Bad Blog Trends

” (Having comments appear in popups is a great one that I forgot about).”
Then hey, it can’t be all THAT bad, right? ??

danes75, you missed the worst part about my unfinished design — the calendar’s broken! You’re wrong about the “boring font selection”, though; if it shows up as boring in your browser, its your browser preferences that are boring. And you’re wrong about the comments window — read what I said more closely. (Or try it yourself: click “Comments” links on two unrelated Movable Type Weblogs.)
The one thing you’re right about is the word count. It’s intended to help people see how long it will take to read the item, without actually opening it, just like you can see how long a book will take to read by how thick it is. But it is a bit overdone. Hopefully I’ll find some simple graphical way of showing it instead, then the word count can be relegated to alt text for the graphic.

I think we should start a petition for mpt to set the default font to Georgia in his stylesheet.

Funniest thread ever. Somebody shoud make it sticky.

mpt wants us to choose the font for his blog in our own browsers?! That takes indecision to a whole new level.

yea ….. *which* browser ?

So far I count three votes for Georgia on mpt.net.nz. Anyone else?

I can forgive a whole lot of design mistakes, but improper grammar usage and misspelled words send me right up the wall. And teenybopper bloggers who use that annoying WaY fUNkY cApITaLiZATioN is enough to make me dig my own grave, crawl in and pull the hole in after me.
But the worst to me is the hijacked mouse cursor. The mouse cursor is MINE, it’s not YOURS. You have your own mouse cursor. I simply abhor those silly javascript stars and sprinkles and whatnot shooting forth from my mouse cursor.
Oh, and while I’m at it, hideous color combinations that burn my retinas. And last, but not least, I can say that I’ve read a lot of blogs (the phrase “web log” makes me think of server logs, not web journals) and fortunately, only a few tortured my ears with unwelcome music. That seems to be a Geocities web site trend. Perhaps it’s been laid to rest?
Okay, someone hold my drink while I climb down off my soapbox.

i just reread this, do people “really” want the visited links coloured differently?

Heh, funny thread, I have to contribute ??
Things I dislike :

• “Validates as XHTML” button, like it’s a mandatory button on a weblog, while the page actually doesn’t validate
• Fixed width layout only. Like “I hate your 1600*1200 resolution, come back at 1204 or leave”
• The so-called “nicer links” trick with 300×150 popups layer over each links, I find popup adds less annoying
• Blogrolls. “Look, here are twenty sites I have no relation with and no idea about their quality or content”

What is the problem with drop shadows on graphics? For example, I use drap shadows on graphics such as my logo, not because everyone else is, but because they add some DEPTH. Rather than a completely flat and sterile appearance. Take a look at the edges of this forum colum, what do you see? Without a shadow it would be one indistinguishable nondimensional mess..
That being said: Who gives a damn about design anyway? If I am not looking at a website about art, or photography, or cartoons.. I really couldn’t care what the design looks like.
Do I use yahoo mail because they have a killer layout? No I don’t even look at the layout.

That being said: Who gives a damn about design anyway? If I am not looking at a website about art, or photography, or cartoons.. I really couldn’t care what the design looks like. Do I use yahoo mail because they have a killer layout? No I don’t even look at the layout.

ahh…. but do you rather like to go into a nice and friendly looking house that pleases the eye or into an unkept and messy hole?
design, just as art and life in general, will always produce different viewpoints. but oddly enough, neatness usually pleases the bigger crowds in similar ways.

@clay: You don’t care about design/layout?
Why did you even bother changing the default WP layout? Better yet, you should use a blank stylesheet.
Anyways, here is my list.
1) Colour combinations of text/background that make it impossible to read. Better yet, some people use “happy” backgrounds that will make your head spin.
2) Rows/colums of hundreds of banners, buttons, badges etc. Why?
3) Blinking text/images, argg!
4) Large colured counters w/ too many zeros at the front, who cares?
5) Splash pages. Graphic or flash, they are useless and annoying.
6) <strike>Used for visited links of hover behaviours</strike> Die!
7) Links that change size on hover and in affect make the rest of the content “jump”.
8) Word counts and click counts, these serve no purpose. If some one found your entry interesting they will most likely comment on it.
9) Valid XHTML … did you even bother to click the link yourself?
10) Long lists of links to people, place etc. on the front page. If you are really into agrgating links, perhaps, a separate section could be used for this.
11) “Custom” cursors. Especially the cross-hairs …
12) Welcome to 1990s … animated gifs and “fake” awards.
13) Graphical smileys … this one is a personal preference, but some people tend to overuse them and it really looks funny on some blogs.
14) Photomatt seems to have started a trend when he posted his code for text2image using PHP … note to people: don’t use Arial, Times New Roman etc., make sure it’s antialiased, symbols picked are just lame. That said there are plenty of free fonts out there and the infinity symbol does not need to be replaced with something lame … instead download a font “like” windings that uses images for letters.
Content wise, people can and should post whatever the hell they want (That’s the point right?). If I am not interested I will just move on. However, if the site loads up and its looks ugly/hard to read etc. I will move on almost immideatelly.

Feel better?

Much better, thank you.