The Lemon Fool

Does anyone know an easy was of starting a professional looking and reasonably cheap way of starting a blog?

WickedLester wrote:Does anyone know an easy way of starting a professional looking and reasonably cheap way of starting a blog?

Blogger?

Free, owned by Google. I use it, and it's easy enough to wrangle.

Thanks Ted, that looks to fit the bill perfectly so I'm going to give it a go.

One issue with blogger is that it has a bit of a history of screwing up comments. I don't know if that's all in the past or could still bite.

Another option is Wordpress. I've used it for many years, with generally very good results. Huge level of customisation available. Though if they host it, you have to choose between a free plan that pushes adverts on your readers or a paid plan.

UncleEbenezer wrote:One issue with blogger is that it has a bit of a history of screwing up comments. I don't know if that's all in the past or could still bite.

No experience. For better or worse, I turned comments off entirely for my own blog from inception.

The major hassle I've had with Blogger recently is getting it to work with Google search indexing. In the end I had to resort to opening up a Google "search console" and manually prodding Google's crawling/indexing towards my blog. The showstopper is the crawler's distaste for Blogger's URL redirects for mobile. Odd really, since Google owns both of these items.

Aren't blogs a bit 2005 now? I seem to recall that before social media and smart phones many people had them, Full of updates about what takeaway they were having for dinner that day. My kids were told to have one to record their university and travel experiences in the naughties.

Isn't it all on Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat and Facebook now? And more audio-visual than text?

Lootman wrote:Aren't blogs a bit 2005 now? I seem to recall that before social media and smart phones many people had them, Full of updates about what takeaway they were having for dinner that day. My kids were told to have one to record their university and travel experiences in the naughties.

Isn't it all on Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat and Facebook now? And more audio-visual than text?

Unfortunately the Police confiscated my phone when I first got to Barking Police Station (could there be one more aptly named) and MI5 would have given me bad dreams if I'd got someone to smuggle one in.

UncleEbenezer wrote:One issue with blogger is that it has a bit of a history of screwing up comments. I don't know if that's all in the past or could still bite.

Another option is Wordpress. I've used it for many years, with generally very good results. Huge level of customisation available. Though if they host it, you have to choose between a free plan that pushes adverts on your readers or a paid plan.

Hot off the (word)press - https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-word ... -ai-tools/

Mind, it’s pretty much a given that blogger will be used to feed Gemini.

This blog has always stuck in my mind.

https://scottgronmark.blogspot.com/?m=1

I think I would first ask myself:
- why do I want a blog
- who will read it
- if 'open', who will also contribute, with what, and will each other contribution be moderated by you ('open' blogs are soon filled with unnecessary adverts and porn)

stewamax wrote:I think I would first ask myself:
- why do I want a blog
- who will read it
- if 'open', who will also contribute, with what, and will each other contribution be moderated by you ('open' blogs are soon filled with unnecessary adverts and porn)

What exactly do you mean by an 'open' blog? It sounds like a contradiction in terms.

Regarding spam, wordpress runs akismet to weed out spam from the comments. It's not perfect, but better than anything I've heard of at blogger.com.

UncleEbenezer wrote:What exactly do you mean by an 'open' blog? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. Regarding spam, wordpress runs akismet to weed out spam from the comments. It's not perfect, but better than anything I've heard of at blogger.com.

Public posting, or public commenting on a registered user's post - as opposed to registered user posting only or even a one-person litany.
I agree with your comments about Akismet and use it myself: not perfect but saves a lot of manual weeding.

stewamax wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:What exactly do you mean by an 'open' blog? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. Regarding spam, wordpress runs akismet to weed out spam from the comments. It's not perfect, but better than anything I've heard of at blogger.com.

Public posting, or public commenting on a registered user's post - as opposed to registered user posting only or even a one-person litany.
I agree with your comments about Akismet and use it myself: not perfect but saves a lot of manual weeding.

My blog allows public commenting.

Spam attracts more spam. I avoid that by weeding it assiduously of anything that gets through akismet. Grey-area comments get to stay, but are purged of any links. And wordpress automatically uses the "nofollow" attribute to links in a comment, so spammers know that links there don't accomplish anything: the primary reason for spamming web content is the snake-oil known as SEO, which "nofollow" explicitly counteracts.

Result, no spam problem. In nearly 20 years at wordpress I've had one article that attracted a spam problem, and I dealt with that by disabling comments on that article alone.

TedSwippet wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:One issue with blogger is that it has a bit of a history of screwing up comments. I don't know if that's all in the past or could still bite.

No experience. For better or worse, I turned comments off entirely for my own blog from inception.

The major hassle I've had with Blogger recently is getting it to work with Google search indexing. In the end I had to resort to opening up a Google "search console" and manually prodding Google's crawling/indexing towards my blog. The showstopper is the crawler's distaste for Blogger's URL redirects for mobile. Odd really, since Google owns both of these items.

That sums up pretty well why I avoid Google. The Duckduckgo search engine is far superior. The control that Google has over our mobile phones just makes my skin crawl!

Steve

UncleEbenezer wrote:

stewamax wrote:Public posting, or public commenting on a registered user's post - as opposed to registered user posting only or even a one-person litany.
I agree with your comments about Akismet and use it myself: not perfect but saves a lot of manual weeding.

My blog allows public commenting.

Spam attracts more spam. I avoid that by weeding it assiduously of anything that gets through akismet. Grey-area comments get to stay, but are purged of any links. And wordpress automatically uses the "nofollow" attribute to links in a comment, so spammers know that links there don't accomplish anything: the primary reason for spamming web content is the snake-oil known as SEO, which "nofollow" explicitly counteracts.

Result, no spam problem. In nearly 20 years at wordpress I've had one article that attracted a spam problem, and I dealt with that by disabling comments on that article alone.

Heads-up on wordpress sites being suborned https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/s ... her-sites/

Lootman wrote:Aren't blogs a bit 2005 now? I seem to recall that before social media and smart phones many people had them, Full of updates about what takeaway they were having for dinner that day....Isn't it all on Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat and Facebook now? And more audio-visual than text?

Facebook, yeah right grandad.

Blogs are still around, I certainly see them being used for "serious" purposes, for various writing that doesn't quite fit conventional outlets. They're used quite a bit in social sciences in particular for refining thinking with rough drafts of something that might eventually end up being published more formally, or among people involved in history - professionally or keen amateurs - who need somewhere to publish odd snippets that they find in archives etc that aren't "big" enough to publish formally.

There's also a certain type of long-reads where new authors are tending to start with substack.com or medium.com, which give the option of paying subscriptions.

But to give you an idea of modern blogging :

our own Gilesyb : https://freethinkecon.wordpress.com/
Phillips OBrien, Professor of Strategic Studies at St Andrews : https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/
Boak & Bailey - pub history and beer culture : https://boakandbailey.com/
Dr James Wright, buildings archaeologist : https://triskeleheritage.triskelepublis ... ting-blog/

Not a takeaway among them...

Hallucigenia wrote:Blogs are still around, I certainly see them being used for "serious" purposes, for various writing that doesn't quite fit conventional outlets. They're used quite a bit in social sciences in particular for refining thinking with rough drafts of something that might eventually end up being published more formally, or among people involved in history - professionally or keen amateurs - who need somewhere to publish odd snippets that they find in archives etc that aren't "big" enough to publish formally.

Blogs serve many purposes. Samuel Pepys, for example, would surely have been a blogger, had he lived in our times. Another I encounter regularly is a repository of articles focussed on a particular subject, which may be academic or hobbyist, but might equally be a commercial site - for example, considering flooring options, I find vendors of flooring use blogs to publish a range of articles to inform my choice (and my work, should I choose an option I can DIY).

For what it's worth, I'm still writing my blog although I've taken a bit of a Hiatus recently. There's a fair bit more content on there now. If any of you would be good enough to take a look and let me know what you think I'd love some constructive feedback.

It's over at Blogger.com and it's called I've Got Summink to Say.

WickedLester wrote:For what it's worth, I'm still writing my blog although I've taken a bit of a Hiatus recently. There's a fair bit more content on there now. If any of you would be good enough to take a look and let me know what you think I'd love some constructive feedback.

It's over at Blogger.com and it's called I've Got Summink to Say.

Oh great! But how can I read your comments without having to create an account?

I just get taken to a Google page, that I delete asap.

Steve