BlogLaughs Reviews Gangstas & Hugs
The author of BlogLaughs asked me if it would be OK for his readers to review Gangstas & Hugs. I said yes. After all, how bad can it be, right? After such a scathing review by I Talk 2 Much, I think my skin has thickened up quite a bit. I’ll admit, it’s always hard reading negative comments about the site, but thankfully they weren’t as crude or unfounded as the one from IT2M. I was actually quite pleased with the review though. Apparently I hit it off with exactly half of the reviewers, as 50% said they would come back and 50% said they would rather go suck off a horse.
The verdict: an overall score of 74.0. Not bad really. In my greedy little head all weekend I was only hoping to be somewhere above 70. Guess where a 74 puts me? That’s ahead of sites on the “Top 50 Reviewed Blogs” like Words for My Enjoyment (which confuses the hell out of me), BiffSniff Cartoons, and even Fark. But really, all I was hoping for was to get a higher rating than that hack Perez Hilton. If G&H had scored lower on the totem pole than that flaming sycophant I would have packed it up and deleted the blog in a heart beat.
A couple comments did irk me though. Here’s the first one:
“G&H contains a lot of unoriginal and borrowed humor from the web. Some of it is old content. Some of it is new and amusing. None of it, however, was created by the writer of G&H. It is pointless unless you don’t like surfing YouTube, Fark, various news sources or other blogs…”
Emphasis mine. Granted, I haven’t exactly been pumping out the original content recently, but to say that NONE of the posts I write contain unique and self-created material is just plain incorrect. Just check out the Favorites page if you don’t believe me. Of course I didn’t have the Favorites page active until this Monday (two days after the review process ended), so its my own fault I cluttered the front page with a bunch of random material from the interwebs.
There’s one other comment that really got under my skin though:
“He soured me right from the get-go when the first entry I read had the malapropism of stigmata for stigma.”
O RLY? I add a “ta” to the end of a word in a rush to get the post done, and you can’t overlook that one point? That single act of “malapropiacolonialism” soured you from the get go? Do you seriously read blogs at all? With the amount of bad grammar and misspellings running rampant through the blogosphere, I figured you might give me a free pass on one attempt to sneak an SAT word into the mix. Don’t worry, I’ll never mistake blood dripping from one’s palms for a bad connotation again!
On the flip side, I’m not all sour grapes over the experience either. The review was definitely a wakeup call to get my shit together and start posting more original content. My only excuse for slacking so much is that its easy to get caught up in trying to post every day or two. And what better way to make sure that happens than to post links and quick commentary about everybody else’s funny crap?
There were a couple gems in the comments too. My favorite was definitely this one, it had me laughing out loud:
“His slogan is ‘Where Humor Comes to Die.’ I don’t think it dies here, but it’s left arm is tingling.”
Is that some funny shit or what? Whoever wrote that, I’d like to thank you for putting into two sentences the complete essence of my sorry little excuse for a humor blog. Seriously, I wish I could hire you to write for me.
While they still have reviewers making swipes at the idea of a blog having ads, then it’s got to be hard to give a fuck.
Hey, I think this here blog is pretty darn funny, if that counts for anything.
Bif: You definitely hit on something I don’t like hearing complaints about. Most blogs are done “for free” and even cost the author money. Just because an author would like to recoup some of his costs with a few ads doesn’t mean he’s “selling out”.
anonymouscoworker: Coming from you, that means a darn lot.
I’ve been reading your blog for such a long time…back when your site had the camoflauge. You’ve always had great stuff on here. You have a little bit of everything: from reviews of movies to hillarious videos. Plus, I rely on you to direct me to various websites I never would’ve known about otherwise.
I’m a regular reviewer at Bloglaughs, and of course I would’ve given you the highest marks, so my absence probably brought your overall score down a bit.
Your review is a perfect example of some of the problems we have at BlogLaughs.
Some reviewers just don’t spend enough time at a blog before returning their review. There’s not much I can do about that. They’re all volunteers and most of them don’t include comments. So, I end up using almost every comment I get.
The scores depend on which reviewers respond too. I always say our ratings have a 20-point margin of error. That’s way too high to take seriously, but I’ll still put my rating system against most of the contest/rating sites out there. And really, that’s kind of sad.
There is no perfect way to rate blogs because it’s all so subjective.
If you don’t get too uptight about what we say, and take it with a big grain of salt, you’ll be OK.
I think you’ve done a really good job of recognizing some room for improvement while responding to the people who left themselves wide open for a little return criticism.
Good job, Mojo.
See, it’s all Phoenix’s fault. :)
Phoenix: Thanks for providing justification for my ADD style of posting :). And yes, I’ll blame the ‘50/50′ split on you!
BlogLaughs: You may have touched on some short comings in the BlogLaughs rating system, but its still the best I’ve seen. Here are some reasons why its the best (most important in bold):
1.) Consistent and uniform method for review of all blogs (meaning its done the same way every time).
2.) Quantifiable results that are probably more statistically significant than any other “number-based” system I’ve seen for blogs.
3.) You review my favorite type of blog!
4.) Encourages user participation.
5.) Participation is easy and has definite benefits (link back, possible review of your own blog, etc.).
Remember, just because I bitch about a couple comments doesn’t mean I don’t respect how beneficial a review like this is for my blog.
Keep up the good work!
Oh, and I’m glad you noticed I really can take constructive criticism. :)
Thanks, Mojo. I do have one slight disagreement with your very gracious assessment of BlogLaughs.
Our method is “uniform” but it is not “consistent.” We don’t have the same reviewers for each review. Only a handful of people take part in every review. Everyone else comes and goes.
The likes and dislikes of our reviewers is constantly changing.
Is The Superficial really 20 points better than Fark? I don’t think most bloggers would agree with that, but our small sample-size thought so that week.
If our readers understand we’re not trying to be the end-all, be-all of blog reviews I think we’ll be OK.
Most of the criticism we receive is valid. When I agree with them, they don’t really know how to respond. I kind of like that. :)
It’s true, from what I remember Bloglaughs responded very well to my criticism of their criticism of our site. The only thing that annoyed me was being slagged for having ads on the site and it still annoys me that it keeps cropping up. I don’t think there’s anything that Bloglaughs can neccesarily do about it but it is exceptionally snotty.
Well, some people just don’t like ads.
The good thing is that “intangibles” only accounts for 5% of the final score. So, the difference between someone who gets 8 for intangibles and someone who gets 4 is only two points toward the final score.
BTW, we’d be happy to have you or anyone else as a reviewer. The more the merrier. Just send an e-mail to bloglaughs@hotmail.com and I’ll put you on the list.
Hey, there are quite a few blogs that scored higher than you that are nowhere near as good.
Personally, I’m getting kind of sick of reviews, contests, et. al.
The only real way to settle this is for all these damn bloggers to get into a room, and well duke it out and see who is the last person standing. That person will be the winner.
Ok - who’s with me?
“malapropiacolonialism”
what kind of friggin android uses that word anyway?
“Unoriginal and sophomoric”
DUDE! AWRIGHT! Can’t get much higher praise than that!
Overall 74 is not bad right! It’s like getting an 8 out of 10 in terms of looks, sure some people got nines but most probably got sixes. Woot!
And it’s probably pretty subjective since it’s not the same reviewers each and every time. If they reviewed another site it would probably say “Too much original content and not enough crap anyone actually wants to read.”
bloglaughs: Very accurate assessment. Definitely uniform, but not so much on the consistency. But from a “user generated review” standpoint, uniformity is about all you can hope for, and I think you manage the “consistency issue” as well as anyone can.
Bif: I definitely think its snotty. Expecting websites that offer free content to try and keep going solely by the pocket of the website owner is ridiculous… Not that I don’t think some websites/blogs REALLY overdo the number and placement of ads, but that’s beside the point.
Ignatius Dedd: As for there being blogs that scored higher that aren’t as good, I thank you. But it definitely goes the other way. The other blogs I mentioned that scored lower I believe are definitely better than mine. So I’m just thankful to be “scored” where I was.
And I’m definitely in favor of a WWE WrestleMania-style blog royal rumble!
Dawn: I’ll be honest, if it wasn’t for the context it was used in, I would have had to look it up.
Poobah: Really, I did take that as a compliment. Whoever wrote that probably says that same thing about my favorite movies.
Riss: I definitely think its a good score… To tell you the truth, I was surprised G&H scored that high. I was ecstatic to get listed on the “Top 50 Reviewed Blogs” on the front page. Well, for the time being anyway.
I say to everyone that has even the smallest inkling to go and become a reviewer for bloglaughs. It’s a great way to be subjected, ahem, um…I mean exposed to all kinds of different and entertaining blogs.
Phoenix: I second that!
I really don’t understand the whole original vs unoriginal battle. You rarely (if ever) post a video/picture/link without adding your two cents. It’s your reaction that makes people laugh and keeps them coming back.
JJ: I’m glad you noticed that… I never try to take credit for anything I didn’t create myself, and if I’m going to post it, I might as well give my opinion on the topic.