[wordup] The Blogger Manifesto

[Adam Shand]

Thought this was advice that applied to more then just blogging so I'm
passing it along. :-)

Adam.

From: http://bloggermanifesto.com/
Via: http://www.benhammersley.com/

The Blogger Manifesto
>From Prandial Post and BenHammersley.com

The following text will henceforth be included as standard within the
new, improved terms and conditions of both Blogger and Blogspot, as part
of the campaign to improve the quality of the internet. Those who break
the agreement (currently confirmed as 99.8% of all bloggers) will be
locked in a small room with only a Speak 'n' Spell for company. Let them
type alone, and into oblivion. We sure as hell don't want to read it.

* I hereby solemnly swear to you, the reader, that I will never use this
  website to make myself look more interesting than I actually am.
* I am not a filter for Metafilter. I am not more spiffy than Drew from
  Fark. I am not deeper than the Memepool. I am not bouncier than Boing
  Boing. Stealing from them shows that I can't find anything new on the
  internet.
* If any of my links are also in the Daypop Top 40, that does not prove
  that I have my 'finger on the pulse'. It means that I am two days
  behind.
* I will not link to anyone cooler than me unless I send them something
  they use, or they link to me first.
* Having a website is not a chat-up line.
* There are reasons why reviewers in the newspapers are paid. Nobody
  cares what I think about Big Brother, sport or the possible revival of
  the A-Team starring Jim Carrey.
* If I put a photograph of myself on my site, it will actually look like
  me. I will not use Photoshop to alter the image to include
  shadow/friends/colour to my pale, monitor-bleached cheeks.
* Every 5.8 seconds, someone posts a quote from Douglas Adams, Star Wars
  or Monty Python. Currently, 34.2% of the internet is made up of the
  word 'Ni'. My website will break the chain.
* If you don't know me or my friends already, then photos of us drunk
  will mean nothing to you.
* Smileys are nothing more than confused punctuation.
* I will never take on online test. I do not resemble any of the
  characters from Buffy. I do not have a Jedi name, a prison bitch name
  or a Klingon name. If I don't already have a real, non-computer
  generated nickname, it is because I have no friends.
* I will never tell you fond stories of my childhood or say that
  television/computer games/the streets at night are not how they used
  to be. Nostalgia is just another way of saying 'I'm unhappy'.
* If something cool/weird/hilarious happens to me, the first people I
  will tell are my friends and my family. If they do not ask at least
  five questions within two minutes, then it is not as interesting as I
  thought and I will never refer to it on the internet.
* If I link to an amusing sex aid, I am telling the world that I am not
  getting any.
* Irony is not humour. Sarcasm is not clever. The word 'blog' is not a
  verb that is used by any normal human being.
* l33t is a language invented solely by and for illiterate 15 year olds
  with broken caps locks.
* If I'm angry about something, I will post my rant in ZapfDingbats 1pt,
  in white on a white background. If anyone genuinely gives a shit then
  they will take the trouble to translate it.
* Fake mastercard adverts involving genitals are not "priceless".
* Nobody cares who all your base belongs to.
* Acronyms are not a way to communicate. The internet has no 160
  character limit and bad spelling is bad spelling no matter what it
  stands for.
* Anything I receive in email is not new and has already gone around the
  world four times.

By this coding, I hereby make my pledge.