I know I am not the best writer, but I try to make sure I keep things interesting and use spellcheck. I have stopped following a few infertility blogs because I never received a comment back. Not one. Nothing. I showed support and concern and just said hello. I have two separate blogs. One is personal and filled with things that interest me and the other is my TTC Baby Brown…Again blog. Maybe folks did not see I was a serious TTC’er from B is for Brown. Who the heck knows.

I am babbling. My point is to thank you for this and thank you for every post you have written. I find you very inspirational and you “get” it. I do not know you, but I am thrilled for you and your babies. I appreciate how sensitive you are to the others that are still waiting for their own joy.

I have made many infertile friends and gotten particularly close with some that are now newly pregnant and well, it is all they post about. I try to think about how I will handle it. I feel like I would be a little more sensitive to my other infertile friends, like you. When reading their blogs now, I feel hurt and left out. I am thrilled for them but well, you know the feelings. Again, thank you and apologies for being all over the place. I am now a big fan and follower.

Sincerely,
Summer B.

However, if someone ever espoused a belief that I really didn’t agree with (racist, sexist, homophobic), I would drop their blog immediately — though luckily that hasn’t happened yet.

As for comments, I’m consistently shocked when I check our stats at the end of the day. Some of our biggest days are comments low and vice versa. But the truth is that the majority of people read without comment. In fact I used to be one of those people until I started a blog and realized just how much people appreciate feedback. Since my radio writing career is based in ratings, I’d always been more concerned with numbers than comments, but now I really appreciate both.

For me, one current deal breaker is pregnancy blogs. Since I have not attained baby, I’m selective about which pregnancy blogs I follow. If you title your post with the weeks and days of your pregnancy, I’m gone. I know you are stoked about being pregnant, and I would be too, but right now, these are just like bombshells to me. So are ultrasound pics and belly shots at the top of the post, or post titles of “Belly Shots”. I really appreciate pregnant bloggers who are sensitive to those of us who are not pg and give us forewarning of these photos, putting them at the bottom of their post, or better yet, put a link to a separate page with the photos! Those pregnant gals get gold stars from me!!

Uber-popular bloggers: I don’t comment much on posts that get 40 plus comments because of what someone commented on above, the getting lost in the crowd effect. I’d like to comment on another blog that doesn’t get as many comments, kinda like rooting for the underdog. Plus, if I never get a comment back from uber-popular blogger after leaving lots of comments, I usually stop commenting though I may not stop reading. I know this blogger is busy, but a comment once in awhile wouldn’t kill yaa, would it?

Incorrect grammar/usage annoys me, but is not necessarily a deal breaker. I do sort of twitch when I read certain mistakes over and over. My biggest usage pet peeve is the incorrect use of the words lose and loose. FYI, and example of correct usage for both: If I lose weight, my jeans will be loose.

A little religion is okay. Constant religious talk, not so much.

Music players! ACK!!! Stop the insanity!

Profanity–frankly, I’m a fan of the well placed expletive. I haven’t run across any blogs that I feel overuse them. I believe they are a valid part of language, and the use of them does not have anything to do with lack of intelligence. One of the smartest bloggers I know, Geohde, had a recent post using many expletives. It was a great post. Sometimes the things we go through just demand a well placed F-word.

I tend to be pretty loyal. Once I have added a blog to my reader list, it is pretty much there to stay. I may not be the best commentor, but I follow and cheer for them as they walk through life.

The only thing that made me no longer follow someone was when the person became overtly religious almost over night. Her faith wasn’t what turned me off, but rather her insistance that anyone who didn’t follow her faith was going to hell. So, I packed up my hand basket and left.

I agree with all of those points. But another one that REALLY bothered me and so I stopped following her blog and on twitter, was that she was always complaining about not having money to pursue her dream of a child(IUI or IVF) but then would update her twitter, blog and pictures about all the fast food she would eat (literally, breakfast,lunch and dinner)and the resturaunts they go to, it bothered me so much everytime that if she would stop eating out that maybe they could afford to pursue their dream of a child a lot sooner, instead of just complaining that she is infertile.

So I guess what im saying is that if someone is complaining but not doing anything to help themselves I will most likely unfollow them.

Grammar doesn’t bother me because, well, I’m lazy. I actually write for a living and those docs have to be perfect, my blog? Not so much. That is my personal space. I admit, sometimes I cringe when I read older posts that I know I should fix, but, that would take quite a bit of time I just don’t seem to have.

Religion doesn’t bother me. I have blogged about my brand of Christianity from time to time – as a measure against the anti-science Christian Fundies out there – and their many blasphemies (to mainline Christianity, anyway).

I will be the first to admit that much of my current blogging is not something anyone is going to want to read about. It is depressing. No two ways about it. And a lot of people want to find hope when they are reading blogs.

I forgive a lot of grammatical sins for interesting, humorous, or relevant writing. Not all the blogs I follow are in the same “life stage” as me, but that keeps it interesting. Right now, though, I do tend to gravitate towards pregnancy after IF blogs, since I can relate to those thoughts & ramblings.
As others have said, a major deal-breaker is un-interesting writing (a la follie counts, med dosages, or “my fetus is know the size of a _insert fruit_” updates) without any actual thoughts or remarks ABOUT the situation. Another annoyance is inactivity. If the blog is not updated regularly, I eventually remove it from my list. Its frustrating clicking by to see what’s up and seeing last months post. I ABHOR the music, because its often sappy and could wake the dead during my early morning & late night browsing. I’ve noticed that the blogs with the sappy music tend to not be the blogs that interest me—connection???

I don’t have a blog, so I can’t weight in on the “interactive commenting” issue but I will say that there are some blogs I follow that I don’t comment on simply because I will not comment to just say “Yeah” “boo” “”, etc… If someone’s comments are full of nothing but these type of one-liners, I also stop reading the comments (this is applicable mostly to the non-IF blogs I frequent…the IF blogs tend to be more emotional and thought-provoking & lead to more insightful commenting). Try reading comments on a food blog—150 comments saying “wow, great meal, you rock”.

This has actually made me look through my blog list & think about where I really want to spend my morning coffee-tea/blog time.

On Facebook I defriended all of those who I really wouldn’t have a conversation with in real life, mostly school friends and bloggers who I only ever talk to via blogs.

Twitter is more complicated because while I wish I could follow all 168 people who follow me, I really can’t keep up. Instead I cut the people I follow from 52 to just 30. I’m sure I hurt some people’s feelings but if you look at the people I follow, they are mainly people I ‘talk’ to regularly and/or who post interesting relevant articles, etc about adoption, infertility or living childfree that I would have otherwise missed. I still reply to people who @ me, but following less people means that I get to build better relationships with those who are left.

And the same goes from Google Reader which was where the biggest toughest cull took place. I went from almost 300 blogs to following 73 including my clicker blogs. Again, it means that I have more time to comment and really follow those who are left.

I took people off it for heaps of reasons. Some I’d been following for 4 years and we’re just in completely different places now. Some I frequently comment on and have been for ages but have never had a single response which can be not a big deal but can be pretty disrespectful on occasion. I’ve stopped following people who constantly state how God is responsible for everything in their life, it’s just not how I see things. Also gone are those who are constantly negative, or constantly ridiculously positive, I find both incredibly irritating. And I deleted all the blogs who have moved on, but I was still hanging on to – people I had a relationship with at one point, which really doesn’t exist anymore.

The people I wanted to keep are those who I learn from and who make me think. The blogs I look forward to reading. Those who I have a relationship with or would like to build one now I have the time to comment properly and not just click through my google reader.

Saying that, I totally understand that many people would stop following me for the reasons above, and to me that’s totally fine. I understand that and respect it. I blog for me to have a record of my life, to share my thoughts and feelings and to connect with others. I have been incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to connect and build relationships with many amazing people, it’s the best side effect of blogging I can think of.

For me, the main way to get off my Reader or never on it is to be uninteresting to me.

Also, I update my reader a couple of times a year to reflect changing conditions, which includes both how bloggers I follow have changed and how *I* have changed.

Bad grammar, a tendency towards overwhelming religion of any kind (but especially Christianity, merely because it seems to be ‘out there’ more than other religions – and I really don’t want to be bombarded with bible quotes and mutterings like “the lord giveth, he taken away” – fair enough you believe in it and blog about it, but its the last you’ll see of me), bad punctuation, a tendency towards rambling with no point (sometimes its ok, other times hard to read, I know I’m guilty of this myself), annoying mournful music (especially because I tend to get blogging late at night and it either scares the sh#t out of me, or wakes everyone in the neighbourhood up), and a failure to identify with at least “one” aspect of the blog I’m reading are big deal breakers for me.

Also like wiseguy said, I’m getting kinda sick of being supportive on certain people’s blogs and not getting anything in return – not even a short message saying “are you ok/alive”. Maybe it makes me a selfish person, but I’ve spent my whole adult life with this half arsed one way street type communications with people I’ve wanted to get to know better, friends, family etc. Now I just can’t be bothered, especially because I don’t usually leave one line/word comments (unless the post calls for it) like ((hugs)) etc. I try to be supportive, when you don’t know someone (e.g. from LFCA), that’s hard so I try to draw from my experiences and try and leave a message that makes sense. I try to go back after the event (whatever it is, miscarriage, cancelled EPU etc) and try and see how the person is doing. But more often than not, I never get any sort of response. I’m not in it for the response, but after a while, it gets tiresome.

Another deal breaker, and I know I’m possibly out of line here, is people (with exceptions on the odd occasion) who have 5-6 children, have one miscarriage, and suddenly they start a blog about how hard it is to be infertile and have a miscarriage. I’m sorry. I know miscarriages hurt. I’ve had one too many of them myself. But if you have live children and are trying for #7 and its taken a few months, you’re NOT infertile. I’m gone, never to be back again.

Interesting comment/s about negativity. I think I’m always a pessimist in my blogging, simply because the blogging is the venting I can’t do IRL. So it’s a place where I let the dirt out. I don’t know if I’d care to change the tone to something more positive so that readers don’t go away feeling like their moods have died, because although I try my best to support as many people I can – I started blogging to vent and chronicle, and that really hasn’t changed much. It probably makes me selfish (again) but I don’t want to have a blog if I have to censor how I’m feeling to cater to blog readers.

Speaking of which… swearing, I must admit I’m used to it, I don’t swear what I consider to be on a ‘more than average’ level IRL but my IRL thoughts are often censored.

And lastly… different journeys – I need to be able to identify with at least a small aspect of the person’s blog, whether its previous IF, current IF, miscarriage, whatever. If the entire blog has nothing to offer me, I read and move on.

I don’t comment as much as I would like, but I usually comment when I think a topic is interesting and I have something to say about it. I read a LOT of blogs, and some days, I can’t comment on every last one. But of cource, I have my favorites

I recently inadvertently dropped every single blog from my list of daily reading when DH and I both forgot to save my bookmarks before reinstalling the laptop. I had a list of over two dozen but only hunted down seven of them to reinstate. Partly because I can’t remember the names of them all but partly because it was just time.

Just the other day, in fact, I posted on a very sensitive subject and an anonymous commentor ripped me for it. I stand by my post, but that is just one example of how sensitive people can be about the posts they read. So in that respect, I try to really hard to just listen to a persons point of view and if I don’t agree, I just don’t comment, but it would have to really offend me for me to stop reading. There are a couple that have crossed that line, however.

And the comments follow the same lead. I try to be as supportive as I can without sounding like “oh, I’ve been there and done that.” That is not what I feel like at all. Although I am pregnant, I still take a lot from other women’s experiences…

What keeps me going back? Most the time its humor. No matter where they are in their life, or whether we have much in common, or whatever. Funny people draw me in!

i feel like i tend to comment less now that i’m pregnant. i feel like the type of support that i’m able to offer may not be appreciated by some. i’ve crossed the bridge, so to speak, and i really don’t want to do more harm to people who are struggling with issues. …but i still read. and when i think that i can comment and add to the support, i do. but i’m definitely commenting less than i was.

i’m posting less, too. for many of your “deal breaker” reasons. i don’t want to just write about the pregnancy, but life seems so boring right now. i’m happy if i get a once a week post up. maybe something exciting will happen and i’ll have a ton to write about?

i’m also all about twin blogs right now. if i stumble upon them, i try them out, see how things go. (if you have any you’d recommend, let me know, pls)