ErosBlog FAQ
Editorial Note as of 2015: This FAQ is obsolete in many respects. My apologies. — Bacchus
I get asked a lot of questions (both by email and in my comments) and some of them are Frequently Asked Questions. So, for ease of future reference, here’s a FAQ. Comments are welcome.
Erosblog FAQ Table of Contents:
Linking Questions: How do I get an ErosBlog link?
Moderation Questions: What happened to my comment?
Attribution Questions: What’s the source of this?
Advertising Questions: Can I buy a link or banner?
Press Queries: Can I interview you?
Question: Would you like to exchange links?
Answer: Sorry, but almost certainly not. I don’t “trade” links. No, really, I almost never do. I link to sites I think my readers might like, and I encourage you to do the same. As Guy Kawasaki puts it:
I don’t get this “exchanging links” thing. IMHO, you should link to a blog if you believe it’s good for your readership. The other blogger should link to back your blog if she believes it’s good for her readership. In a perfect world, linking is about quality, not reciprocation.
A link trade offer translates to: “I don’t really like your site enough to link to it. If I did, I’d already have your link up. But, even though your site isn’t worth linking to, I’ll do it anyway… if you’ll link back.”
Sorry, but if that’s how you feel, I’m not interested.
Question: So, if you don’t do link exchanges, how do I get my new blog listed on ErosBlog?
Answer: So sorry, but you probably don’t. So many new blogs start strong and promising, but they fade after a few posts, or after a few weeks, or after a few months. Most of the “new” blogs I add to my blogroll have been going strong for a year or more. Otherwise, the link maintenance chore of deleting moribund blogs gets completely out of hand.
An exception to this is if I catch myself doing multiple posts about a newer blog. If I like your blogging enough to link it a few times, your blog will probably wind up on my blogroll. No linkback required, although it never hurts — nobody’s immune to flattery.
Question: OK, but I’ve been blogging for awhile. If you don’t trade links, what do I have to do to get a link on ErosBlog?
Answer: The honest answer is that you have to tickle my fancy with your blog. But I can’t define how to do that. I can, however, offer some “Do” and “Don’t” tips. This is not some dictatorial manifesto, these are not hard and fast “rules” I pulled out of my ass, these are just advice, heavily colored by my idiosyncratic blogging tastes:
- DO send me an email linking to a recent blog post you made that you think I might like, with a sentence about what it’s about. I probably won’t answer your mail, but I frequently do look at these, when I have time. It’s the best way to get me to look at your blog, much better than just sending a link and saying “Please have a look.”
- DO link to me. I know that sounds hypocritical, when I don’t do link exchanges, but it’s really not. A link is a compliment, whereas a link trade offer is a veiled insult. Compliments work, and flattery will get you everywhere. Plus, I do read my logs with great curiosity, so having traffic coming from your blog is guaranteed to get me looking at it.
- DO participate in the ErosBlog comments. Write substantive comments, ones with multiple sentences or even paragraphs, to distinguish yourself from the drive-by “Hot pic!” link droppers. If your comments are valuable, they will be noticed, and I’ll be clicking your link to see what else you have to say.
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DO make sure your site looks like a blog. Too much advertising (as in, I can’t find your blog posts for all the flashing banners, or the first post appears “below the fold” because of your “above the fold” advertising) discourages linking. So does not having a blogroll. As the adult blogging tips at Spanking Blog put it: “I get tons of link requests from ‘bloggers’ who don’t link to anybody. They use blog software, and they write something every day, but they don’t participate in the blogging community. They don’t link to anyone and they don’t have a blog roll. I don’t understand this mentality. I mean, why would you ask other people to link to you, if you can’t be bothered to link to anyone else?”
- DON’T (oh, please don’t) “ask permission” to link to my blog. Everyone in the world should already know that the fundamental root reason for putting something on the internet is to invite people to link to it. If I didn’t want links, you couldn’t link to me. If you can see me, you already have permission to link to me. And so, after the first thirty or so, these “May I link to you?” requests begin to look and feel like a sneaky passive-aggressive way of saying “please look at my blog.” If that’s what you want, you’re way better off just saying so.
- DON’T hope for a link if your ‘blog’ is a spammy porn blog with no content. I don’t have anything against porn, but most porn blogs are boring. If all you’ve got is generic porn thumbnails, tired porn marketing text (“look at this hot bitch fingering her slut mom”), and links to pay sites, don’t bother. Of course, if you’ve got entertaining commentary about the porn, that’s a whole different ball game. Blogs featuring high-quality carefully-selected porn in an intelligent way also have a shot, if the advertising is kept to a reasonable dull roar.
- DON’T ask for a free link if you know you should really be inquiring about advertising rates. Do you have a marketing program and/or an advertising budget? Is your site or blog principally for the purpose of selling something or drawing attention to your products? Are advertisements or marketing materials the most prominent thing on your site? If so, you should be asking me about ad rates.
- DON’T be a drive-by link-dropper. Link droppings are not attractive, and we try not to step in them. By link dropping, I mean leaving comments like “Hot!” or “Nice pic!” or “Cool!” — stuff that’s shorter than the URL you so carefully typed into the box provided. Lots of new bloggers do this; it’s the lazy spam version of the “Do participate in the comments” advice above. Trouble is, once you are in my head as a spamming link dropper, the odds of me ever visiting your site (much less linking to it) decline toward zero. Good comments usually take the form of short paragraphs, not sentence fragments.
Question: Why did you delete/moderate my comment?
Answer: Most likely because you weren’t nice. I ask ErosBlog commenters to be civil, friendly, polite, nice. And I enforce that. We don’t welcome flaming, aggressive debating style, snark, or even strong sarcasm. Yes, I do break these rules myself, sometimes. But I live here.
You may also have been moderated for substance (or, more usually, lack of it.) If your comment was condemning any sexual practice or kink, suggesting that anybody or anything is “sick”, calling anybody names, saying something rude about someone’s physical appearance, inviting people to visit your own website, or saying anything at all that’s got nothing to do with the post the comment is made under, that would explain why you don’t see it.
Sharing your fanciful sexual intentions (“I’d like to jump her bones, heh heh”) is another good way to get your comment moderated, especially when done crudely. (Explanation) Also, we don’t play the “Is it real or is it Photoshop?” game here, because (a) comments that a photo is not real tend to expressly or implicitly imply that the commenter is smarter and more perceptive than whoever posted the photo, which is rude, and (b) such comments lead to flamewars because everybody has an opinion, but nobody has any data. Even a friendly reservation (“I’m not sure if that’s real, but if it is…”) will often get moderated, because it invites twenty-seven unwelcome comments on the “real or Photoshop” topic.)
Here are some posts I’ve made over the years about my moderation policy:
Don’t Be A Dick
Condemnators Redux
Crapping All Over Beauty
Sure Cure For Spammers
A Note For Our New Spammers (by Aphrodite)
Blogging Without Comments
Cracking Down On Handcrafted Comment Spam
Spam Robot Finally Rolls 00 Versus Turing
Trying Harder At The Turing Test
Civilization, Assholes, and Internet Communities
Question: Where did you find the picture you just posted? Is there a link? What’s the source of this?
Answer: I actually get a little offended by these questions, and they usually don’t make it through moderation. Since October of 2002 I’ve been faithfully posting and linking. If I know the source of something, I post the link. Without fail. Either the link where I got it, or the original source (if I know it) plus a link to where I found it. Every. Damned. Time.
You don’t see a link? It’s because I don’t freakin’ have one.
How is that possible? Well, let’s see. First of all, people mail me stuff and ask not to be credited. Or, there’s the fact that I’ve been downloading dirty pictures from Usenet and the web since about 1994. Right-click-and-save-to-hard-drive has been a reflex for more than a decade. These days, if I think “I’m gonna blog this” I’ll make sure to save source info too, but that doesn’t help with the half million images I accumulated before I started blogging.
If there’s no link provided, it’s because I don’t have one. OK?
Question: Do you know where I can find more pictures like the one you posted?
Answer: No. If I did, there’d probably be a link. Otherwise, Google is your friend.
Question: Will you please email me some porn?
Answer: Hell no. Use Google. Sheesh! (I actually get this one at least once a week.)
Question: Can I buy a link or a banner?
Answer: Sure! Just drop me an email with the site you’d like to advertise, and I’ll send you a rate sheet. Or just check the sidebars for “your ad here” style links — more and more of my advertising space is being sold through brokers these days. The exception is probably text links. For these, please be prepared to buy at least six months of advertising at a time, and to pay in advance at rates that exceed the cost of brokered banner space. If you’re selling sex-negative or dangerous or worthless crap — herbal penis pills, breast enlargement creme, porn for the audience that despises women — please don’t bother. And don’t even ask if you want to buy generic “keyword” anchor text; I don’t blind link my users to random destinations for any price, and “sex toys” or “free cams” doesn’t tell them enough about where they are going. You’ll probably need to put your brand somewhere in the link, so the link looks like the kind of links human beings actually post and use.
Question: Would you like to join my affiliate program and then put up my banner for free?
Answer: Almost certainly not. Most affiliate programs suck, especially the cookie-cutter ones that use “standard” affiliate software. The stats reporting is bad, the percentage paid is bad, the affiliate program software is rude or clueless or tailored for non-adult sites, the terms of service are ridiculous and one-sided or unfit for bloggers, or the product is bad.
On the other hand, there are a handful of adult businesses that have unique products, great customer service, a sex-positive attitude, a strong brand or reputation — if that describes your company, and you have an affiliate-friendly program too, by all means let me know about it. If, however, you’ve already asked and the response you got was a link to this FAQ, it’s because your program is covered by the paragraph above.
Question: Can I buy a blog post talking about my site / product / event / whatever?
Answer: Email me. It’s possible. But it’s not cheap, and there’s always an identifying “sponsored post” banner so readers will know what’s going on. I won’t shill for your product and pretend I’m just blogging normally; that’s not an advertising service that ErosBlog will provide.
Question: Would you like to review my product?
Answer: If it’s a virtual / downloadable thing, no. There’s just no time, and it amounts to unpaid work for me.
However, if it’s a physical thing (a sex toy, DVD, book, or whatever) you might have a shot. The Nymph and I enjoy getting free stuff in the mail. Reviews are not guaranteed, but if you do get one, you can count on it taking forever. I’d guess we (eventually) review about twenty percent of the stuff that gets sent for review, so you’re taking a chance. Email for the review item shipping address. [2012 update: We do almost no reviews now. But we still like to play with free sex toys if they are sufficiently unique. And there’s always that chance that you’ll get a mention if your product is sufficiently impressive. So, sending review stuff is almost certainly a losing game, but if you’re an optimist or really confident about your product, it might be worth a try.]
PRESS INQUIRIES AND INTERVIEWS
Question: I’d like to interview you for my blog or publication. Is that possible?
Answer: Sure. Email me. But before you contact me, you might want to have a look at the interviews I’ve already given:
Interview With Bacchus (Sunni’s Salon)
The Buccaneer of Bacchanalia (Susie Bright)
Understanding Humankind (Atrocidades)
Revision History:
9/14/06 – FAQ first published
10/16/06 – added sentence about moderation of feedback on photos
10/24/06 – added sentences about prohibition on “real or Photoshop” game
7/20/07 – added Guy Kawasaki link exchange quote
3/6/12 – numerous updates
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=1727
This is great indespensible advice for people that think just because they’re blogging people want to read their site, link to them, or even pay hard earned advertising dollars. Everyone that is even considering starting a blog for non-personal reasons should read this post!
I guess I’m just horrified you have to say some of them. As you know, I disagree with you on where the line is drawn but it’s your site and some of those questions imply you are obligated to do something for the readers. Do they feel the same way if someone invites them over for dinner?
I hear you about link trades. When I was a newbie blogger I felt as if I should post people’s links. After all they were loyal readers right? Yeah, I was naive.
These days I send a reply that I’ll look over their site and consider them. If they don’t fit with me I don’t put them on the link list and I don’t feel guilty about it.
Looking at stats is so entertaining for me. I love seeing what countries readers are from or what search terms brought them to my site.
I have a question that may have an obvious answer but I’ll ask anyway. What’s your opinion about having your blog linked somewhere that you don’t want it to be?
I used to be of the mind that if someone linked to me, out of some warped politeness, I should link back. Then it occured to me that my link list is a reflection of my interests and, as an extension of that, my approval. So I became a bit more selective on links.
Now I find my link on sites that I don’t like, don’t approve of, and want in no way to be associated with, yet the site owners claim internet “freedom” and refuse to take it down.
I guess I can’t argue with internet “freedom”. Links are free and I certainly can’t tell someone else what do with their own site, but this has to be some form of bad taste at least. I’m not making a big stink about it. I asked if they would remove it, they refused and I left it alone.
So curious, since you posted your link policy, what your opinion was on that.
Thanks. :)
Kaya, you’re not going to like my answer, I fear. In my opinion — which you asked for, sorry — you’re the one who is being wrongheaded to expect any influence over where your link appears. They’re not showing bad taste in refusing your request — they are, quite rightly in my view, refusing a mildly bizarre request that, from their perspective, should never have appeared in their inbox.
Obviously I need to explain that.
As I said in the FAQ, the act of putting something up on the internet is an open-ended invitation to the entire universe to link to whatever you put up. Linking to things is what the internet — or rather, the World Wide Web — is for. In most cases, putting something up is an eager solicitation for linkage.
So, for you to put up a web resource and then to ask someone — anyone — to take down a link they put up, is going to strike netheads as bizare, crazy, irrational behavior. You ever see a crazy cat lady come running out of her apartment and scream at the garbagemen for stealing the dirty cat litter that she, herself, put in the dumpster six hours previously? I’m picking a deliberately extreme example for a reason. To someone who is, like me, a passionate fan of the internet because of the organic way it organizes the world’s data, link removal requests trigger exactly that intense “What the hell?” reaction the garbage men are going to feel toward the cat lady. And the next reaction is “Fuck no! Putting up links is what I do.” I’d no more pull a link at the source’s request than I’d pull a book I wrote from publication at a reader’s request. It’s not a reasonable request, it’s destructive to whatever I’ve been working on, and I’m going to ignore it (at best) or be rude (on a bad day).
I am, obviously, an absolutist.
However, note this has nothing to do with “freedom” — although that’s out there. It’s not that I refuse to honor delink requests because I can get away with it — though I can — it’s because there’s something fundamentally wrong with the request itself. It’s not about “freedom” to do something rude or tasteless, it’s about the lack of any need to cater to somebody who doesn’t even understand that they are asking me to commit a minor act of destruction.
So no, in my ethics there’s nothing rude or tasteless about refusing delinking requests. And, indeed, honoring them comes perilously close to the “blog vandalism” I’ve ranted against previously. Accomodating delinking requests is, in my view, active badness, albeit quite minor.
That said, I do from time to time get incoming links I wish weren’t there. I had a link for awhile from a quasi-Gorean who liked to talk about how slave training was much easier if you started training your slavegirls when they were thirteen or so, ugh. But I didn’t ask for the link to be removed, for the reasons above and because a link from him doesn’t associate my views with his. Link association is *entirely* one way, there’s no contaminating backflow. We have neither the right, nor the duty, nor indeed any reason, to attempt to police incoming links.
Whew! Enough answer for you?
Actually yes. And thank you for it. It makes perfect sense and is in fact the “obvious answer” that I expected it to be. (and still hoped it wouldn’t be..lol)
I thoroughly related to the crazy cat lady analogy because that’s ME. So that helped alot.
I agree that link association should be entirely one way but it’s not. I’ve been asked “do you know you are linked at ‘such and such’ site?? Do you KNOW what they talk about there!!?” As if I’m supposed to have some explanation for the content and why I’m in it. The only content I can control is mine.
But I cannot stave off the stupidity of others by responding with equal stupidity. Two stupids don’t make a smart. So thank you for pointing that out to me.
“I’d no more pull a link at the source’s request than I’d pull a book I wrote from publication at a reader’s request”
That puts it into perspective for me.
“Two stupids don’t make a smart” — I’ve never heard that, but I like it! And it fits this exactly. The folks who think the link reflects badly on you are the ones making the real mistake — and you’d be making another one if you bought into their skewed perspective.
Thanks for taking this the right way, it could have gone different.
I just realized there’s one more piece to this. If someone writes and asks for a link removal, no matter how polite their request, it’s going to be experienced as an aggressive condemnation. I’ve gotten these requests — “Remove my link at once, I don’t want to be associated with your stinky porn, the story on my site was educational and not intended to be erotic you sicko!” — and it really is an “I despise everything you stand for, I don’t want any of your stinkiness to get anywhere near me” gesture. Nobody — not even would-be pedophiles — reacts well to that sort of attack.
What a superb reference for admins of all sites. This site should be considered a 101 course. Eros has been one of two adult sites that I frequent, DOMAI being the other. Thanks for being there!
When I first started my blog I tried to link to everyone and anyone in return for reciprocal links. I think the difference over a blog to a stand alone web site is the worry that your early work and entries might never be found or read by anyone other than yourself.
A web site sits waiting to be discovered and although you might consider a blog to be in exactly the same position there is that fear that your writing daily entries and what could be some of your best work is archived away before it is discovered. Who really reads blog entries more than a month old?
I have been slowly cutting back on my reciprocals, its a catch 22 you want to delete them as they were a bad idea at the birth of your blog but then you did approach the other site owner asking them for a link in the first instance.
Tina
Tina, I’m pretty new to blogging/blog reading? & I’m not sure if my behaviour would be the same as others. If I find a blog that has recent posts I enjoy I will go back to older posts, I suppose as a way to learn more about the author.
After all if I like the ideas expressed maybe I’ll find some opinions on other things I never thought about that are interesting as well. (such as shave all pubes when casting a mold of your privates in plaster, thank you Bacchus)
First, this is a brilliant FAQ—largely about common sense and letting a blog be a blog, IMO.
Second, I’m forever reading posts which are months or years old. If I like an article on someone’s blog, I click the article’s tags or categories, hoping to find more of the same. So I try to be rather thorough about tagging posts. (That won’t be apparent yet on the blog my name links to here though, as I only have a few posts so far.)
Honestly, I hopped over to the FAQ to see if I could figure out what blogging host you used, but reading through it has given me a lot of things to consider for when I start my writing blog in the near future, particularly since I write primarily erotica. Particularly your comments about linking. Thanks for the tips.