Four Moderately Annoying Things WordPress Doesn’t Tell You

You’ve been pouring out what passes for your soul into your blog and are wondering why, despite your, uh, creative efforts, your material has somehow not fired the public imagination and made you famous, rich, and an object of near-religious veneration. Or perhaps you have yet to experience the crushing disappointment of a masterpiece ignored, but wish to prepare yourself for the inevitability.

We’re good for the latter bit. In no particular order, here are some of the frustrating features of the WordPress blogging platform:

Useless Referrer Stats

If you’re really into SEO and the search engine referrals help you, you’re probably not reading this right now. And you probably should get a life. For the rest of humanity, even if the stats worked properly they would be of limited use, if any. Do I really need to know that someone reached my blog by searching for some random phrase that happens to occur on a post I wrote back in 2011?

Compounding the annoyance is the near certainty that no actual humans are performing 99% of these searches. And that if I perform the same search, my blog doesn’t even show up in the results. This one is not just annoying, it’s mystifying, because there seems to be no earthly reason for a bot to manufacture search terms in order to leave a nonexistent trail.

WordPress Doesn’t Count Views Through Their Site In Your Stats

Let’s say your content is good enough that another WordPress blogger – we’ll call her Stacy – decides to subscribe to your blog. Stacy will be informed every time you make a new post, and if the news moves her to do so, will click through to it. Great! But you have no idea that’s happened unless Stacy comments or Likes your post (more on that below). WordPress doesn’t care to let you know that the people who care about your content the most, the ones who have actually registered interest in what you have to say, have visited.

This blog has almost 350 subscribers. That’s almost as many people whose gaze you avoid on a typical walk from one New York City avenue to the next. Or the number of times a professional baseball team performs manual crotch adjustment in a typical nine-inning game. And while we harbor no illusions that anywhere near every single one of those lovely subscribers – and they are a lovely bunch, if a bit reticent – sees all the posts we make, WordPress does not alert yours truly to the fact that these folks – have we mentioned they’re lovely? – have done so. Makes audience management a bit pointless.

Ah, but if your content is good enough they should be expressing that in visible ways, right? Not exactly. Which brings us to:

WordPress “Likes” Are About As Useful As A Rotting Llama Carcass

If all you want is to feel good that someone has found your content worthy, the WordPress Like can provide those warm fuzzies. So maybe a taun-taun carcass. If you’re like most people, however, warm fuzzies don’t cut it. You want attention. Credit. You want it known that others have liked it. There’s got to be a way of making a Like visible to the subscribers of those other subscribers. You know, the way a Like on Facebook becomes visible to the friends of the one who did the liking.

There’s No Alert When A Post Has Been Shared On Social Media

You can keep track of which of your posts have been shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any of the other online substitutes for an actual existence, but you have to track down on your own whether that’s happened, and it’s not very illuminating. We, for one, would love to receive an alert of some sort when a share happens, since we are, just as you, an attention whore. Just as WordPress can alert you instantaneously that MarmiteGlutton33 has liked your post about your guinea pig’s ingrown toenail, it should be able to alert you when someone has gone one better and actually shared that content with an even larger circle of readers.

It might also be nice to know who did the sharing, if their privacy settings allow that information to be conveyed. We’re not holding our breath on that one. Especially if it’s MarmiteGlutton33. Good grief.

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That’s what we find annoying about this platform. At least they got rid of the yodeling with every page load.

Blogger Mines Life for Material, Bores Hell Out of Readers

Chicago, IL (AP) – When a coworker sardonically suggested to Gregg Myers that he start a blog about his life, the 35-year-old accountant completely missed the fact that his interlocutor was trying only to shut him up. Now, Myers devotedly posts to his blog at least three times a week, regaling his nonexistent readership with the petty dramas of his humdrum life.

“I used to have to wait to talk to people to share with them my humorous little observations about life,” said Myers, whose last romantic relationship ended twelve years ago. “But online I can potentially reach a lot more people. You can only e-mail so many friends with office anecdotes and housekeeping annoyances. With my blog, if anyone wants to go back through the archive and follow the evolution of my writing, it’s so much easier,” said the career loser, who is either completely ignorant or in denial about the utter lack of visitors to his online ramblings.

Myers does occasionally stumble upon the visitor statistics on the administrator section of the blog, and mistakes the visits of bots, spammers and unlucky humans for genuine traffic. “People find my blog in the most interesting ways,” he mused as he programmed his DVR to record the Dora the Explorer episodes he would miss while at work. “Last week I saw that someone had found my blog by googling the phrase ‘mushroom onion squirrel’ – so I got repeat visits to my post about the differences between two major brands of instant soup mix, which also had some funny reminiscing about growing up in suburbia,” said the sad sack, pathetically unaware that at least 99% of search engine visits logged by blogging platforms are generated retroactively by link spammers and their ilk.

Lou Zerr, trying to force himself to look at Myers’s blog.

Myers is hardly alone, says Lou Zerr, who studies the habits of bloggers who lack what cultural anthropologists call a “life.” “You can find people like him almost everywhere,” says Zerr, who recently wrote a book on the subject, due out in May, called Deservedly Invisible. “The internet has allowed these people to come out of their shells just a a bit more, to allow them the illusion that other humans might care what they have to say. At the same time, the internet has also allowed other humans, many of whom have a life, to focus on other, more worthwhile pursuits, such as making fun of sad sacks such as Myers.”

Perhaps the peak achievement of Myers’s writing involved a day in which he found himself home sick from work, but still feeling reasonably good. He banged out six blog posts that day, beating his previous record of four. “It was a good day, in terms of creativity,” recalled the total dork. “Two of the posts were imagined dialogues between my toilet and the stuff that passes through it – and they were funny. You should see them. Another was a photo montage of funny-looking baby photos with captions that had Battlestar Galactica references. Great stuff,” continued Myers, but the remainder of his tale sailed into oblivion as the reporter originally assigned to the story self-immolated rather than listen to the rest.

Please Like Mightier than the Pen on Facebook, and we promise not to tell anyone that you actually found those Battlestar Galactica references kinda funny. Loser.

4 Out of 5 Stalkers Prefer Pine-Scented Mace

Oddly, the respondents did not choose anything in the broccoli-cabbage family.

New York, NY (AP) – A nationwide poll has found that stalkers like a faceful of mace with the aroma of pine twice as much as they do lemon- or cinnamon-scented spray, according to Criminal Research Associated Partners, a firm that studies the consumer protection market.

The CRAP study asked 2500 stalkers to list their favorite mace scents in order of preference, and pine came out the clear winner, though some areas of the country clearly favored citrus, such as Florida. Overall, about eighty percent of the respondents chose pine as their favorite, with lemon, orange, cinnamon and vanilla rounding out the rankings. The poll had a margin of error that effectively conceals the guy hiding in the bushes.

CRAP CEO Mick Turitian says he was surprised by the results, given that stalkers tend to be a single-minded group, and that he was pleased to discover that they were, on average, sophisticated enough to also consider the aesthetic questions involved in being sprayed by the caustic material. “Last year we conducted a survey about what color dye attempted rapists want to be sprayed with, and there was no clear favorite,” he said. “It’s encouraging to see the American stalker maturing, and realizing there’s more than just incapacitation and uncontrollable tearing to be had from being sprayed with CN Tear Gas.” Turitian referred to the purple dye that is included in some varieties of Chemical Mace, the product’s trade name.

George Tannenbaum, director of Clandestine Romeos Ever Eyeing People (CREEP), a fraternal organization for stalkers, said that tastes in mace have been changing for some time, but the data pool has not been as rich as it is now. “Ten years ago, most of our members ranked a direct spray in the face as about as unpleasant as being kicked repeatedly in the groin, but now mace has outpaced other defenses by a large margin,” he explained. “With the greater variety of scents available today, that’s not much of a surprise – at least, not as surprising as having the object of your devotion mistake your affections for ill intent and giving you a sudden, totally unjustified shot of harmful chemicals in the face.”

Grace Underfire, a carrier of Chemical Mace since 1996, when she was a college student, has used her supply exactly twice, and on both occasions had to opt for an unscented variety. She remains unconvinced of the retail potential of pleasant-smelling mace. “Um…what the hell are you talking about?” she said.

The manufacturer, Mace Security International, declined to say whether the company intends to expand its modest selection of chemical defense sprays to better match the evolving preferences of stalkers. “We have no comment at this time,” said a spokesman under condition of anonymity who kept looking over his or her shoulder, then hurried back into his or her office in an undisclosed location.

Please Like Mightier than the Pen on Facebook. Visit repeatedly if you wish. We are unaware of the online equivalent of Chemical Mace, unless you count malware. Which we find best with a hint of honey flavor.

The Clueless Loser Blogging FAQ

1. How long does it take to become a Clueless Loser Blogger?

Contrary to what many people believe, Clueless Loser Blogging is not strictly a function of time. A blogger can spend hours at work on a post and still not achieve CLB status. To qualify as CLB behavior, the time spent must include at least:

- 10% staring at one’s work and wondering whether the results so far justify the effort
- 55% engaging in unrelated activities in the vain hope that inspiration lies elsewhere, such as a game of online Spades.
- 30% fuming at the world for not acknowledging your manifest greatness RIGHT NOW.

Some people can attain these numbers right away. Others spend weeks or months unlearning the work ethic they were trained to adopt earlier in life, and some never get there. We call such people “normal.”

2. Can one forfeit CLB status?

Theoretically, CLB can be revoked if one ceases to blog entirely, but that’s a mere techincality: all it means is that the loserness has been transferred to a different medium, much in the way Yasser Arafat continued to be a Nobel Peace Laureate even after fomenting an unsuccessful armed uprising. [ed: the analogy needs work; not politically offensive enough]

3. What are the advantages of Clueless Loser Blogging?

There is no risk of having to deal with a higher tax bracket or too many friends.

4. Who are some famous examples of Clueless Loser Bloggers?

The question demonstrates cluelessness, which means the inquirer has hope of achieving CLB. By nature, CLB people do not achieve fame.

5. Should I include photos of my cat?

Yes.

6. How important is it to ask the viewers of my blog to click “Like” or share the content on other social media?

It’s a common misconception that the mere presence of a Facebook “Share” or “Like” button is enough to put a blogger on the road to CLB. There are two important additional factors: the frequency the button is clicked and the pathetic begging the blogger does so that viewers do click. In addition, the relationship between those doing the clicking and the blogger plays a role.

Shares that come from non-relatives or viewers unaware of your personality, if they occur more than once or twice a week, can remove you from CLB status. But you can cement your Loserness with sympathy shares. A sympathy share occurs when a viewer knows how crushed you would be if your post went completely ignored, but doesn’t genuinely believe your content deserves the attention. Any clicks that occur as a result of: multiple share buttons; more than a token or understated request for a Like; or sending around a link to your contacts and asking them explicitly to Like or Follow, qualifies as a sympathy share. One sympathy share can offset up to six sincere shares.

7. How long can I go without blogging?

It’s not the frequency or regularity of the blogging that determines Clueless Loser status, but the obsession with the frequency. The Clueless Loser Blogger, despite all the evidence to the contrary, believes that his or her success depends on churning out something every day, or every two days or whatever, regardless of demand. In fact nothing the blogger does will ever amount to anything, but the Clueless Loser Blogger lacks the internal fortitude to accept that, and insists on maintaining delusions of adequacy.

8. How do I find my unique voice?

Check behind the sofa. Otherwise, the dog ate it.

9. Should I buy my own domain name?

No, that requires actual investment that might make you work hard enough for things to work out well. If you want to become a Clueless Loser Blogger you must live as if the quality of your work will bring you attention and financial success all on its own merits, without your having to lift a finger away from the keyboard.

10. What should I write about?

It doesn’t matter, as long as you do it in mediocre fashion. “Mediocre Fashion” would be a perfect Clueless Loser Blog name.

Please Like Mightier than the Pen on Facebook (this request included to maintain CLB status).

Fern Despondent after Being Defronded on Facebook

Autumn, a fern in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, has withdrawn from social activity after a gymnosperm she admired defronded her publicly on Facebook.

The perpetrator accused Autumn of stalking and repeatedly leaving her hanging. The gymnosperm, named Twiggy, said she never got an anther to comments or questions, and when Autumn did offer any responses, she quickly back-petaled. Twiggy posted on Autumn’s cell wall for everyone to see that she would no longer subject herself to such treetment.

The relationship began several months ago when both Twiggy and Autumn happened to get trunk together one night, and they each discovered the other was an aphid fan of Botany Spears. But Twiggy, who always aimed to more fully evolved, soon grew past whatever affinity they shared, and made several vein attempts to introduce Autumn to pursuits that were less, in her words, “bush league.”

But Autumn viewed any such changes as growth violations of etiquette, and made a series of more and more obvious digs at Twiggy. In late September she showered the gymnosperm with accusations that she had shared pollen with Chloro Phill. Twiggy initially gave those insults little more than a shrub, not wanting to go the root of outright conflict, but Autumn’s bark became progressively more biting.

After another bitter exchange sapped Twiggy’s will to maintain the relationship, she decided to nip further conflict in the bud. “I have tried to get you to be a good spore about things, but you have done nothing but soil my reputation. I must stem the flow of more insults. I’m sorry we grew apart. It wasn’t plant that way, but you seem incapable of doing anything but adding ovule to the fire,” Twiggy’s first comment read. Autumn reacted with shades of Greta Garbo, first claiming she wanted Twiggy to leave her alone, then publicly unearthing Twiggy’s thorny relationship with the comedian Billy Pistil, another mutual frond, and continuously needling her about it.

That was the last straw for Twiggy. She pruned her list of contacts to avoid any further association with Autumn, and the latter has barely said a word, only speaking up to voice regret at her “foliage attempt” to get along with Twiggy. “It just canopy.”

Please Like Mightier than the Pen on Facebook, and we promise to minimize further puns that wood ring hollow. Knot!

The Blogging Frustration Proficiency Quiz

Please Like Mightier than the Pen on Facebook. The valid reasons for not doing so are:
(a) You have already done so.
(b) You work for Google, and are required by company policy to believe that Google+ is so vastly superior to Facebook that even having a Facebook account for non-work purposes would be ridiculous. Of course that just means you have to share this stuff on Google+, which we don’t exactly see you doing.
(c) You have fewer Facebook friends than Bill Buckner, so what’s the point?
(d) You don’t like anything. Not even puppies, chocolate or music.

Like My Page and Win a Free Invisible Ice Cream Sundae (Zero Calories!)

 

Like Mightier than the Pen on Facebook, thus demonstrating your refined character, taste and social status. Oh, and you’ll smell better, too. Trust us; it will do you good. Just sayin’.

Tom Brady’s Twitter Feed

MHK on our Jerseys. No disrespect for the Kraft family, but shouldn’t mine say MVP?

Winning the coin-toss and choosing to kick off. It’s more fun to crush opponents when you pretend to give them a chance first.

Uh-oh. Tummy rumbling. Shoulda had another bowl of Wheaties.

Intentional grounding, my foot! Or Gronkowski’s foot. Better his than mine, right?

Did I leave the iron on? Damn, can’t even ask Gisele to check; she’s here too. What the hell is that thing for, anyway?

Down 9-0. Child’s play. Now all we have to do is win.

I always thought coach Belichick could be a presidential candidate if he smiled more.

See? Shred the middle defense – it’s that simple. They don’t stand a chance! I’m awesome!

Bill for President – I can really see it. If he wins he can make it legal for us to cheat again.

Halftime. But you knew that. Charlie Sheen knows nothing about winning.

Madonna at halftime? Really? I didn’t know she was still alive.

Pep talk. We’re trailing! And we have them right where we want them! We’ll surprise them by throwing the game! They’ll NEVER expect that!

Got some Wheaties. All is right with the world.

Some kid wants my autograph. His folks mortgaged their home for the game tickets; you’d think there’d be enough left over to buy one online.

Back to the game. You know, locker-room wedgies never get old. And you thought Welker couldn’t look sillier.

That’s right, Eli. Archie’s not your daddy. You know who is. Boo-yah!

Boo-yah? WTF? Can’t we come up with something snappier? I’ll ask Giselle.

You can’t touch me, Tuck! You couldn’t sack the dust off a- OOOF!

What’s this green stuff in my face? Is that what the turf looks like? Jeez, can’t the Colts afford to hire a groundskeeper?

Mental note: next time, make sure to put on the right size athletic supporter. “Tight End” has a new meaning.

OK, so the defense surrendered two unanswered field goals. We’ll still squash ‘em, just like we squashed ‘em in ’08! Oh, wait…

I missed Welker. I NEVER miss. That’s gotta be his fault. I’m too awesome for it to be my fault.

Manning, Manningham. Who can tell the difference? Apparently, the defense can’t.

The Giants screwed up and scored a touchdown when they didn’t mean to, and that’s good for us. I’ll explain later.

Which reminds me. Remember the part about throwing the game? We MEANT to let them score. I %$#@ you not.

57 seconds and 2 time outs. No problem.

4th and 10. OK, problem.

Because I’m awesome!

OK, we might have a problem. But it’s not my fault, because I’m awesome.

Time for one more play. We can do it, because I’m awesome.

It’s up! A Hail Mary! Get it, boys, get it…..!

I don’t care. I’m still awesome. I get to go home with a supermodel, no matter how much we sucked today. Remember that, losers.

OK, Now the REAL Real Reasons Your Blog Gets No Traffic

You thought we’d covered this ground before. Just yesterday, in fact. Well, perhaps many of you do not take kindly to direct criticism. Just for you, I have developed an alternative set of reasons, one that takes the onus off you, the poor, beleaguered blogger, and places the blame, and therefore the responsibility for fixing things, squarely on the shoulders of others.

But of course, in this go-getter world, when every idiot, especially you, needs to put something “proactive” on a cv, we must also provide direction as to what YOU can do to remedy the situation. Fear not, for the directions provided herein will not, as you might otherwise think, require you to actually get off your duff and act, unless you’re the sort of person who enjoys criminal insanity. More on that as we progress.

1. A Sinister Cabal Has Conspired to Deprive You of Visitors by Attracting Them to More Compelling, Interesting and Useful Sites. This cabal is so sinister, in fact, that the vast majority of its members remain completely unaware of its existence. As far as they know, they are merely producing quality content without regard for the effect on your site’s traffic. The worst offenders are, perversely, some of the most respected names in the online world. But try alerting, say, The New York Times to its misdeeds, and they simply ignore you.
What You Can Do: Hunt down and kill all competing content providers, one by one.

2. Your Audience Prefers Content Other than what You Have to Offer. You know they’d find your content edifying, informative or otherwise useful, whereas they seem to think they’ll find what they seek basically anywhere else on the web. Whether through sheer bad luck or actual malice, these people, staying away from your site in droves, callously allow your content to languish, causing you no end of frustration and self-esteem-enhancement course enrollment.
What You Can Do: Hunt down and kill all the people not visiting your site, one by one.

3. Your Free Blogging Platform Has Inadequate Processes for Identifying and Prominently Displaying Top-Quality Content Such as Yours. WordPress, for example, might have its mysterious ways of finding and evaluating which new posts to place front and center, but clearly those methods remain woefully inadequate, because not once have the Powers that Read deigned to afford your manifestly worthy output the showcasing it deserves.
What You Can Do: Hunt down and kill the blogging platform content evaluation people one by one.

4. There Just Aren’t Enough Hours in the Day for You to Create High-Quality Content AND Engage in Other Essential Activities Such as Television. You have too many things to do that simply must get done: catching up on seasons six through twelve of The Simpsons; following celebrity gossip; gaming, whether online or otherwise; agonizing over the fortunes of your favorite/most despised sports franchise (in the case of the Boston Red Sox, one and the same); and complaining to family and remaining friends about the lack of appreciation/success in your content creation, among many other critical activities. You need more than 24 hours in a day if you’re also going to create good content and find ways of promoting it. How else will you gather material for your trenchant social commentary? The world surely awaits your pontifications concerning the superiority of Lindsay Lohan’s sartorial decisions over those of Beyoncé, or vice versa.
What You Can Do: Hunt down and kill those who continue to promote the 24-hour day.

5. Aliens Have Focused Inspiration-Sucking Beams on Your Head, Blocking Your Creative Faculties. These aliens are devious entities, often taking the form of snack cravings, excretory needs and environmental hazards just as creative thought is about to strike. They intend to divert you from your noble goal of enlightening the world, of course. Because of your skill and talent in producing reams of content without working very hard at it, you have never been required to cultivate the discipline and willpower necessary to overcome these obstacles.
What You Can Do: Destroy the planet so that the aliens stop bothering you.

The 5 REAL Reasons Your Site Gets Such Pathetic Visitor Traffic

I just saw another of the endless, mindless posts supposedly detailing Why No One Visits Your Web Site. You know the kind I mean: an ostensibly exhaustive list of all the technical, professional and personal  factors that contribute to your continued failure to generate a real audience for your online content, a list that primarily showcases the manifest knowledge and expertise of the writer. Don’t you want to be like them, the post all but shouts?

These posts are perennial favorites on buttoned-collar sites such as LinkedIn, and to some degree on other social media. But of course these “experts” fail to account for the main factors, always missing the point. “Won’t someone set everyone straight already?!” you cry into the ether.

Cry no more, and wipe that ether off your bib. It’s very unbecoming. Thag is here to give you an uncomfortably intimate litany of factors in Why No One Visits Your Web Site. This kind of treatment you cannot get elsewhere on the web, outside forums dedicated to vicious political debate. Listen up:

1. You Can’t Write a Sentence Worth a Damn. Let’s not beat around the bush here. Your writing would make any civilized person cringe. Learn to separate your sentences with periods, not commas. Realize that apostrophes are unnecessary in creating plural forms. Appreciate the differences among “there,” their” and “they’re.” The moment I see such offenses I lose all respect for the content creator, and by extension, anything that writer has to say. I don’t care how much you know about the topic of your choice – if you use “it’s” as a possessive, as far as I’m concerned you know diddly-squat, and I’m going back to reading The Onion, at least until they ask me to pay for further access.

2. You Have Awful Taste in Music. Your video technology might be state-of-the-art. Your mad editing skillz might put most media professionals to shame. Your images and sound quality might evoke Academy Award-winning films. But if you assault my senses one more time with disco, for crying out loud, or some wannabe hip-hop act, buh-bye. Mozart. Brahms. Offenbach. Rossini. Those should be on your roster of go-to guys, not some hit-me-over-the-head-with-your-message idiot. And no, Chevrolet, the approved list does not include Pete Seeger.

3. You’re Boring. Why exactly, should I care what you have to say if you don’t seem to care about it very much? Use humor, or at least show how excited the subject gets you. I don’t want to read your attempt to continue reliving your high school History class, when you had to turn in essay after essay on such titillating topics as The Role of Sorghum Cultivation in American Westward Expansion, which of course you could have transformed into a stinging satire of your teacher’s technique, and had fun in the process, but no: you decided to produce yet another sober essay in an infinitely long line of sober essays presenting in a straightforward, sleep-inducing manner a sober analysis of a sober, ridiculously useless topic. No wonder your teacher hated you and kept assigning more drivel, week after week. Are you still listening? If so, it means I’m a better writer than you, since I’ve managed to keep your attention for this long. But that isn’t saying much, is it, you Hemingway, you?

4. You Betray Ignorance of Basic Elements of the Human Psyche. If you want to generate traffic, attention and engagement, provoke people. Don’t go for vanilla – you want wasabi, extra sharp. If you want people to come back, foment jealousy. Rage. Passion. Hate. Take a goddamn stand on an issue, and let the chips fall where they may. They may end up being cow chips, but they’ll be authentic expressions of your ability to pull in readers, even if you do think abortions should be mandatory for illegal immigrants.

5. You Have Not Subscribed to Mightier than the Pen, nor Have You Shared this Post. It’s quite simple: I’m exploiting the attention you’re giving me, and gambling that enough of you will fall for this cheap ploy to significantly boost my traffic. Since in general, persistent bloggers increase their audiences over time, I hereby take credit for that increase in your readership which follows your following me. You follow?