My very young blog is currently read by only a few friends and family. I’m still struggling with the focus of content, and today it occilates between professional and personal, leaning more towards personal. It is possible that despite all objective feedback, Collin may not be my blog’s natural audience. However, the idea of getting some objective feedback from a stranger sounds so tempting. I just have to get over my fear of getting an awful public review.

Lorelle: Many thanks for the shout, I hope that I can do justice and maintain a high standard that will help other bloggers.

Rich: I quite understand what you are saying. I have no formal qualifications whatsoever. Yes, my opinion may be subjective rather than objective and yes, I did “attack” Leen and Jay without their knowledge or permission. I will not apologise for those and I stand behind what I have said.

I have spent much time reading about being a blogger, how to blog, how not to blog. I have also read many of the “review” sites on the net. What do I not want to achieve. Have a look at italk2much.com (purposely not linked). Yes, what they write is humorous, but not (I believe) what the blogger is really looking for in a review.

As for the review on Jay’s blog, yes it was bad, but if you’re gonna put yourself up on the ‘net for all to see then at some point someone’s gonna comment on what you’ve said.

As I have said on my blog, what I would like (and am trying) to offer is a review service that will help a blogger improve their writing. If you read the review (requested) on Shirley’s blog, I didn’t attack at all. For the most part there’s no need. Many bloggers (as Shirley admitted) do not know how to blog properly (look at the pasting an HTML table rather than using blockquotes) and I would like to help them make their blog more accessible for more readers.

Yes, I will always have opponents. People that will flame me for a bad review (whether requested or not) and I am quite prepared for that.

Now, to ask you a question. You set up a “new” review service. How do you get your first couple of reviews before people start hearing about your service? Leave a comment? “Hello, I’d like to review your blog please.” That’s called spamming isn’t it?

Ho hum, the damage for Jay (who responded in the positive) and Leen (who hasn’t responded) is done and there’s nothing I can do about it.

If you disagree with something I say in a review then I would welcome your opinion on that person’s blog too, or at least a reasonable comment on why you disagree. That way we can ALL learn to be better bloggers. No?

Thanks again Lorelle, I hope you don’t mind me linking to your content every so often!

Collin

As for qualifications, what really makes someone qualified to review? Collin explains his qualifications more so than most reviewers. We read a lot of reviews on books, movies, and television shows from reviewers who have no more qualification to review than watching movies and television and reading books. Did they go to a review school?

Because of the narrow focus reviewing WordPress Themes on the WordPress Support Forum, I wrote WordPress Site Reviews to create a format and structure for such reviews, as well as a guide to help the reviewer and reviewee understand what will be reviewed and what won’t. We felt this was important because a WordPress Theme is about the design, and not about the content, though the content should “match” the design, it doesn’t have to. We wanted to avoid debates about content and stick to issues directly related to WordPress site development and design.

Does that mean that the volunteers who review WordPress Themes are expert reviewers? No. It does mean that they agree to work within the Forum’s guidelines and that they have some experience (and opinion) on web page design and WordPress fundamentals. On that, they can have all the opinions they want.

And I think tearing someone’s blog apart without request is somewhat uncalled for. “Leen” didn’t ask to have her blog reviewed, and what’s more, it’s obviously the blog of a young person who’s blogging just for the hell of it. Not someone who’d benefit from a review or tips on how to improve, really. What place does the opinion of an older, much more mature person have here? He seems to have given the same treatment to “Jay”. If you ask for it, fair enough, but I don’t think it’s fair to “review” someone’s blog publicly without permission if you’re just going to tear it to pieces. Most bloggers get into it with a very low confidence level, and a bad “review” is just going to deplete their confidence even more.

It’s a nice idea, I guess. Everyone wants to improve, and tips are always welcomed. But this guy shouldn’t be handing them out to anyone he wants, he should limit them to people who actually ask for it.

Pardon the long comment.