Blog Design Blog has an article today called 17 Resources for Creating a Blog Design - no prizes for guessing what it’s about. An old post from Jeff Atwood is included which lists 13 Blog Clichés. The irony of both posts being numbered lists is not lost on me but Atwood’s clichés are more a list of things that he doesn’t like to see on blogs. Some of them, like a calendar in the sidebar, I agree with but number 6, ‘The Nebulous Tag Cloud’, is a view I don’t share.
Personally, I find that weighted tag lists give an immediate idea as to what someone blogs about the most and whilst a list with post counts, as he recommends, gives the same idea, it’s not as obvious. People who tag, rather than using a hierarchal structure, tend to use far more tags that they would categories which would mean scanning down a list and comparing post counts. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t fit the Don’t Make Me Think mantra. Do you agree with Atwood? Or do you, like me, find weighted tag clouds useful?
Got any other clichés you think should have made the list?
One Comment
He just sounds like an annoying fusspot to me.