April may bring showers…

There has been numerous blog posts about etiquette. Especially blogging etiquette.

Don’t do this. Don’t do that. How should you present this? How do you do that? What is the right way? Who says this is wrong? WHO – in turn – makes these decisions on what is best for the “whole” in regards to blogging within Second Life? (I say this toward those who blog Fashion.) While compiling posts and such for [SL] Blogger Support, I came across many forms of what to do and what not to do. Neither one post was perfect, nor was it imperfect. Most said the same thing, while some regarded different ideas.

So what I wanted to do was this: Compile everything that WE KNOW on Blogging Etiquette. If you think about it, we are the ones that do the blogging – and that means EVERYONE. We all have ideas, and thoughts in how things should be done. We all do things in our own ways. Yet, when there is someone new to Second Life Blogging, we’d like for them to know the ins and outs, right? I know I had not a clue on how to do a thing when I first started, so I had to stumble and fumble my way through a lot of things. I forgot to credit items, or give SLURLS. I almost did put music on my blog, but decided against it!

So how are we going to do this? Well, you know I love Google Documents so I made it very easy! Click HERE and you’ll be taking to a form to fill out. Give us five things you THINK are things that we should as bloggers know to do, or learn to do. We’ll collect the data until April 15th, in which then we’ll compile the Top 25 Blogging Tips to make Second Life Blogging a breeze! Enjoy!

Blogging Etiquette: To send or not

Before I get started, this is more of an opinion blog than anything. What I say, is foremost my own opinion. Whether you chose to agree with me or not is up to you, but these are my thoughts.

Here in the support group, we use this blog to promote bloggers in Second Life. These bloggers are from different areas and not only are they fashion related, but they are also people who do not blog fashion but use Second Life as a creative outlet for their art. So in a way, we are all bloggers but we are all different. Of course, in looking at this site you would really take note that we do cater a lot to those within the fashion industry of Second Life. We’re proud of this fact and encourage bloggers 100%. Those of us here take the time to gather information for everyone. We take the time to find out about upcoming events, coordinators that are looking for bloggers and designers that are looking for bloggers. Since we do that, we make it easy for designers who are looking to connect with bloggers and it also helps designers from getting un-necessary notecards from bloggers when they are not looking for bloggers at that time or at all.

One of the things that I find is that the biggest thing that disgruntles designers are those who completely disregard what they have stated in their profile and/or on their blog that at the moment they are not accepting bloggers. This means those notecards that get sent, may or may not get looked at.

To be honest, if you’re a blogger and you’ve never blogged an item (or even more than two items) in which you are sending a notecard too – it’s not appropriate. Bloggers are not entitled to review copies just because they like something. Nor should they ask a designer for a review copy just because. If you really like what a designer is showcasing, then go out and purchase the item to blog. Designers love it when you blog their items just because you really like the items.

It’s really quite simple: Blogging is about enjoyment. Yes, it’s nice to get on a “list” or blog for certain designers. It’s great fun to blog for events. But a lot of those who have been blogging a long time will tell you the same thing: Work for it. Blogging isn’t about getting “free” items.

If you know that a designer is accepting blogger notecards (which Valena posted a really good blog post on and how to do your “resume“), follow their instructions from within their profile and/or blog. Most often you will find out a designer is looking for bloggers either through the support group here, Blogging Second Life, Plurk and Flickr.

What is in a Name?

I’ve been thinking long and hard on this: What exactly is in a name? I don’t mean the one we carry in “real life” but the one’s we give ourselves in Second Life to showcase who we are and what we’re about. We name our avatars, our pets, our homes, our land, our stores and our designs. We even name our blogs – which is for us bloggers a huge thing, because a good name will stand out in the crowd.

Choosing my blog name was easy: I wanted simple. I wanted to use my nickname. It’s no secret that my “main” avi’s name is Douleur and for about seven years now I’ve been called Dou (this ongoing from The Sims Online, MySpace – to Second Life and even Twitter on my RL account.) Hence: “Simply Dou” was born. As for Katya, she was originally meant to be an avi I made for a friend that was to play in Second Life. She wanted a Russian name and for her to be blonde. I did all those things, but my friend never actually came into Second Life so Katya became mine and Katy came to be.

So – about these names. How did you choose your name for yourself? 

• Was it similar to your real name?
• Did you care really what it would be?
• Do you wish you could change it? (Yes, I know we have a feature to display change our name, but really – people can still see when your first name was sexymissbarbie gossipgirl.)

I bet we all have a bunch of stories! Hope you’ll share yours.