Are You Readers Keeping You Honest?

Pamela spanked me for screwing up a link. Ian found a misspelling. Sidney got me on a PHP code error. Angie corrected a fact. Finny found four grammar errors. Andy uncovered a dead link. Barry gave me a link to a better resource.

Are your readers keeping you honest? Are they keeping track of what you are doing and letting you know when you do wrong? Are they helping you blog better?

Sure, like many, I sigh and moan when I get a blog comment that corrects my blog post, wishing the spelling police would go elsewhere, then I stop. I work my ass off to encourage readers to come back to my blog. I bust butt to give them reasons to link. It’s important to me to build a community around my blogs, so why should I whine when I’m getting what I ask for?

When I look around at the friends I label “best” in my life, they are people of all cultures and lifestyles but the have one thing in common: They tell the truth when they find it.

They are people who tell you that there is toilet paper stuck to your shoe, your slip is showing, your zipper is unzipped, you have something hanging out your nostril, and a long hair growing out of your face in a way that catches the light and makes a rainbow. Pretty, but not esthetically pleasing.

These are people who tell me when I’m being stupid in my life, when I’m making dumb decisions, then stand by me when they are proven right, continuing to call me stupid. They want to make sure I get it, long after I’ve gotten it. These are the same people in the front row cheering me on when I prepare to leap off the cliff of life, knowing I’ll be better for the leap, though dented in some new places. They are also the people who drag me off the cliff once in a while when I’ve gotten too comfortable looking at the world below and not joining it.

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So why should my blog readers be any different? Since I thrive on having these up-front honest folks around me in my physical life, why shouldn’t I attract the same in my virtual life?

Next time you get corrected or spanked for allowing your blog content to be less than its very best, consciously or unconsciously, thank them. They are working hard to help keep you honest, and trust me, that’s the best kind of friends to have around you.