Sunday, February 18, 2007

Awww.....


....shucks! Look what Carrieoke has designed for me. A better, improved, longer banner that's cleaner, clearer, and with a great new font to boot. What a girl, she is! It's no wonder Jacob (the Pants?!) wants to spend the rest of his life with her.
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Now I just need to see if I can get this new image up on the banner space in my template. Let's hope so. And THANKS, Carrie. I really do love it and appreciate the time and effort you put in for me. Man, I love this knit-blog community!!
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Now, speaking of this awesome knit-blog community; MamieKnits Bits left this comment regarding my previous note on the fact that I wanted to learn "proper" knit-blogging etiquette: She writes, "If you find any essential etiquette tips out there, will you post them? i wonder at times if there is some code of honor to learn though it seems like the knit bloggers in the world are a really gentle bunch."
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This is also how I feel. I've been reading blogs for about a year now, and then started my own in May 2006. But I've always wondered if there is an unknown code or etiquette that I should be following. Specifically, I never know what exactly to do about comments and responses. If someone asks me a specific question in a comment, then I will respond to their question (or try to). But if it's a comment where no specific response is required, then I usually don't. The main reason for my lack of response is that Blogger doesn't seem to allow an easy, "hit reply to respond" and so it involves going to that person's blog, finding their email address, and then going back to my email account to reply. Now I know, people, that this is not that big of a deal, and really doesn't take a lot of time and effort. Also, I know that many feel that if someone takes the time to comment, then one should take the time to reply. What I usually do is go to that person's blog and leave a comment on their blog, and so hopefully, in this way, we begin a blogger relationship/dialogue. But I'm also wondering if I am perceived as rude for not replying to everyone's comments individually. Okay, okay, I know I don't get many comments, but I do get a lot of student-work-family emails each day that I *have* to reply to, so for the blog comments, I don't want to begin to feel that it's also a part of my work day--being obliged to reply to everyone's comment. I DO NOT want my blog to begin to feel like work instead of play.
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Because I soooo love playing here with y'all, but I do want to make sure that I'm being a "good" playmate at the same time.
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So am I out of line because I don't respond individually to every comment, even despite the fact that I am not getting 243 or even 12 comments a day? Am I being rude? You can tell me if I am. Like MamieKnits wrote, if us newbies aren't aware of an honor code, then someone should (gently) tell us of it so we can play nicely too. And are there other aspects of this unwritten code? Does anyone know of a (in)formal knit-blog etiquette that helps us get along? Or do we just follow our intuition and decide for ourselves what's best and what works?
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Just wonderin' 'cause I love this community so much that I'd hate to exclude/alienate myself or others from it [especially when there are such nice people such as Carrie helping us to make beautiful banners and such :) ]