Profile Trouble!

Hey everyone, I need some help. I hope this is appropriate for this blog. If not, let me know.

Anyway, I created a Blogger profile a while ago (let's call it profile A), so i could comment on a friend's blog that was set up to allow comments by Blogger members only.

Then, Blogger switched to their new Google system.

After that, I made my Blogger profile for our current blog, Married Exploits.

Then the other day I tried to log into Profile A, but it wouldn't let me and told me to use a Gmail account or set one up. So i put in the Gmail account I use for our blog, and Profile A got merged into my blog account, because I wasn't entirely clear on what was happening.

I realized it last night before i fell asleep, suddenly. That if my "real-life" friend clicked on my Profile A name in her comments, she would now be taken to Odysseus's profile page! People in real life don't know my identity as Odysseus so this is a problem!

The problem is that because of the profile migration, I cannot now delete my comments posted on my friend's blog. That would be the easiest solution, but you have to log in as the original user to delete comments, and that user (Profile A) has been swallowed by the new Blogger.

For now, I took all the information about our blog and everything off of my profile page for now. So if anyone clicks to view my profile, it just shows my picture and email.

Ideally though I would like to put a bunch of information about my sexblogging identity in that profile.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could fix this?

Banner Creation

I need to create some new Banners, and maybe a few icons.

I need a main banner for my Blog
A smaller Banner for lists (e.g. Liclist and Cunning Linquists
I'd also like to create a few icons.

I'm working on a Mac and have tried the Gimp, but it seems overly complicated for what I need.

I'm willing to work with anything that's free or something that's low cost.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Advertising On Blogs

While I would not like to see SBC turn into a blog consisting only of polls, Mr Gently does raise a very valid point about advertising on blogs. The way I see it there are five types of blogs.

1. The blog with no revenue generating aspirations. No ads, no commercial agenda.


2. The free-hosted blog whose author has decided that they can earn a little extra money on the side with a few adverts.


3. The hosted blog whose author uses revenue to pay for hosting.


4. Blogs intended to be a source of real income for the author.


5. Blogs designed to publicise an author’s off-line works.
   

There are variations on this and each blog evolves over time, but I think that about sums it up. With the exception of scraper blogs (see here and here), which fall into category iv), all of the above can be what I would regard as acceptable reading material.

The problem occurs when a blog author overloads the reader with ads, and/or places them intrusively on the page. Because of the relatively low income rate from most ad brokers it must be tempting to plaster your blog with flashing banners and annoy the crap out of your readers with pop-ups/pop-unders. You run the risk of alienating any readers you have already attracted and putting off new ones.

Personally when I find a site with too many ads I usually move on without reading, if the site has pop-up ads I almost invariably never visit again.

An example of this is Clicksor. We have stopped using that advertiser because the income, even at our respectable traffic levels, was very low. Their in-context advertising, which parsed your pages and inserted what it thought were relevant ads on keywords, was both irritating and slowed down the loading of our site. But they do provide an adult-blog-friendly source of income.

Although you can specify what type of adverts you are willing to host you’ll probably elect to accept all ads for maximum earning potential, but beware. Despite being provided by a third party your site will be associated in the minds of your readers with the ad content. Even as an adult blog this might not be what you want, after all you cannot see every page load and be aware of every ad an ad broker serves to your site.

As always it’s a question of balance and personal choice. If you work hard on your blog why shouldn’t you get a little cash in return? But beware of changing the nature of your site for what does amount to very little money.

Template Changes

Don't be surprised if the template changes a little over the next couple of days. I'm shuffling round the furniture in here :)

Adsense

Alex, please delete if this is not appropriate.

Blogger offers Adsense on both Classic and 'New' Blogger

My Quick poll focuses on Adsense.

POLL REMOVED

And in Comments, what do you think of blogs that use Adsense.

I'm also assuming that you'd need hundreds of thousands of clickthroughs to add up to a significant amount of cash.

I've always been curious

Cooperative Blogging

I think it’s worth pointing something out before I launch into this post. This is a general post, not directed at any one blog or blogger. It has been written due to another recurrence of a problem which I have seen on several occasions since I started blogging. This is a post about avoiding problems and trying to ensure that harmony prevails in what can often be a very fraught and emotional environment – the adult blog.

I run an adult blog with Suze, my long-term partner. We agreed when we set up the site that everything that went into it, every image, every word must be approved by both of us. This is not too onerous as we are very like minded, and have similar terms of reference. We tend to write separately and then review each other’s work and suggest, usually minor, changes.

This is an ideal situation for cooperative blogging. A collaboration between two people who can communicate face-to-face. Should disagreements arise we discuss the issue and come to a compromise.

Where a blog has multiple authors, often separated by geography and culture, it is not so easy to resolve problems when they arise. A project may start with the best of intentions but tensions within and outside the blog and its members can lead to contributors feeling they can no longer continue to do so, or even be a part of the project.

As I said at the beginning this is based on my experience of eight cooperative writing projects (both adult and non-adult) that I have been involved in since we started blogging two years ago. The following is what I hope will be useful guidance to anyone wishing to start a blog with multiple contributors.

Define your blog’s purpose

This isn’t as grand as it sounds. Even one line, if succinct will guide your contributors towards a cohesive, well-written and therefore readable blog that can be a source of pride for all involved. But don’t be scared to describe your vision of the project in detail, though more than a few paragraphs might be overkill, stifling creativity.

Nominate administrators

I am involved in one project (non-adult) whose creator rather naively set every contributor up as an admin. About four months in, one of the contributors decided, for reasons unknown, to delete the blog without reference to the other contributors. So, while I would always advise at least two admins on any blog (in case of unforeseen circumstances, illness, vacations etc), chose your deputy admin carefully.

Specify who can contribute

Are you going to allow anyone to contribute who asks to join, just those bloggers known to you, or a small group decided on at the beginning by you?

Who owns the blog and its posts?

Make this plain from the start. Regardless of whether the posts relate to one another, or are stand-alone, it is vital to make it clear if the author retains copyright, or if the blog is the property of all, or nobody. Perhaps choose a licence of the Creative Commons variety. But make it plain.

What happens when someone leaves the blog?

If someone leaves the blog they may request the removal of posts. For whatever reason they leave, make it plain at the outset if they can take their posts with them. This is obviously tied into the question of author ownership of content. Personally I feel that if an author feels that their association with a project is no longer appropriate then an admin should respect their wishes and remove the posts when requested, in most instances. This can be detrimental to other contributors, especially if the posts relate or cross-link. Stating your intentions in such circumstances at the outset will save heartache later.

Get contributors to agree to your “rules”

Finally, get every contributor to agree to these terms by email. Send them a statement of intent based on the above and any other thoughts you have on the project. Get them to reply, stating explicitly that they agree to those tenets. An email may not be as binding as a signed agreement, but it will help should problems arise.

Don’t let any of the above put you off collaborative blogging, just take these points into consideration when embarking on such a venture.


And if anyone else has general suggestions, not related to specific blogs, please add them in the comments.

Hosting

Blogger is currently disappointing me a lot, new blogger seems to be a huge improvement in every way, apart from reliability.

I can't tell you the number of times that I've tried to look at a blog (not even my own) do some admin, or post and blogger has not responded correctly.

With this in mind, I'm looking around for somewhere else to host GentlyGently.

Some of the options I've looked into are:

Wordpress Hosted
Buy some webspace and install Wordpress
Buy some webspace with blogging built in.

If anyone doesn't mind sharing, can I ask the following questions?

Where do you host your Blog?

How do you find it?

Did you previously use another service? of so, what was it and why did you leave?

Thanks in Advance for any responses.