Jan 25, 2016 / Community Pool

Community Pool

The place for feedback, advice, and friendly blogging chatter.

Have you just published a new post and are dying for some feedback? Did you recently start your blog and could use some layout or design advice from your more seasoned peers?

Did you just start blogging and you’re not sure how to get going? Has your blog been dormant for a while but you’d like to give it a jolt of life? Join our free Blogging 101 course (or any of our other offerings at Blogging U.).

Tap into the wisdom of The Daily Post blogging community and leave your question here in the comments. Others can then click through and offer input either on your site, or in the comments here (feel free to indicate which you’d prefer).

To help us make the Community Pool a productive space for discussion, here are some tips you might find useful:

TIP: To keep from losing your place in the comment thread while you visit others’ blogs, right-click on a link to open it in a new tab or window.

  • While you’re not required to, we encourage everyone who requests feedback to also reply to at least one or two other bloggers who need some help. Spread the love!
  • The Community Pool comments section can get quite big — and starting duplicate threads doesn’t help. Thanks for not posting the same question more than once!
  • If you’re looking for quality feedback, be as specific as you can. Questions about a particular post tend to draw more comments than ones about entire blogs. Questions about specific design elements are more likely to be answered than ones asking for general layout advice.
  • We discourage leaving links without a more substantive message or question. These are often overlooked by other bloggers, and we frequently remove them to make the comment reading experience smoother.
  • Please keep all comments civil and constructive. The idea is to have fun — it’s a pool, after all!
  • If you haven’t looked at our Commenting Guidelines in a while, now might be a good time.
  • No running on the deck.
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  2. Hello Fellow Bloggers, I am new to the community and would absolutely love the feedback, and some blogging buddies. I look forward to hearing from you and I hope you enjoy my short-stories to come. (if I get the courage to post them that is.)

    If you want to become Blogging buddies I have a Facebook page set up just for us. So we can communicate and discuss our blogging.

    http://www.facebook.com/originalpassionbox

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Yey or ney?

    The following blogpost was inspired by a disagreement. Is it unethical to ping back to the blog post you disagree with? I’m not rude or anything, just saying we disagree, and then I argue my case. I am kinda funny, so I am afraid my post might be seen as ridicule, and if it is – should I be concerned about it? (As long as it is an idea – and not the person herself I ridicule)

    Please have a look and give me your feedback, please:

    https://oliveole.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/species-spesific-immortal-etheric-substances-or-hippie-talk-cat-people-and-soulless-dogs/

    Liked by 1 person

    1. alrighty then….being a person without much religion but tons of spirituality, I must admit I started to work on that math problem…………lol…….I liked what you did with the post. I thought “what on Earth is this crazy woman talking about?” then I went to the original post and said “oh, she isn’t crazy after all”….now crazy to me is a very good thing and not to be construed as problematic in any way……..I do not think that it is inappropriate to create that little pingback. I think the other blogger would be proud that someone would also share their post…that IS what we all want, more readers. I considered making another post and pinging back to you which would ping back to her but am not yet smart enough in the ways of blogging to know exactly how to do that. I think it would be great to have never-ending pings actually, but since you didn’t wish for another blog but wanted comments I shall just hush now and go away. http://www.suziland.net

      Liked by 2 people

  8. hey guys I know that I have already commented but I would like people to check out my page and comment on my posts to tell me what you think I have just started blogging and want to see what its like to have someone that reads your blog and has opinions about your blog so please check it out and follow, like and comment.
    Thank you
    Ella Quinn, Going offline xox

    Liked by 3 people

  10. Please can someone tell me how to get proper share buttons on my blog. I have tried using the standard WordPress ones but they don’t seem to be showing on the page. whenever I tried to install other plug-ins it doesn’t work. any help will be much appreciated!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Third-party plugins aren’t allowed on WordPress.com for security reasons, which is why those sharing buttons didn’t work for you.

      You can find detailed instructions on using sharing buttons on this page — I’d give it another try:
      https://wordpress.com/support/sharing/

      You can also opt for a Social Media Icons widget, another neat way of displaying share buttons:
      https://wordpress.com/support/widgets/social-media-icons-widget/

      Good luck with your site!

      Like

  11. Good morning pool-goers!
    This may be a simple fix, but I’ve had a poke around and I can’t find it… Can anybody advise me on how to increase the number of my recent posts that show on my home page? I don’t have that many yet, but my two oldest have already disappeared into an ‘older posts’ abyss and they are actually my favourite two posts, so I’d love for them to still show when people see my page. Does anybody know the trick? http://www.thetroublesometraveller.com

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I have a technical issue! I removed the tag line from my site, but when I attempt to post a blog to Facebook, you can still see it in the link box! It’s an issue because it has a cuss word (I created the site two years ago with no intention of posting it anywhere).

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Hi there! I’m quite new to blogging and would love some feedback, particularly on my latest post, which I’ve linked to below. I’m going to write more posts about past trips but I’d appreciate knowing if the tone of the post is ok. I’d like to focus more on what I got from the experience, rather than it be a guidebook style post. I’d be very keen to hear thoughts on my design as well.
    Thanks in advance 🙂 http://trailsadventures.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/piccaninny-gorge-purnululu-national-park/

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Hi, everyone. I’m ready to splash into the pool with you all.
    Can someone help me with format? When I want to write a poem, the lines have a space between. I cannot see how I can change that to have them closed up. It makes the post very spread out. Any advice?
    And I have been reposting my blog-a-day blogs into current prompts as they didn’t get any visits or comments, so I guess no one saw them. Hope this effort pays off.
    stanwatkins.wordpress.com Talking Pictures, a Sound Decision (though to tell the truth, most are Random Thoughts, not Biography)

    Liked by 2 people

    1. if you go to your wordpress profile you can change the pictures in the picture circle itself. scroll you cursor over the picture and it will have a box pop up asking to change the picture.

      Liked by 1 person

  18. Okay so I realize I have been posting nothing really but stuff about myself. I am trying to get used to writing again albeit, in blog form. It has actually got my creative juices flowing again, so please don’t take my works as a vain attempt. In all honesty, I have begun scribbling notes here and there, I even used a cardboard box piece at work to write a few sentences down. A story is beginning to form mindfully. I have a few stories already, but I am still unsure about posting them on a public site. I would be devastated to lose my work. I value opinions though. Feedback negative or positive is always useful. I guess you can say I have trust issues. Particularly with my works. So please, how do you, as a writer, overcome your fear of your work being plagiarized? Maybe I am just being too overprotective of my writings because I can never get them back if something happens. It no longer becomes mine, it loses its meaning and purpose, it loses its value. Please tell me I am worried for nothing.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. you write extremely well. you make the subject matter interesting for a person that hasn’t any clue what you are speaking of, so that is a good thing. triple check for typos..that’s the most important thing I can advise…not that i do it myself, but it seems important. lol

      Liked by 2 people

  22. Hi, I’m very new at blogging and I have no idea on how to cite the images I post on the blogs. I find them in google images but never seem to find the proper citation for them. Any help for the dummy-blogger please?

    Like

    1. When I use pics from Google Images, I click ‘visit page’ and use whatever site that is as the citation, and I make the picture a hyperlink so when the image is clicked on my blog, it’ll go right to that page. I don’t know if there’s a better, more ethical way…

      Like

    2. Creating a link to the source is a nice touch, but generally you should only use images that licensed to be re-used (under various Creative Commons licenses, for example). Google Images search will let you search specifically for those types of images.
      In case it might be of interest, here’s a post we ran a while back on giving credit to others’ work in your blog:
      https://wordpress.com/dailypost/2013/03/26/source-and-attribute/

      And here’s another post on image resources offering copyright-free, public domain images:
      https://wordpress.com/dailypost/2014/04/30/free-images/

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thank you so much. I ended up closing the blog and reopening another one without images. But it’s dull now. Will defo look into those articles!

        Like

  24. Hey everyone! So I just recently built up the nerve to start a blog. I am a tremendously anxious person, but I am extremely good at hiding it from my friends and family. I find writing very relieving and when others can relate, I feel an even greater sense of relief. I only have a couple posts for now, but there are more on the way.

    I want to stay anonymous because I know I wouldn’t express the same ideas if people knew it was me. Since I want to remain anonymous it is hard to get people to see my blog because I cannot simply share it. If anyone could check it out, I would love feedback and help getting my name out.

    Thanks guys!! https://theburgundymoon.wordpress.com

    Like

  28. Hello – I am pretty new to blogging having just completed the blogging 101 course.
    I am having an issue with my images – they are fine on the actual posts themselves and on the reader so far they’ve been OK until now…. my latest post shows up with a blank image (black) on the reader even though if you click the link it seems to be fine on the actual site.
    I’ve tried resizing it, reloading it, even changed the image but it’s still blank!
    Help much appreciated.
    Thanks Hannah

    https://hannahkenwayblog.wordpress.com

    Like

  29. Hey…. I’m no good at self promoting…. I write about music, well, kind of what I see when I hear music……You can check out my blog brokenearphones.wordpress.com. PLEASE, leave a comment, suggestion, anything, so I know how to improve. Thanks!

    Like

  30. Whew! I am really lost here. As I am pouring my heart out on this blog, I wanted to make one that I wouldn’t mind sharing with my own family. This current one is dark, and includes things that have haunted my family. I’m an all, open and honest person, but I don’t want to hurt or embarrass my family, my own children namely. So I did make a separate, lighter WordPress site for things I love. Writing, books, family story….all the better things. But I can’t figure out how to search on here. I do want both of my sites to “follow” each other. I can’t find a way to do it. How do I do a general search by name, email or username? (I hope I make sense!)

    Like

    1. How do I do a general search by name, email or username?

      We don’t offer search by name, email, etc. as we do our very best to ensure our users’ privacy. You can, on the other hand, look up the other blog in the Reader by looking for aless-common tag that you’ve used — once you see the blog post come up, you can follow that blog from the Reader. That said, two blogs can’t really “follow” each other — it’s individual users who follow each other, so if your two sites are under the same account, you’ll effectively be following your own sites.

      Liked by 1 person