29
Jul
2007
Posted by Mihaela Lica as News
… and I wonder: how many bloggers are still waiting for their moment of fame? When I go now at blogging to fame I am lost. They’ve changed everything in a matter of days. Now you don’t see first the hottest bloggers on the block, but the recently famed ones. And I wonder what’s the point?
To stop people from faming the already famous ones? To give bloggers even chances? Guess what: there are no even chances! Not when the voting system is based on a “scratch my back” principle. And not when the scratcher doesn’t really need to see my back to scratch it.
Blogging to fame brings me no traffic. Zip. Nada. But when I look at my blogging to fame stats I see that more than 100 other bloggers voted my profile, and almost 100 (as I write) voted for my blog.
And how can you actually vote for something you don’t even bother to visit? Today I made an experiment: I kind of “bulk voted” all the profiles in the first 10 pages of the “most recent famed.” I simply opened each profile in a new window and clicked on the FAME ME button. It worked fast, like playing a computer game. I didn’t click on any link, I didn’t visit any blog.
The purpose of the experiment? Well, to get an answer: is blogging to fame really ethical? Are the bloggers on the leading places really that good? How did they win their rankings when no one bothers to visit their blogs? And then it hit me: it’s a “scratch my back and I’ll fame yours” principle. We do not need to see the blogs to fame them.
Heck! Even paid to click traffic programs are better. People need to be at least 3 seconds on your site to make their vote count.
At blogging to fame you could just become famous without anyone having to actually visit your blog and see what you are doing.
I remember my first weeks: reading all the blogs I could find, voting the ones I really liked, and then voting for the people.
I remember comments like: I see you famed my profile, but not my blog. Why?
I remember refusing to fame (and even to visit) blogs in languages I couldn’t understand (like Russian and Indian) but now I’ve got it: I could simply go there, vote for everything, scratch bloggers’ backs and I’ll definitely get my blog scratched too! And for what? For the false fame? I mean… common!
Look at me: pissed off and rambling when the main purpose of today’s entry was to bring you gems from blogging to fame. I was among the first promoting this contest. I was all excited about it and right now I’m getting all negative about it because… well because the system is not fair.
You already know my style. You know I can get really harsh at times. But the thing is… I do not want to get harsh about a thing I used to believe in. But I have to! I’ll never go against my principles, no matter how hard the pain. And yes, I have no words to describe the pain and disappointment.
I tend to ignore spammy comments like: I famed you, fame me back. Then I feel guilty and I “go fame” after I read the blog and actually “meet” the blogger I have to fame.
I find comments like “hola belezza” sweet, because I know they come from the heart, because I know the Latin spirit (Romanians are Latin) and I also know that the author has actually been visiting my blog, because he even left some valuable comments there – in his language, which I do understand. And I have to thank Manuel for the kindness and for the sunshine.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still great reasons to be a part of the competition. Like meeting Pearl and other wonderful people. But right now… I am bitter and I’ve decided to stop being active in the competition. At least till I see a message like: you have to visit the blogger’s blog to vote for his/her profile.
45 Responses
Colin
July 29th, 2007 at 10:23 am
1Hello Mihaela,
I know exactly what you mean….there are many who will Fame you and not your blog, yet in return they are basically begging you to Fame both them and their blogs. You only have to look around the other blogs, new and old , and see who hits them first with their copy and paste drivel.
It really is deplorable that this is happening and as for the quality of some of the blogs that only have one post…..words fail me.
I do visit the blogs before I vote, I look at the content, check for comments and so on. There are far too many using multi coloured text, copy and paste articles that they really shouldn’t be there.
There are a lot of nice people on their and Ihave met so many different people and formed friendships with them, but the number of scammers is on the increase.
Lovely post.
Colin
Lillie Ammann
July 29th, 2007 at 11:17 am
2Mig,
I never got around to checking out blogging to fame, but I had bookmarked it based on your previous recommendation. It’s sad that people manipulate the system. I don’t participate in viral trains and such to raise my ranking on various sites - more of the “scratch my back …” stuff.
I just wrote a series on writing ethics and added a short post on blogging ethics because of some of the things I’ve read. I’m going to update the post to link to this because it fits with what I was talking about.
I do have to clarify that I bog purely for fun, and I don’t have any idea how many people read my blog (except the loyal readers who comment frequently). People who blog to earn money may find these kinds of things more tempting because traffic and recognition are more important to them.
A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye » Blog Archive » Blogging Ethics
July 29th, 2007 at 11:20 am
3[...] Updated 7/29/07: Another great post on a related subject: Scratch My Back and I’ll Fame You [...]
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 11:34 am
4Hi Colin and Lillie,
I am really glad to see you on “my side.” The thing is that blogging to fame was not really about raising rankings. I perceived it as an attempt to give new bloggers a chance to become “famous.” I was hoping to meet new people (and this did happen) and to find blogs worth to read. And this did happen too (see Gems From Blogging to Fame) But right now I have a hard time finding quality there. And I don’t have time to waste.
Deborah
July 29th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
5Hi Mihaela,
I agree 100 percent with what Colin has to say.
The intention in the beginning was to help gain readership and exposure for new blogs.
Lately it seems like some have been entering as if they thought it was a contest for up for draw, with few posts, and some with not very much meat to them at that, not for a competition for new bloggers putting forth a hard effort to produce good posts.
I do visit all new blogs listed myself. Some have had a fair number of votes before I get there, and frequently I don’t see many of their avatars on the widgets at the blog other than Divya’s.
But the competition has brought me new readers. I’m very new myself, and appreciate every single one that returns.
I count myself fortunate as well that I’ve made some wonderful frienships with some great people, who I would never have met had it not been for this competition. And for that, I feel I’ve been greatly rewarded for having entered to begin with.
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
6I know what you mean, Deborah. You are in the competition for a long time already. The beginning was magic to me too: there was traffic, there were pertinent comments, there was fun. Now, as you say, people enter the contest for a draw… what a sad turn of events. I really hope that the Blogging to Fame team will find a solution to keep blogging to fame the great place we used to know.
Saboma
July 29th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
7I am under the assumption that many at BTF are seeing this problem yet are probably feeling alienated due to the problem being so out of hand. I felt and feel dysfunctional because of the ‘in your face’ type of behaviors I have been watching take place there. I lost interest in it awhile ago more out of frustration than anything else yet it is my wish to continue supporting Divya’s attempt at bringing us together as a unit.
Mihaela, please join us at
Blogging to Fame.ning where we have collected together to support one another as well as help new bloggers with our knowledge and wisdom about blogging. We need your presence, insight and input, Sistah.
SandyCarlson
July 29th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
8This is an interesting conversation. I’m new to so much of it. Thanks for instigating this helpful exchange.
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
9Saboma, I joined the network. It looks like a good place to be. And it’s really closed to what I initially hoped for BTF.
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
10Welcome to eWritings, Sandy. Stick around, you never know… I hope to get some professionals like Darren Rowse join the conversation and share their thoughts about this.
MyMusings
July 29th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
11It’s so funny…. I joined the competition in the last week with the hopes that this one would be different that the others. I’ve only been blogging since October and thought it would be a fun, and hopefully profitable, way to get some recognition. I always take a look at the blogs of those who vote for me and confess I laughed out loud when I read your article. I join you in my disappointment, but am still hopeful that perhaps content will win in the end. I was hoping to win enough cash to pay a designer so I don’t have to use an out of the box template!
Thanks for faming me…. I look forward to reading you more often.
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
12HA HA! I famed you, yes, but without seeing your blog. You were in my “experiment” today, when I bulk famed everything I could find. J! I am happy I famed you now. You have very good content on your blog. There’s nothing wrong with an out of the box template. You can even customize it if you want. Just pay attention to the colors you choose (background/fonts). Right now it’s really hard for me to read your blog because of the black background.
I see you are a Leo… So am I. Welcome to eWritings, Leo!
pearl
July 29th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
13heyyy Mig…..So darn nice of you to mention poor little me -
I am really honored to have known you - sincerely… and it was because of being on BTF… but like you I lost interest long time ago when I saw all that crap happening there… people are just in your face and theres no way to stop them! and I felt I could not continue to waste my time … I am very new to blogging as you know, and need to pay attention to content and establish myself as an accountable blogger first…… and I also will start going there as soon as they ‘clean up’ the place.. I see a lot of the bloggers now at the ‘top’ and they appeared WAY after all of the established blogs, and how the heck they got there is another story
its was good seeing you at the blog, although I have already hit that so called writer’s block!! come back again soon, as i am gathering the courage to put my picture up
hope people wont get scared away lol
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
14Well, they could say that they’ve got there through simple social networking strategies… like faming all the blogs on the block and pushing BTF members to fame them through colored spammy comments. Ha ha!
So pleased to hear that you are going to reveal your face. I bet no one will run away. You are beautiful. I don’t even need to see that picture to know your heart.
Saurabh
July 29th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
15Thanks Mihaela Lica, and I would definitely take your concerns. I equally accept that BloggingToFame is not some traffic exchange site. We are coming with many features for blogging to fame in next 3 months to literally remove fame exchanges.
And 2nd stage selections would be lot different.
I certainly value the time you spend at our site. So hold up.
I assure you, the most deserving would come up with blazing Shine.
I would be updating the blog, might provide few clearance.
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
16Well, that’s good news. I was kind of expecting such a response from you, guys. I have no reason to doubt your professional skills. My critique was more aimed at the unethical ways some people adopt to make it to the top. I am glad you are going to address the issues.
Saboma
July 29th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
17It looks like shakers and movers are beginning to roll once again, kids. For that, I am pleased and I hope that everyone here will continue doing their part shaking and moving the behavior at BTF. Although I believe that I have already won by being a member of BTF, I cringe at the thought that my name will be associated with many of those who are out for themselves only. Moreover, I will not compromise my personal integrity nor my principals just for a contest filled with the ‘hooray for me’ mentality type of desperados.
Let’s stay on this and see to it that more gets shaken than the bacon.
^5
(((((((Mihaela, et.al)))))))))))
Mihaela Lica
July 29th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
18MyMusings
July 30th, 2007 at 2:21 am
19Thanks for the thumbs up AFTER reading my blog! Yay! I appreciate the kind thoughts and hope you continue to read. As for the template, I’m useless! Thanks for the comments, I’ll try to tone down the background, but sometimes it’s just easier to pay for things when you’re in menopause!
Mihaela Lica
July 30th, 2007 at 8:06 am
20Well, if you are eager to pay, I can recommend a good designer.
She is a WHAM and I’ve been working with her for a while. Her name is Tina Stephen. You find her at Design Newbie. If you tell her you come from my blog she will give you a very good price.
Alina Popescu
July 30th, 2007 at 9:09 am
21I didn’t know much about BTF when I started reading this. But this seemed so common for all the blogging contests I’ve ever seen! Hope this one is flexible enough to take such recommendations into account.
Mihaela Lica
July 30th, 2007 at 11:04 am
22Apparently it is. Saurabh has already expressed his agreement to the issue and we are now waiting to see the changes. The thing is that the original purpose of BTF was what made me join and “play the game.” They have Mike Sansone and Jeremy Jacobs as members of the jury, but my question is: how can members of the jury be aspirants to the prize too? I mean: participants to the competition should not be part of the jury. This is another thing that makes me wonder…
Sueblimely
July 30th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
23An excellent Post Mihaela. These were exactly my feelings and motivation when I started up bloggingtofame.ning but I was not brave enough to say it.
I am trying to ignore what has been an unfortunate result of the competition and focus instead on the higher ideal of bloggers helping each other and new bloggers benefiting by new readers visiting their sites.
I was horrified that newcomers were being given multiple fames before they had even listed their site.
I hope you will consider posting this article to Blogging To Fame Fans at Ning.
Mihaela Lica
July 30th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
24Hi Sue, pleased to have you here. I am impressed with the members of BTF Ning. They are the type of bloggers who really understand networking and the principles of BTF. About this entry.., I’ll post it then. I didn’t really know how to start… it’s good you gave me the idea.
C.M. Williams
July 31st, 2007 at 4:34 am
25Wow. I hadn’t even heard about this until you posted. These people can’t stick around long. All I know is when I write my posts, I work hard on them and I hope my readers see that. Like someone else mentioned where is the quality on those things? Missing!
Mihaela Lica
July 31st, 2007 at 8:20 am
26I know your posts come from the heart. I don’t have too much time to leave comments on the blogs I visit, but I do enjoy the journey. Sunday (when I posted this entry) my purpose was to bring new “gems” from blogging to fame. And then I’ve got so frustrated by the lack of quality of the first 5-6 I browse… I had to “speak up.”
RennyBA
July 31st, 2007 at 8:51 am
27You have some good points here and I don’t disagree, but never the less: I don’t let any chance to tell about Norway and the Nordic countries, our culture, traditions and habits:-)
Btw: I famed you course I think your blog is great!
Mihaela Lica
July 31st, 2007 at 8:54 am
28I too have a blog about my country at http://romania-my-love.blogspot.com/ but I didn’t enter the competitions with it. Probably I should Romania is a broadly misunderstood country.
Anyway, I famed all the blogs that have something to do with foreing countries, history, tradition and culture (even food blog - I love trying new things) because they really deserve the exposure.
Frank Almeida
July 31st, 2007 at 4:07 pm
29Hi Mihaela,
First, thanks for bringing up this topic. When I first started I saw that I hardly had any votes. I would get a couple, but I felt mostly like no one really visited my site. Meanwhile I saw that the ones who had soaring numbers were people that would go out and ask for the votes.
I sat and waited and wondered if that was the purpose of this site. Was this a race to see who could get more votes? My site got picked while it had very little votes so I concluded that the powers that be actually were going through the sites and picking them based on other criteria other than votes. However, there was silence on the subject for the longest time.
I guess I threw my hands in the air and said “what the hell” lets try it and see what happens. I went out and asked people to vote for me. I am now stopping that little practice since I really did not like doing it and now that you have prompted a response from BTF stating that they don´t really promote that activity I am much happier.
Thanks again for bringing this out in the open and for giving us back a wonderful idea behind the BTF contest.
Now I have to go check to see if I voted for you and make sure that I do so.
Saludos from Argentina,
Frank E. Almeida
Mihaela Lica
July 31st, 2007 at 7:39 pm
30Gracias, Frank.
You know, if you were in my Sunday questionable list of voted bloggers and sites you are probably already famed. If not, you’ll have to wait for my vote for a while, till the BTF problems are fixed. I am on strike. 
Maria & Stefano
July 31st, 2007 at 8:14 pm
31Just wanted to drop a fast “Hello”…when id your BD?!
I’m the 7th…geez I’m getting older soon…
Mihaela Lica
July 31st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
32I am 15.
I’ll be there on 7…
Frank Almeida
July 31st, 2007 at 9:49 pm
33Hi Mihaela,
I don´t know if I was on your questionable list. It seems, from looking at your votes, that you made them a while back. Maybe you voted for me ´cause you liked the site
Saludos,
Frank E. Almeida
PETERCRYS
August 1st, 2007 at 6:43 am
34Hi dear friend’ really a beautiful blog you have. Well take me as a friend and come to see my blog an if you like it “fam me” i will be waiting for you. . .
Mig’s edit: removed link.
Mihaela Lica
August 1st, 2007 at 7:59 am
35Frank, I answered your comment before following your link yesterday. Your blog was not on my questionable list. I liked it very much.
Mihaela Lica
August 1st, 2007 at 8:01 am
36PETERCRYS, I’ve already famed your blog, a long time ago, I mean the one about domestic abuse. But your approach to this competition is exactly the kind of unethical behaviour I was talking about.
Do not include your self promotion links in the body of your comments. Do not tell me to fame you.
I will do it if I like what I see.
I edited your comment and removed your link.
pearl
August 2nd, 2007 at 5:31 am
37haha…peter cries ….:P just missed the whole point
Its amazing!! I felt like writing peter cries peter cries all over this comment to bring it to her (ooops) his attention that this is exactly what we are talking about grrrr
anyways, what’s the point?? (S)he didn’t/won’t understand!
Mihaela Lica
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:23 am
38Yeah… anyway, I give BTF one week time. If I see no improvements I go out of the competition.
Frank Almeida
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 pm
39Hi Mihaela,
Thanks for the nice comments! Although I can see why you would be angry I don´t think you should abandon this so quickly. They did mention that the flame criteria might not be such a big factor in the outcome. I would actually wait around and see what they communicate to us first. Stick around a little, wade through some of the blogs and vote for any that you might like and see what happens. If they don´t clear up the mess then you can leave. Besides you have already helped by bringing this up.
Sueblimely
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:45 am
40If you leave Mihaela, the less ethical bloggers win!
Frank, there are other much better ways to gain exposure for your blog, develop contacts and lasting readers. In fact you are using one of the ways now. Commenting on other blogs. Visit sites that look interesting on BloggingToFame, take some time to read them, leave comments on posts where you feel you have something to contribute. Then go back to BTF and fame the site if you still think it worthy of it. Revisit these blogs, comment more. You will find that your site is visited more often and you are famed more too.
Ian Stewart
August 3rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm
41Well, it was through BTF that I found this awesome blog (and Pearl’s) — back when we were in a dead heat for most famed blogger, with a whopping 15 votes— that’s not so bad, is it? But it was back then that I quickly noticed, like you, I had only 3 or 4 referrals from BTF.
I’m really glad I didn’t promote it too heavily. I did email some relatives, out of pride and a chance for easy fames, luckily, however, most of them aren’t sure what a blog is and weren’t even able to register thanks to the bizarrely difficult registration process on BTF. Oh well. BTF sits there. I’m a member. It doesn’t bother me too much. Maybe one day at the end of the contest I’ll find myself on a plane to Chicago having this conversation:
Me: So what do you do in real life?
Other Contestant: I fame you for lots of love! Fame me back!
Me: Oh, um, I’ve never been on a jet before. I’m really —
Other Contestant: Fame my blog! Friendship is blogging love!
Me: I think I’m just going to read my book now.
Frank Almeida
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
42Hi Sue and Mihaela,
I know, I just found a blog this morning on BTF that I liked and voted for. I like this one (and yours too Sue). I don´t always feel like my comments add anything and so sometimes I leave comments and sometimes I don´t.
This is kind of like an experiment. I am curious to see how this shakes out. Maybe in the end they will vote for the ones that they like and base their decisions on several criteria. Clearly, the votes are not of much importance now, at least I can´t see how they could be.
Otherwise I could just hire a student to do the clicking for me once a week and be done with it. You know what I mean?
RennyBA
August 5th, 2007 at 1:43 am
43I came to yours from BtF and don’t say I famed you without reading your blog first
I have commented her before too, but after getting some experience, I hope you don’t mind if I add some more:
I really like this post and so I like your style. Your critical look at BtF is good and reflected. Never the less, I must admit I jumped on BtF as I am an network evangelist and an exhibitionist and also like to see traffic increasing on my blog of course. Since I posted my BtF article, the traffic has increase to, but that might have something to do with that I wasn’t as popular or regularly visited as you are. So I’m not as pissed off as you are, but I do see your point.
I’m off to your Romania blog:-)
Colin
August 10th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
44Hello Mihaela,
It seems that between us we have stirred up a little bit of a hornets nest on BTF but the good news is that they are now taking steps to rectify the situation. Apparently they have now identified spammers etc, and will be deleting/blocking some accounts too. So let us wait and see what transpires now.
Divya has a short post on BTF Blog
http://blog.bloggingtofame.com/2007/07/22/we-love-our-members%e2%80%a6/#comments
Jason Pearson
November 15th, 2007 at 3:30 am
45I completely agree with you on this one. What ever happened to having good blogs with relevant content that actually help people? The fact that you don’t even have to visit the blog to fame it is unreal. You are right. What is the point here?
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