where do we go where have we been?

As you know BA has been around a while now, we started on 360 as a little joke and I had so many emailing me sending me PM's on 360 "add this" and "do this" so along with my own posts on there a lot of the posts on BA's 360 page were thought up by others some even written by others under the BA handle .... ha ha you thought I wrote everything on there didn't you well I didn't others had the password for the BA 360 page, it wasn't always me

But here though, it is mainly me well seems like it anyway and yes I know you can't be anonymous on here but the anonymous name of BA doesn't mean the same as "hiding" it's more like "Hello my name is ..... and I'm an addict"
We want you to stand up and tell us what you like to blog about, why you blog what puts you in the mood so to speak
Bloggers Anonymous has been around since when ..June 06 a joke a little play on the addiction that we then had for 360 that we still have for blogging where ever we are where ever we come from even those form MsN who **shock** don't blog and seeing as we are going into our 3rd year now I want more member participation Joy was always great for that, we've lost Joy into the great blog in the sky, Dana well she's somewhere on the Rez , Snow Bunny no idea don't think she knows either but Susan(Red7) myself and Mister E are still around we will be as well great bloggers never die .. or is that once 360 famous always 360 famous ?
Anyway we are are still around, thing is right so are you guys and you do know how to post on a group right ...right you do don't you haven't forgotten or anything?
You do know how yes .. you should if you looked at the last album posted here
ok you do so no excuses ok

What is you favourite blogging subject?
Why do you blog?
What do you like out of communicating the most with others via blogging?
Wait one second there before you answer those in a comment.. you where going to weren't you ... I know you lot before you comment think about it you could be posting a new item yourself ...oh yes you could, no thinking about it you CAN post a new thing all by yourself

That's where we will go from here that's the new years resolution for this group more from you and less from me besides my fingers hurt now



Oh and Happy New Year

like this

Readability and size

One of the most important things for anyone reading your page is readability
If they can't read what you've written they won't read it

Now I've seen a couple pages today (yes I've been looking) that where either blue on a dark background or had a flashing gif background I opened that one and went "OH [swear removed]" and closed the page didn't even bother to really look at what was written
The blue text at least I could highlight it but the flashing background oh boy way too much sorry

Of course size (which does matter) comes into play as well, before I post I allways choose "Normal" from the font size drop down list makes the text a little bigger and easier to read

Yes I could because I use Firefox choose [View > Page style > No Style] or hold down the ctrl key and scroll my mouse wheel so text is bigger and on a plain background but hey lazy person here I like to read things straight up

So if you are a theme designer or you are just starting or maybe you don't know anything about CSS and use Custom Colors or a default background, please make sure that things are easily read
If you have to cross your eyes and squint at your page to read it then chances are others will have too as well so make it easy on everyone remember when you are posting what color your page is it's an easy mistake to make because compose is black on white to make the text colour a dark color by habit .. or even yellowish orange or brown..

You may have to highlight some parts of this so you can read it
(this entry cross posted to Blogger from Multiply)

Blog topic

Was watching the TV last night and one of those shows came on where they "do up" the house for a family who is deserving you've seen the kind of show I'm talking about
Anyway this particular one their son had fallen into the pool when he was two years old, he lived but was severely brain damaged this was around three years ago he's now 5 years old, can hardly move, can't talk can't do any of the things a normal 5 year old can, he couldn't even smile when they brought in the Wiggles

Now I'm just thinking here seriously I don't know what I would have done if that had happened to one of my kids it's not a life that I would like them to lead
What this family have done though is set up a foundation for families with seriously disabled children because a lot do end up in homes the family's can't cope, don't think I could have either.
A child's wheelchair and be as much if not more than $5000 for a child with that kind of disability, this foundation helps with things like that and also teaches pool safety.

Be a different story if the child was born like that but wouldn't it be in the back of your mind I wish they had died in the accident because then at least they wouldn't have to live the rest of their life like that
An adult has lived their life a child hasn't but what kind of life is it ?
Someone like Stephen Hawkins who's condition worsens over the years or Christopher Reeves who's accident caused his paralysis but who's brains still function (functioned in Christopher Reeves case) they have money, a lot more than this little boy does maybe he is a genius, maybe he is the next Hawkins

Maybe maybe not who knows but for a child from 2 years old to live their life like that unable to move hardly remembering that they could without the voice synthesisers and the electronic gadgets that a lot of money can buy, this child has to live his whole life without communication what kind of a life is that?

Now I'm not saying everyone who's so disabled should be euthanized can't say that you wouldn't get the Hawkin's of the world if you did that
What I'm saying is it is slightly cruel don't you think not to give him the best kind of gadgets that would help him actually LIVE and communicate with the rest of the world the body might not work but the brain does.

What are your thoughts on this?
Could you cope?
Would you know that your child was desperately trying to communicate with you?
Could you cope financially for the rest of your child's life?
If you have a disabled child, what are your thoughts?

If you want to blog about this on your own page you can you don't have to answer here

Stolen Meme

Just been back there and pinched well ok borrowed one of Ernies old posts Call Me Ishmael - I Mean, Ernie
and borrowed this (don't click the link unless you do want to be going back there)
So my blog topic of the day is: If you were to write a novel, what would you write about?
actually I wanted that link see if it would work here ..it don't dang it grrr
That link brings up blog compose with the title already there ..which I wanted do do here and can't it won't work so we gotta do this another way bit boring I know.
So I want you to write out your thingy, "If I was to write a novel it would be about..." and then grab it's link and post it here in the links section think you can manage that ?

Don't worry about a tag for it I've not thought of one yet ummm maybe "members memes" ?
Two reasons you post in links, one others get to see your page and two yours will be seperate from everyone elses not here with a hundred other links (yeah I'm kidding about hundreds be lucky if we get one)

This entry cross posted to the BA blog on Blogger from Multiply, those of you who read from Blogger and who don't have a Multiply account can post thier link on BA's Blogger

I'm shocked !!

I'm shocked, stunned mortified even
Just found out that the users coming over from MsN to Multiply don't have blogs, they don't even know what one is some of them .. I was like OMG you don't know what a blog is

this is terrible this is the poor, poor things don't have any idea what a blog is

We shall have to teach them what you can do, what a blog is all about and what blogging is

This by the way is a blog, for those of you from MsN .. this is a blog , on the group here we use it for updates and such and for help with blogging it has an editor as you can see I placed a smiley in and can make text bold and italics do all kinds of things in a Blog.

but you aren't sure what blogging is yet though
Well that's what this group is about ... Blogging

and I'm still quite stunned here

this post was cross posted to the BA (Bloggers Anonymous blog on Blogger.com) blog from Multiply

Welcome to those from MsN

Another exodus has arrived, people from MsN this time .. place sure is filling up I can tell you
All of the MsN'ers are members of MsN groups most are still shellshocked over MsN's decision to close groups and of course all are new to Multiply, now remember how it was for us ?
Sat here going OMG how what where why everything is different what do I do help me....
Well it's the same for them
So I would like you all to help them out a little ok and help some of us out too you can join the MsN help group if you would like just to help answer questions maybe you have some yourself about this MsN exodus
Please give a nice welcome to those from MsN and join the MsN help group if you want

oh and I've fixed up the groups theme here as well btw it needed a bit of a re-do

Sad news

Joy (gamblersgal) passed away from a massive stroke on Sept 17th
Joy was our main admin on BA's Y group, a prolific poster and blogger, a wonderful lady who reminded me of my mother

Stay safe Joy you will be missed

Yahoo! Mash is shutting down

From the email I just recieved

Dear Yahoo! Mash member, Thank you for trying out our Mash Beta service. We hope you had fun with it. Please note that we will shut down Mash on September 29, 2008. As a result, your current profile on Mash will no longer be available. We strongly recommend that you return to http://mash.yahoo.com and copy the content that you wish to save onto a separate document. For a list of FAQs, please refer to the Mash Help Page. Thanks for trying out Mash! Matt Warburton Yahoo! Community Manager

question for you

Can you remember anyone making/doing anything to make the blog compose box on 360 bigger?
I vagely remember someone doing it ..sure of it
If it was any one it would have been either Sucka or g00gs

anyone remember that.. anyone got a link or know how?

What is a blomment?

What is a blomment?

A long, long comment that is a full on blog in itself

On 360º of course we were restricted to the amount of characters we could put in a comment (4000)

Here we don’t seem to be restricted at all.

Of course on blog posts it doesn’t really matter how long winded the comment is.

So go ahead blomment all you want because here we aren’t restricted or don’t seem to be anyway.

Has anyone gotten an extremely long winded comment?

Do you yourself do them?

Do you find that the way Multiply works there are more blomments here or less than 360º?

Blogg'in Movies

Lets do something fun

Give us the names of some "Blog Movies"

like this...

Sleepless in Blogattle
The Blog and the Bueatiful
Blogiana Jones and the Temple of Blog

Funny Blog titles

Give us some funny blog titles
As you all know its the title that draws your readers eye and funny will allways get readers, just the title of course the rest doesn't even have to match the title ...which is half the fun

I'll start off with "Don't Click this", "popped off" and "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
allways my favorite .... because you can go "ahhhhh I needed that" in the first few lines


If you've got one (an actual blog to go with the title that is) post the link here too

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism
is the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement.

Online plagiarism
Since it is very easy to steal content from the web by simply copying and pasting, the problem of online plagiarism is growing. This phenomenon, also known as content scraping, is affecting both established sites and blogs

How do you make sure that others know you have used someone else’s work?
Link back to the original work give the author some credit it won’t make your post seem less original it will highlight your work as opposed to theirs

If you borrow an idea that someone else has had say “Mary had this idea”
If you copy part of an article say “from this site”
If you re-post an older post of your own say so “re-post from Nov 2006”

It’s always best to put your own ideas, your own thoughts into a blog, poem or short story that you write but if you do have troubles with that at least say where the item is from, its nicer for your readers its nicer to the person who did it in the first place

Just because everyone else copy pastes from somewhere else doesn’t mean its right most times there is a link back or credit given anyway you just haven’t noticed it

Punishments for plagiarism vary from failing a course you are taking too jail time or loosing respect and jobs (plagiarism FAQ)

Now I’m not talking about images here even though they too fall under the same Copywrite umbrella same as music does I’m talking about the written word (images and music are a topic for another blog)

Seeing as we as bloggers aren’t writing a university paper for a final grade we don’t need to have a full page of citations (facts from here part) on the ends of our blogs but we DO need to either link back or say “written by” etc because otherwise its called plagiarizing and that is in the world of blogging not so much stealing but faking it

If you didn’t write it, you know you didn’t write it everyone else knows you didn’t write it SAY SO

Sources – Wilkapedia and the Plagiarism Learning Center

Blog easy some do's and don't's

Just found this on disk (was looking for something else)
Found a pile of other "blog" type things too ..spose I could post them all up in one day ...no won't do that that wouldn't be good would it

These were written up by Marvyn ( re-posted with permission)....

Some Do’s …


Do what is right, not what is easiest
Do learn about other peoples cultures, history and habits before judging
Do ensure both sides have equal say
Do respect differences of opinions
Do listen when others try to explain
Do understand that you can be wrong too
Do try to understand and be appreciative
Do take responsibility for your action or inaction
Do ask questions, but politely
Do remember others have feelings too

Some Don’ts …

Don’t act in anger, take time out
Don’t interrupt when others try to explain
Don’t patronize, show respect
Don’t look down on others, be level
Don’t be judgmental, be fair
Don’t ridicule differing beliefs and Attitudes
Don’t dominate, try to accommodate
Don’t ignore diversity, try to understand it
Don’t be insulting, be appreciative
Don’t divide people, rather, join them together

What is a Meme?

No not a Mimi a MEME

Wilkapedia describes a Meme as
"A meme (IPA: [mim])[citation needed], as defined by memetic theory, constitutes a theoretical unit of cultural information, the building block of culture or cultural evolution which spreads through diffusion propagating from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution"



You understood that perfectly right.. You didn't? ....ok so I didn't either at first
that's ok
I'll explain it

A Meme goes from blog to blog most times its one of those questionnaire things , one person does it and the next does the same only they do it a little differently.
Basically its an idea started by one person that others copy and it grows from their post onto the next one and so on growing or transforming as it goes

Sometimes a meme gets another few people to do the same Meme this spreads it faster
They can be questionnaires
Lists of answers
Short stories
Photo posts
anything that you "borrow" from someone else is a Meme
If you ask others to do the same thing that's a Meme
If they do it anyway without asking that's a Meme

Memes can be fun and interesting, you can post about yourself or put up your "favourite" thing then go read everyone else's Memes about that same thing
Its like passing on a little part of yourself to the next person

You've possibly done a Meme before and not even known what it was

What have you done that was a Meme?

Welcome

If you missed the welcome which I know some of you did
WELCOME!
To Bloggers Anonymous

Welcome to Bloggers Anonymous

Greetings, namaste, gutentag

Origionally set up as a Yahoo group, Bloggers Anonymous soon had its own 360 page (now defunct) and a web site (also defunct) but is still going as a Yahoo group
BA of course now blogs on Blogger and on Multiply

Some folks aren't quite sure what BA is all about (I shorten it to BA you type the words Blogggers Anonymous as much as I do you would too)
Well basically its for bloggers ...the addicted ones and for those who don't blog all that much who just want people to read what they do have to say
Or if you want a BA T-shirt we still have some of those left I think ..yeah we do look in the albums on Multiply or on the YGroup , the T-shirts are free so are the donuts and bananas

So what can you do here on BA?
You can post a link to your blog post
You can ask a question about blogging
You can post jokes
You can post funny pictures
You can jump right in and take over if you want ..well only if you are sick of me posting all the time

Remember we aren't anonymous on Multiply but on our Blogger page you can comment anonymously if you want, point is that we don't actually want you to be anonymous and lurk the whole point of BA is to get yourself out there and show the world how addicted you realy are and how well can you blog!
Prove how good you are start posting on BA .... or that wet banana army might start marching
do bananas march?

Comments on Commenting

For some, blogging is not as easy as it may sound. Whenever you break it down to issues such as how to get readers to your blog, how to get them to comment, and then what to do with the negative comments, it can be quite a challenge. WebProNews Reporter Abby Prince spoke with Leo Laporte, host of TWiT.tv and blogger of Leoville.com, as well as Matt Mullenweg, Founding Developer of WordPress and blogger of photomatt.net about these very issues.

Eighth Anual web blog awards

Hows this the nominations for
Best Web Application for Weblogs -- Youtube ,Twitter, Blogger, Flickr and Wordpress

Now they are defining a blog as a page with dated entries "Something that helps you publish, make comments, anything that has to do with developing a weblog." which I suppose Youtube, Twitter and Flickr all have but they aren't blogging platforms
Yes they have dated entries and publish but they don't publish blogs

What do you think is Flickr a blogging platform can you BLOG on it ?
Maybe I've missed something because by that definition Yahoo messenger is a blog you can make "comments" on that can't you
No I don't get it at all

What do you think ? Take a look here