Over the last week I have been slowly making changes to the way our community operates so that all dedicated and committed blog engage members can benefit equally from using our website.
We have a few new rules and if you are not familiar with them it’s of most importance you read this article. Not following our rules will result in your account being removed and deleted from our community.
Story Titles
I’m asking our members to start removing their blog or website names from the story titles when submitting to the website. I know this will take some time getting used to so please try and remember. Yes the script pulls this information but with some blogs it pulls only the story title and other blogs it pulls the name and story title. I cannot do anything about this as it’s a wordpress theme issue and not a blog engage issue. All themes are made different.
Submission Rules
When submitting a story to blog engage it’s now a rule that you view a few of the upcoming pages and vote for other bloggers. Please do not blind vote take a few minutes from your day and vote for some articles that interest you.
Power Users
The role of future power users will be to read, qualify and publish articles they believe would be a benefit our visitors using specific determining factors. Power users will be introduced to our community via a blog post.
I’m still accepting applications from our members to become power users here on the website. Many factors will be included to help me determine who would be best for the position and some of the following will be considered but not limited to.
- How long you have been a member
- Your site participation
- Your return application
- Quality of your blog content
- Quality of your blog design
Power users will have the ability to publish any given article. If you think you would like to participate and become a power user within the blog engage community please do let me know using the contact us form. I will send you the application form to fill out and return to me.
Manual Publication of Content
Our Power Users and myself will be manually publishing content to the front page. Yes I will publish content with 10 votes and other content with more. Being published will be based on specific criteria some of what is mentioned bellow.
A quality blog is a must
- Must have unique content
- Blog cannot be solemnly for the purpose of affiliate marketing or advertising
- Article must have more content then ads
- The speed of the blog
- The design of the blog
The Blog Engage Image
It’s of most importance you add the blog engage community image to your footer or sidebar. This is not a request it was mandatory when you first signed up and still is. Any blogs seen without the image will be subject to having their account removed.
For this I say thank you
I have noticed many members have started voting for other blog articles so I must send a big thank you out to all the active members that have truly shown their blog engage dedication and support this community movement. It’s amazing what we can do when we work together.
We have to understand by following the rules and guidelines you are showing a great deal of respect for our community and the members that submit content here. We must work together and help improve one another experience.
Blog Engage is a community made up of friends and as we grow as a website you will also grow as a blogger. We are all bloggers and have the same goals. In the end I want to see us helping each other out in our personal and professional growth. Together we change the attitude of the blogosphere 1 day at a time.
Be sure to add me as a friend, bbrian017
Twitter, bbrian017
Thanks,
Brian
Andreas Pazer (152)
abhibalani (136)
Jafar Dhada (128)
Holly Jahangiri (101)
bbrian017 (62)
Justin Germino (51)
Kris Edison (47)
James Pruitt (46)
Rahul Kuntala (31)
Hajra (26)
Twitter: element321
Brian great write and I like the new rules. This should help the community out a lot. I do try and take off the website name when I remember. I usually try and change the name of the submitted link for SEO reasons as well.
.-= element321´s last blog ..WPtouch iPhone Styled Theme =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi element321 (James) using unique topic titles is a really good idea for SEO and help build more SE traffic. Thanks for being so coll with all the changes.
.-= bbrian017´s last blog ..Get more from your blog marketing efforts =-.
Twitter: FAQPAL
The new rules are definitely welcome, good job.
.-= Geoserv´s last blog ..12 Tips To Increase Subscribers To Your Blog =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Thanks Geo!
Twitter: another_blogger
I love the new rules hope I can follow about the design and loading time
.-= Latief@AnotherBlogger´s last blog ..Free WordPress Themes From WPREX =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Latief design and loading time is not a detrimental aspect. None the less it is something we have started taking into consideration.
Twitter: eenrockstar
Thanks Brian for making clear about it. I didn’t notice about removing blog’s name in story title previously.
.-= Fazreen´s last blog ..How To Upgrade From Thesis 1.6 To Thesis 1.7 =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Yup I ask all members to remove that from the story title. You will see in the step 2 of the submit process it asks you to. No big deal just something to try and remember moving forward. I’ll send friendly reminders if anyone forgets.
Twitter: HelloKit
I have always read and voted for several upcoming articles after submitting my own whenever I’ve had the time, which is probably 95% of the time. But as someone who works full time and usually blogs on her breaks at work, there are occasionally days when I have just enough time to write my post and submit it, and no time left to read others’ posts. Sure, I could quickly vote up three articles without actually reading them, but I know you don’t want anyone doing that. For that reason, I hope that the community participation requirements are going to look at a person’s overall track record, and not penalize that person for the occasional post-and-run when they simply do not have time to do more.
.-= Carly´s last blog ..doing what i really want to do =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Carly you have a very good point and we here at blog engage totally understand and agree you should never be penalized for such a situation. You have no worries if you vote, engage and interact then you are perfectly safe. Thank you for bringing this up as many members may have the same question.
Twitter: brandonacox
Brian, I love BlogEngage and have from the day I was introduced to it. I’ve checked on my own stats and see that I’ve voted for about four or five times as many articles as I’ve submitted, so I’m comfortable there. I’m also not afraid to bury articles and have done so plenty of times, so my vote means something – it isn’t blind.
I just want to say that I think you’re potentially moving in an unwise direction with so many rules. I get it. You want people to value the community and participate to make the site high quality and more valuable for everyone. That said, a community has a tendency to take on a life of its own, and when you add too many “rules” it just becomes more and more of a closed system. Closed systems don’t survive that often on the web anymore.
You’ve worked extremely hard and I’m positive about your leadership – it’s your site. I just think you’ve got to be careful about throwing up too many parameters.
BlogEngage is one of the best blogging communities I’ve been a part of so far, but it’s not the only thing I’m involved in, so there will be times I may not have time to fulfill all of the obligations. I would hate to be thought of as a weak or non-committed community member because of this.
These are just one guy’s thoughts. I still think this is the best place on the web for a blogger to hang out.
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi Brandon I totally understand where you’re coming from but the rules I placed into affect will only help our community grow stronger. members such as yourself have nothing to worry about because you follow these rules naturally without having to be told. We have many hit and runners here and this has to stop. Like I said in my latest article I would rather shut the website down then to see us turn out like 90 percent of the other greedy blogging communities on the web. I don’t expect people to vote every visit but I do expect then to keep the minimum ratio of votes v.s submissions. Thank you for all your commitment Brandon you have been a dedicated member and for this I appreciate that. Trust in me I will make it work.
Twitter: brandonacox
Brian, it sounds good when you put it that way, especially when you point out that you don’t want it to become like so many others. I can see that you’re basically keeping things trim and orderly. Thanks bro!
Twitter: jamesbrobinson
I think your efforts to get the community shaped and in a manner by which you as the owner and front man are happy are excellent. We as users of your community, who basically directly benefit from key participation, should be pulled over hot coals when we don’t give back to those that are supporting us.
On some days I’ll browse and vote, on others I may submit but not have the time to contribute. I hope that in terms of metering this can be seen otherwise I’ll postpone my submissions until such time as I am able to browse, vote and then submit.
.-= Rob´s last blog ..Visual Voicemail: An open letter to Vodafone UK =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi Rob, thanks so much for the support regarding our community changes. If you are an active member and vote for other bloggers then you should never worry about submitting your articles and leaving. This is assuming you have meet the minimum expectation of our community prior to your submission. I’m just trying to ask our members to be more involved.
Twitter: paysonweb
While I am not new to blogging I am new to blog communities like Brian’s. What makes Brian stand out from all the others is his commitment to the community. Along with the other blogger members at Blog Engage I appreciate the value of this environment and the need for rules within it. I am a blogger that likes rules, and a leader that leads by example, a rare situation in other communities that eliminates the guesswork as to what’s expected of you as a member and keeps out the riff-raff.
My involvement with other communities and forums has, as of today, ceased. I am throwing everything Iv’e got into Blog Engage. Not only is Brian a first class guy, just take a few moments sometime to peruse his roster of bloggers that choose BE to engage other bloggers, it’s a who’s who of the best and brightest bloggers in the whole blogosphere! I am HONORED to be a part of it!
After finding myself buried on page 12 of the top Blog Engage members per the formula that the “Blog Nazi” uses to determine his rankings, it would be presumptuous of me to make a request to join what promises to be an elite group of bloggers who will be known forever more as “Power Users” and it will be my goal, that after earning my stripes, I get to someday become one myself.
.-= Dick´s last blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Dick thank you so much for this amazing compliment. bot only for the nice things you say about me but the nice things you say about our members and our community. I have worked long and hard on blog engage for the last two years and I hope as we move forward together we can change the way of the blogosphere because right now it’s greedy, ignorant and this is not something blog engage or it’s members will stand for. Thank you for your support and dedication.
Yeah sure Brian I agree I think your on the best path, only, of late you seemed to have disabled the option of adding a post image via a url ?
.-= pcd2k´s last blog ..A man builds world’s biggest beer coaster house =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi pcd2k I had to remove it. That option was causing major load time issues within the website. Sorry about that.
Twitter: AlisonMSmith
Overall, I think the direction toward quality is sound and needed.
My only concern is that often the advantage seems to go to those who blog about blogging. I have a blog like that myself, for my blog setup business, so I don’t demean those sites, I just think it’s a sexy niche that is already really overblown and at least equal consideration to non-blogging-blogs when we vote and publish.
The last thing I would suggest is complete transparency. When publishing is a subjective exercise, it’s hard to know what to do as a blog owner. When all this is hammered out, it would seem a good idea to have a specific page that outlines all the criteria (both objective and subjective) that goes into publishing.
Continued great work, Brian!
P.S. I’m trying to remember to pull my blog title. I believe this isn’t so much a theme issue as a setting issue. Any theme can be set (albeit sometimes manually) to either add or not add the blog title. But if you’re settings do add the blog title, then BE will pull that entire title meta tag into the name field. Those of us who add it, will have to manually delete it. And I blew it myself a couple of times yesterday, at least. :/
.-= Alison Moore Smith´s last blog ..31DBBB: Day #9 Join a Forum and Start Participating =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Alison you have a good point. This is why I’m going to pick Power Users from all niches within the blogosphere. Well at least to a certain extent that is possible. I want a non bias power user group that will publish articles that aren’t even in their niche. This might be hard to accomplish so I’m picking individuals within different blogging categories.
Hopefully this will help other bloggers that aren’t into blogging about blogging. Thanks for the feedback it means a lot as many other member may feel the exact same. I will try my hardest to not let that happen.
Twitter: HollyJahangiri
Alison, I’m so glad I’m not alone in this. I occasionally do write about blogging and SEO, and generally get soundly flogged by my regular readers for “metablogging.” It’s not… me. I think we need a few more categories here, don’t you?
.-= Holly Jahangiri´s last blog ..Blog Traffic Bad for the Environment? =-.
Twitter: HollyJahangiri
P.S. The irony of my last post, in light of my comment, does not escape me.
But what can I say? They were offering to plant trees – I love trees.
.-= Holly Jahangiri´s last blog ..Blog Traffic Bad for the Environment? =-.
Hi, I was busy in my exams and some projects and now when I have returned to this community, I am amzaed to see How much it has changed and improved. I am very very happy and salute you on your effort and hard work in making such a great community.
I think the blogging community should be greatfull to you, because in the todays world of absurdism, it is very hard to find quality blogging community and to be honest I do not know anyother yet!
I am back from a long vacation and I will make sure that I become a contributor to this community.
Wish you good luck
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi Tom thanks so much for the support and kind word about our community.
Twitter: loup_dargent
The name of the blog in the submission’s title always spoils it anyway… It’s far neater without it. So, I definitely agree with that rule
I also agree with Alison about the fact that the advantage seems to go to those who blog about blogging… That could put off quite a few bloggers who don’t blog about blogging but publish great stuff worthy of being showcased on BlogEngage.
And yes, the Blogosphere is a very greedy beast… but, (and BlogEngage is the living proof of that) there are still some cool bloggers around. Hopefully, more will come here and register helping transform the Blogosphere for the best.
Anyway, great article here… and I’ll try to visit BE a bit more often in future.
My online time is still limited right now but I’m sure I can make some room somewhere for BE and its great community
.-= Loup Dargent´s last blog ..‘The Infidel’ – A British Comedy Of Ethnic Proportions =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi Loup thanks for stopping by and posting your opinion about our community and the new rules. Like I mentioned to Alison ’m going to pick Power Users from all niches within the blogosphere. This way we can ensure publication is fair and non bias.
Twitter: loup_dargent
Thanks for listening
The great thing about having more variety in what is being submitted is that it also attracts more visitors and, hopefully, some of those new visitors might one day become BlogEngage members themselves.
.-= Loup Dargent´s last blog ..‘The Infidel’ – A British Comedy Of Ethnic Proportions =-.
Twitter: paysonweb
I have nine WordPress.org blogs that have nothing to do with how to make money online or how to be a blogger. Those little niche subject blogs that I started 3 years ago are not doing half as well as the few blogs I started about how to be a blogger, or how to make money online as a blogger. I wish I had focused on that subject years ago but I didn’t know anything about it then, with the exception of Darren Rouse and a few others, there werent many doing it. I consider myself lucky to make a living in a small town teaching small business how to use social media and someday will figure out the best way to market my niche blogs. A blog post article submitted to BE about Pets or Health gets about half the votes as a make money online blog but I guess its just a much more interesting subject?
.-= Dick´s last blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
You’re absolutely right Dick anything about making money online or blogs about blogging does really well here on blog engage because it affect all of our members seeing we are all bloggers. If Alison, loup and yourself are really worried about this perhaps you should and try to invite some of your blogging friends that are in your same niche to help you reach the front page.
Twitter: loup_dargent
I actually had some people in mind when I was posting about bloggers who don’t blog about blogging but publish great stuff worthy of being showcased on BlogEngage. So, yep, good idea Brian, I’ll invite them to BE… no problem.
.-= Loup Dargent´s last blog ..‘The Infidel’ – A British Comedy Of Ethnic Proportions =-.
Twitter: paysonweb
That would be a great idea Brian except the bloggers in those niches mostly suck. All they want is to make money and they can’t be associated with the likes of me. Which is ok, I will find a way around it and bring those blogs to BE where my blogger mates can tell me how to improve them. BTW, you said you wanted to know about any BE love being spread around about the group and it’s members: this is from a blog collaboration between me and Ann Smarty http://viralmom.com/how-to-be-a-successful-wordpress-com-blogger/
.-= Dick´s last blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Twitter: archondigital
Having power users with the ability to publish articles worth publishing or moderate other important aspects of the community is a good call. You can only do so much by yourself and by delegating this to a select group of volunteers would give the community a greater chance of growing rapidly without sacrificing our standards.
I would love to see this community grow more.
.-= Archon Digital´s last blog ..Blog Engage: Why Can’t We Simply Agree to Disagree? =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
I agree Archon Digital the power users will help our community move forward while still keeping the front page files with new and quality content.
Twitter: selurus
I’ll try to remember to remove blog name from future articles. I like the power user concept, but it needs to be implemented well.
.-= Selurus´s last blog ..Free Audio Books =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Don’t worry Selurus you will get into the hang of it and it will come natural eventually.
Twitter: zxxxt
Well said Bryan. I agree taking out the blog site name is for the better. I thought of removing but never really do it. I will, from now on.
.-= ZXT´s last blog ..Why people blog? =-.
Twitter: enewsz
Hi Brian, Its me Jasir from eNewsz.
I was also there ma site name with story titles. Sorry for that. From now onwards i will check and remove it seriously. I saw many bloggers dashboards in web. But i think Blog Engage is little different. Keep rockin Brian
Twitter: enewsz
I was also there adding ma site name with story titles.
.-= Jasir Javaz´s last blog ..Digg-Digg added Blog Engage Vote Button =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Jasir Javaz I think we can set this up in our blog to not show the website name but I’m not familiar with the process.
Brian, I completely understand why you’re doing this. Personally I’m not a fan of rules and bureaucracy.
I probably won’t offer too many more submissions here – its not because I don’t think the rules are good, its that I don’t want to have to worry about whether im doing the right thing or not.
I don’t think active and passionate communities are built by imposing limits.
.-= Anthony Feint´s last blog ..Thank God it’s Friday Syndrome =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Anthony Feint the rules are so simple you have nothing to worry about. If you submit a story you should vote for some others. It’s what we expect from our members.
Twitter: techcrates
Its a great step. The sincere members of the community will surely do all the things you stated above and who doesn’t do you can easily identify them as spammers who joined BE for marketing their own blogs.. in a selfish way..
.-= Blogging Tips´s last blog ..Make your WordPress blog secure ! =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Blogging Tips that is my expect opinion and members that care about our community will have no issue working in these conditions. I also understand if member isn’t active they cannot vote. I’m okay with that but if they submit content they have time to vote.
Twitter: smartbloggerz
The site name from the title can be easily removed..This mostly happens if you changed some settings in your seo plugin like All In One SEO plugin. So just have a look over the settings and it will be fine…
And I seriously admit that I treated blogengage like just a normal social bookmarking website most of the times where I just mostly submitted my blog article..But you opened my eyes with your first post you published 3-4 days that our community needs to be together…
After that, I have now started participating in blogengage posts, commenting over them, voting for them and also visiting those posts and commenting over there.
And I will now try to continue with this passion..
.-= Typhoon´s last blog ..Three Simple But Useful FireFox Hacks For Google Analytics =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Typhoon do you know where that setting is or what needs to be done in order to exclude the website name in your topics titles? I haven’t looked yet but was hoping you would know more.
Twitter: moonheart85
Thanks for letting us know the new community rule of your blogangage blog. Well I always take caution before submitting story to your community.
.-= chandan´s last blog ..Make money with an unique PHP script – PHP Dir Submit =-.
Twitter: wchingya
I was inspired by Ileane to actively promote blogengage on Twitter, therefore I try my best to assist as well. Although I can’t be here 24/7 but I’ll try to vote whenever possible, especially upcoming section. At the same time, tweet to remind one another that some articles needed our support to get published. Cooperation can make things happen, it’s great to see there are positive results out of everyone’s effort. I love the idea to be selective, sometimes I missed that myself. Thanks for the reminder.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
.-= Ching Ya´s last blog ..How to Improve Facebook Engagement by Decluttering News Feed =-.
Twitter: zxxxt
I can attest to that Ching Ya. Ever since I started my blog, I always see you helping other bloggers including me.
.-= ZXT´s last blog ..Why people blog? =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
That’s all I’m asking Ching Ya is for our member to votes for each other and help one another get published to the front page.
Twitter: selurus
Hey Brian, I’ve noticed that some articles with more than 10 votes are still appearing under the Upcoming section.
Is this fine or has something gone wrong?
Twitter: bbrian017
That’s right Selurus. These articles either don’t have the blog engage image, crappy content and or to many ads. I have many factors I take into consideration before publishing content form now on.
Twitter: albertalbs
Yes… These rules are wonderful. Like Google Webmaster guidelines, I have to read this as BlogEngage Bloggers guidelines.
Anyway, Immediately I won’t apply for power user. I have to do something with my blog. Then only I will apply for Power User.
.-= Albert´s last blog ..Learn and Play Golf in Aquitaine =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Sounds good Albert I look forward to your future contributions.
This is really a good set of rules. I really appreciate that this community is so awesome and unique!
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi Swapnil I agree this is what makes us unique compared to any other blogging community.
Twitter: Stripy6Artist
Hello. I have a question about story titles. On my blog, all the titles are like (My comic/blog is titled “Stripy Six”) “Stripy Six #231″ and “Stripy Six #56″ and stuff like that. How would I title them here? “Comic #231″ or “#231″ or something like that? I can see the rule was intended to stop things like “Stripy Six #231 | Stripy Six”, but how does it affect me?
Twitter: bbrian017
Hi Stripy-Artist the exact name of your story title on your blog will be fine for blog engage.
Twitter: israelimom
Late chiming in, I hope you’re still keeping track of the comments here, Brian
First, generally speaking, I think your rules are all good. I also totally respect that you can set up any rules you’d like to. One thing that I’d like to make sure is that rules are not applied in retrospect.
Here’s where I’m coming from. I sometimes take breaks from long, even long breaks. Traveling or family stuff, it happens and can last months. This means my levels of participation in the community may vary extensively. I could possibly take very very long breaks.
While I realize from your comments that you intend to fight fly-by-night spammy submissions, I would like to make sure that other accounts won’t get deleted if we don’t meet some “quota” of participation. I put time and effort into participating in BE – I would hate to lose my account and my submissions should I take a break in the future.
.-= Anne Moss´s last blog ..Blogs vs. Static Content Sites – Which Make More Money =-.
Twitter: bbrian017
Yuo have nothing to worry about Anne Moss. If you submit content you should votes but if you take a break for a month or two I would never delete your account. I should write and article about this and clear is up I get this concern a lot. Even if it was three years I wouldn’t delete your account.
Damn, late to the conversation, nothing original to add (: Well, great job Brian for being so active and trying to make this community grow and improve and get members to be active. I’ve definitely met some great bloggers here!
.-= Suzanne´s last blog ..Eureka! =-.