Perennial Favorites: How to Starve a Troll

The Daily Post

Image via Flickr user christoph.grothaus

Your blog is your space, and you get to define what behavior is acceptable — and not acceptable. This great advice from our in-house Miss Manners, Elizabeth Urello, is worth a second read.

For as long as there have been blogs, there have been trolls. A troll is a commenter who hangs around your blog for the sheer purpose of annoying and goading you and your other readers.

Trolling is quite different from merely being critical. Obviously, not all of your readers are going to agree with you about everything, but a troll’s comments will rarely have anything to do with the topic at hand. For example, say you review a certain book you like. Someone might comment that she thinks it is an overrated work and doesn’t understand why anyone likes it. That’s not trolling. Even a comment as abrupt as “I’ve always hated…

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What is a Blog?

A “blog” is an idea.  It is adventure.  It can mean excitement or knowledge.  A blog can be thought-provoking, visual or intellectual.

The basic definition of a blog is a personal website or web page on which an individual records opinions, links to other sites, etc. on a regular basis. “Individual blogs tend to focus on an individual topic and maintain an ongoing chronicle of information.” http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger, stateed that in order to have a successful blog one must first experience many failures.  The more you fail at blogging the more you are able to narrow down what is working.  That article can be found here: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/05/07/blogging-success-and-the-law-of-averages/

The following video is simple but engaging.  It puts the elements of a blog into layman’s terms that are easy to comprehend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjwUHXoi8lM

Semiotic Analysis – What’s is an Ad?

What is semiotics?  Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols. A semiotic analysis can be performed to anything which can be seen as signifying something.  Everything has meaning.  Sometimes its right in front of you.

Take this black and white photograph for example. What do you see?

What do you see when you turn on the light?

Starting from the top: I see a narrow alley way between two buildings. Power lines shoot overhead. A bird is sitting on one wire. Windows are open facing each other. There is an air conditioning unit on one building and a tree at the top of one of the other. The only light comes from above.

At the very bottom is a flashlight, with its light shining upwards. Wait, what? This is an ad for a Philps flashlight. This gives the impression of the things you can see when you turn on the light. Only then do you realize that yes, it really is an owl and the scene is at night. That is not any type of bird, but an owl up there. Yes an owl.

Trust me.