Felicia Lee Dyer ([info]felicialee1) wrote,
@ 2006-01-05 11:05:00
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What Makes a Good Poker Blog (Summary)
Since we're leaving tomorrow for Tunica, I'm going to just touch on each one of these a bit. I may elaborate more when we return.

Once again, this is what I, personally, think makes a good poker blog. It's subjective.

1) Don't post bad beat stories
2) Don't post hand histories
3) Don't whine about losses
4) Don't post pics of kids or pets
5) Give your opinion
6) Are you a poker journal, or not?
7) Try to act serious about your play
8) If you are going to enable comments, actually REPLY when someone leaves one

1) I covered yesterday, to much anger and hysteria among the blogger community, lol.

2) Hand histories are complicated to read through. Use a converter, or better yet, tell a narrative. If you aren't literate enough to walk us through a hand, you probably shouldn't have a public poker journal.

3) Everyone loses. Whether you are running bad or playing bad, no one wants to listen to you whine. Take your variance like a man and buck up. Just tell us you lost, and let that be that. You don't have to whine about how badly you are running (or more likely, playing).

4) This is a personal one. Lots of people like cute little pics of pets and kids. I don't. If you see "me" playing online with a stupid little dog avatar, blame Glenn.

5) Opinion is the whole concept of keeping a public poker journal. It's YOUR journal. It's about YOU. We can get watered down media anywhere. We want to hear about YOU, for good or bad. Don't back down, state your opinion.

6) Do you keep a poker journal? Or are you a politician? Keep politics, kids, pets, religion, marriage and other topics off of your journal if you advertise yourself as a "poker journal." There are obvious exceptions, like if your wins or losses have to do with something personal in your life. Or if something "political" is threatening your livelihood of online professional playing. A personal anecdote can also be used as a segue into your post, and is done very successfully on many poker blogs. But if you find that over 25% of your posts aren't about poker, change the name and description of your blog.

7) Giggly goo-goo about playing the beer hand and cracking aces is cute the FIRST TIME. It ceases to be cute when 50% of your blog describes you getting wasted and showing down 72o in order to tilt the table. Table screen shots, distorted and demeaning pics, losing buy-in after buy-in at small stakes while purposely playing like a monkey aren't cute when posted more than once. Save the comedy for another type of blog, not a serious poker blog.

8) This one is so obvious that I don't have to elaborate. Then again, after yesterday's fiasco, perhaps I do. Reading comprehension seems to be non-existent these days. If you enable comments, and someone leaves you an encouraging one, an informative one, or compliments you on something, it is generally GOOD ETIQUETTE to respond. If you keep ignoring comments, you can watch your sitemeter bomb like a California mudslide.

Felicia :)



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(Anonymous)
2006-01-05 03:04 pm UTC (link)
Well, you're right -- it is subjective, and personal. Is it here as a personal reminder to what you will/should be reading? That's a joke, sis.

Except you should change your post title to "What Makes a Good Poker Blog For Felicia To Read (Summary)". Because I don't *think* you're seriously trying to tell everybody how to run their blog, in spite of all the rules directed toward a non-specific second person.

Scott, TFG

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[info]ken_p
2006-01-06 09:07 am UTC (link)
Subjective relates to reality as one sees it. That is dangerous ground for all of us.

There is a culture which lauds the doofus, obscene, grotesque...well, you are getting the idea. Unfortunatley, you have to be way over the top to outdo some of the forums dedicated to over the top.

With that said--and it wasn't really to the topic--I guess the question is what is the purpose of your blog. Felicia is quite specific about that--Poker Blog. Not Donk playing poker blog. She is not denigrating what you want to make of your blog or demanding conformity. She just ask you not to call it a dedicated poker blog. If this request offend you, I doubt she'll lose sleep.

Now my blog isn't a dedicated poker blog--or that active. It is pretty eclectic and doesn't meet her criteria. Yet, I'm hardly offended and respect her view. Do you wish to respect that? Appears you want to take her to task for expressing a view that disclaims by clearly stating that it is her view. Just what is your problem with that? You really aren't all that clear about that.

The sad part of her request is probably based on visits to many sites. I am guessing when I say she see so much good writing interspersed with all-of-the-above. And, she then wonder way someone with a valid, strong post can intersparse total crap. Of course that is my guess based on my visits more than her thoughts.

Now poker blogdom is about as eclectic as they come. Surely, her goal is not to change the world. It is simply a sharing of her thoughts. The girl loves windmills!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)


[info]felicialee1
2006-01-06 09:31 am UTC (link)
Scott is actually a very good friend of mine. I'm not sure why he didn't sign in to make the comment, but he probably just overlooked it.

I like Scott a LOT. Don't ask me why, but he is "my type" of person. Probably he doesn't feel the same about me, lol ;) But who knows, maybe he likes me as much as I like him. He is the one who actually convinced me to write a real journal. Before that, I was just posting trip and tourney reports on 2+2 and Yahoo. He even paid for Typepad and the domain name.

Anywho, Scott likes to challenge me. And I think his comment was his way of asking me a serious question. Yes, my criteria is personal, and yes, it's mostly for me, the type of blogs I will read. I have been notorious in the past two years for reading poker-only blogs, yet, hypocritically, I was forced to turn my own poker-only blog into a poker & cancer blog.

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(Anonymous)
2006-01-08 10:34 am UTC (link)
I can't remember my LJ id, so I'm forced into anonymity. I should get that OpenID dealio.

It's a challenge only in that I think your criteria are severely, unnecessarily limiting. And it's a mild rebuke that none of us should be telling anyone "how to blog." Which, you at least make clear that you're not doing that. Yet even then, you slip into the second person. "You should", "If you", "You can't", etc. See what I mean?

FWIW, I don't consider your cancer writing to be the least bit hypocritical. It's a serious part of your life (duh), and your documentation of how it affected your pokering (and everything else) is important, at least to me. The post about the effects of chemo on your thought process during play was very good...I recognized some of my own limitations in your description.

Anyway -- hope you killed the mixed this weekend.

Scott, thefatguy.com

(Reply to this) (Parent)


(Anonymous)
2006-01-06 02:37 am UTC (link)
Very disappointing. Item #1 gets several responses, but very little so far for items #2 through #8. Where is the mass hysteria?!? (LOL)

Good post, BTW.

Michael

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[info]drizztdj
2006-01-09 07:20 am UTC (link)
I haven't been getting my recommended daily allowance of "you suck Drizz!".

Oh, here's another picture of Wyatt just for your blog!

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