google and I’ve set it up so it opens in a new tab. I use this all day long and it was gone. Instead StumbleUpon was there. I had StumbleUpon in my toolbar, I don’t need it in the right-click and I haven’t found a way to get rid of it yet.

I checked a few other programs, and managed to change some options and I got my Google search back, but it’s not there all the time – instead StumbleUpon is and other features are missing. This has changed my whole routine. It’s no longer a simple click.

Looks like I’m on the hunt again for another bookmarking service. arrrgh!
StumbleUpon just won’t do it for me! It’s going to be uninstalled quickly. I want my right-click back!

This is what’s bugging me today!

© 2010-2011 Things in life I find annoying

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Article Screening & Rating

I belong to a web site where articles need to be screened and rated by members before they are published. While the article is in the screening room, the author’s name isn’t visible but the country it is directed at is. If it is directed at the global community there is no flag, otherwise a small image of an American, Canadian, Australian, etc flag appears next to the article name.

There are members who publish articles daily, weekly and sometimes occasionally. Some of these members never screen articles, and if they do, it seems that they only screen the articles their friends have posted. I have no proof of this, but just something I’ve observed.

Now, I don’t know if it’s the same people, because the screening is anonymous, but there are members who pick and choose the articles they will read. If the article has an American flag on it, it goes through the screening process fairly quickly. If it’s designated as global or another country, it can sit in the room for hours, sometimes days.

A fellow member published one yesterday as American and it went through the screening process in 7 hours. It actually had 3 screenings, within about 5 minutes of it being posted. Yet others will sometimes sit for hours before even one person will take the time to screen it and rate it.

At this time, there are 8 articles that need screening, 2 global, 3 American, 1 Philippines, 1 New Zealand and 1 Indian, they were all screened by someone at 353am, but at 637am, someone went in and screened just one of those articles and it has an American flag.

Selective screening. I detest people who behave in this manner. What makes them think they are better than others?

One article was posted on Dec. 14 at 10:05PM,, marked from New Zealand and discussing the tragedy at the mine. It finally cleared the screening room on Dec 16th at 3:53AM. Almost 30 hours, yet the American flagged one cleared yesterday in 7 hours, it was posted after this one. The odd thing about this article from New Zealand is that it had only needed one additional screening since Dec 15th at 5:18PM. Lets list it out so you can get a better picture of the times.

• Dec 14th at 10:05PM – posted to screening room
• Dec 15th at 5:18PM  – needed just one more screening
• Dec 16th at 3:53AM  – finally published

Why are these things happening?

I have my own little story about what happened with one of my articles, but then some are holding a grudge, so I’ve decided to report on this one. I hadn’t planned to cover this article, it’s just what I’ve observed.

Because I like seeing the good in people, I did not want to believe that members are doing this to other members.

This is as good a place as any to say this. So here goes!

If you want to play games, go ahead. You don’t want to screen, just run around following people, go ahead.

FYI    Since returning to the web site just over two months ago,  I have read, screened, rated over 1250 articles, including the archives! This doesn’t count the many I couldn’t rate or had no wish to comment on.

When I went into the screening room, I read and rated every article. I also provided feedback when necessary.

What’s that equal? About 500 per month average?

Well, no more. There is no requirement to screen at the site before posting articles, so maybe I will do like the rest of them.

Now I know I am only one person, but like I showed you in the example above, just one person is all that’s needed sometimes to finally get your article published.

This is what’s bugging me today!

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© 2010-2011 Things in life I find annoying