my blog about wedding photography

CTP wrote in post #12229479
If you are telling me it is a going to fail because of punctuation, I would ask why you are being the punctuation police when you clearly broke punctuation rules on your home page?

I never said it would fail. I simply pointed out that reading it was more difficult than it needed to be.

With regards to the blog itself IMO it is not particularly well written and there is nothing on the blog that would inspire me to pay a follow up visit. The page looks sterile, rather bland if fact and the contents isn't overly interesting to me. If I stumbled across the blog via Google I wouldn't give it the time of day TBH.

I note the fact that you haven't offered any opinion on the OP's blog other than "at least he tried something to make his unique". Given that the "branding" or rather the "design" used on the blog was completely different to that of the OP's website that statement seemed to have been made more to have a go (for want of a better phrase) at people who had posted an opinion about the blog and its readability.

For me your reasoning may have been more valid had the blog been different i.e. well written (content included), well branded and the lack of caps being an obvious "design" element but the fact is here non of those things applied. This is not a case of the punctuation police (of which you seemed to have categorised me) just having a go for the hell of it. I found the blog hard to read, and had a perfectly valid reason for having that opinion.

I once again reiterate there is a big difference between a short page title which fits within the design of an overall website design which is designed to be glanced at and a large body of text which is meant to be read and taken in. Sorry but IMO you are really clutching at straws there.

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #12232581
I never said it would fail. I simply pointed out that reading it was more difficult than it needed to be.

With regards to the blog itself IMO it is not particularly well written and there is nothing on the blog that would inspire me to pay a follow up visit. The page looks sterile, rather bland if fact and the contents isn't overly interesting to me. If I stumbled across the blog via Google I wouldn't give it the time of day TBH.

I note the fact that you haven't offered any opinion on the OP's blog other than "at least he tried something to make his unique". Given that the "branding" or rather the "design" used on the blog was completely different to that of the OP's website that statement seemed to have been made more to have a go (for want of a better phrase) at people who had posted an opinion about the blog and its readability.

For me your reasoning may have been more valid had the blog been different i.e. well written (content included), well branded and the lack of caps being an obvious "design" element but the fact is here non of those things applied. This is not a case of the punctuation police (of which you seemed to have categorised me) just having a go for the hell of it. I found the blog hard to read, and had a perfectly valid reason for having that opinion.

I once again reiterate there is a big difference between a short page title which fits within the design of an overall website design which is designed to be glanced at and a large body of text which is meant to be read and taken in. Sorry but IMO you are really clutching at straws there.

You are trying too hard to argue with me.

You fill your responses with so much blabber that you completely dull the point of your message. That is why the sentence you quoted me in, started with an "if". You skipped right past that and replied as I was directly saying that. Take a deep breath and come back from the ledge. If you noticed, I have never said I agree with the OP in not punctuating, so there is no need to argue that it should with me.

We are in complete agreement that the blog needs help in many fronts.

I made it clear that my opinion is that punctuation is very far down the list of those priorities. I called you the punctuation police because you ignored the other flaws in your original post and jumped on the bandwagon of telling the OP he cant punctuate. While it is accurate, coming into this thread and dropping a "+1" to start didnt help anybody one bit but you are completely entitled too. That is what frustrated me.

You have given much more valid points as to why you didnt like the blog and were spot one with them. If OP follows them, he can get much better results with his blog.

So to summarize, if you had much better info, experience and opinion to share with OP and you took the time to respond to the thread, why withhold that info and just ride the coattails of others on a point that has already been made? You do not owe me or OP any justification why you choose not to help OP from the start. But trying to argue with me and others on a point that we agree with you on, only reinforces my opinions of you.

Hi all,

Seems like a right can of worms has been opened here! My take, for what it's worth...

The OP asked for opinions on his blog, and opinions were given. Now, obviously not everyone's opinion is the same; that's why they're opinions and not facts. However, even if the OP, or others, disagree with what has been said, it opens everything up for discussion. You may well be correct when you say that punctuation will have no effect on what people think-or you may be wrong. None of us can make facts out of our own opinion-unfortunately things don't work like that! What can be concluded though is the fact that SOME people will be put off by the presentation and some people won't. But my argument would be, why put those people off by not trying to punctuate correctly?

Of course, the OP may well just go and do exactly what he likes and that is his prerogative. I wish you all the best! And you're right, the blog won't stand or fall on punctuation. But some people will not go back to it because of it.

That's all from me

David

beegeeboy wrote in post #12234353
You may well be correct when you say that punctuation will have no effect on what people think-or you may be wrong. None of us can make facts out of our own opinion-unfortunately things don't work like that!

My final thoughts...

Punctuation clearly does have an effect on what people think given the responses in this thread, that isn't just an opinion. Just taking the responses in this thread alone it is a fact. More than one person has stated that they are put off by the use of poor punctuation.

Yes, there can be a debate as to how many people will be put off by poor punctuation but the fact is some people are. Which of course was the original point that was made and then agreed with by the following two posts.

I remember when I first began learning Japanese. There are no capital or lower-case letters and the only punctuation I saw was a period, often not followed by a space before the next sentence began. And, oh yeah, they write in a vertical format and read from right to left! So, while my former background as an English teacher still makes me use proper grammar, I can read a blog that doesn't do so without any problem. To employ a photography (as opposed to photographic) analogy, I can look at a photo that has been perfectly composed, with excellent lighting, and not feel much for it if it doesn't resonate with me somehow; I can also look at a photo that's not as well composed or well lit, but if the subject holds my interest the quality of the image isn't as important. In other words, as you can tell from this very rambling post , it's the content, not the structure, that's important. Not to say structure isn't somewhat necessary, but it's not as crucial as the content. Form follows function, or is it vice versa?

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #12234547
My final thoughts...

Punctuation clearly does have an effect on what people think given the responses in this thread, that isn't just an opinion. Just taking the responses in this thread alone it is a fact. More than one person has stated that they are put off by the use of poor punctuation.

Yes, there can be a debate as to how many people will be put off by poor punctuation but the fact is some people are. Which of course was the original point that was made and then agreed with by the following two posts.

Agreed!

David

I'd like to know how many people who've been involved in the punctuation debate have read the blog here?

Because if you'd all read it, you'd not fall into arguments about content winning over style. The blog is poorly written and contains less than no information. It's close to 400 words that say very little in fairly poor English. The lack of capitalisation is the least of his troubles.

On the upside his photography is really nice.

The greatest lesson that a potential wedding photographer can take from this blog is; stick to what you're good at and get help to do the things that you're not so good at.

I agree with all of the above and I will add, I think your writing is a bit wordy. I do like what you are talking about though, you have good ideas and potential, just learn what attracts people to your writing bit start out with the basics like grammar.

craiglee wrote in post #12227651
wow a whole thread about the use of capitalization. what a waste. i'm out.

loved your wedding post..