1. Thou shalt keep thy commitment. – Please, don’t just start a blog, make posts for two months, and give up. Every time somebody does this, that’s another corpse of a dead URL rotting away on the Internet forever. Another dead end for somebody to find on the end of a search. Stay in or don’t start.

2. Thou shalt give visitors a reason to come. – Really, if I spent all my time here nattering about my view from Planet Me, I’d be amazed if anybody showed up. So I have a whole archive of helpful tutorials and HOWTOs as well as humor and when I indulge in commentary, I try to at least perform so the visitor is glad they clicked my link. Like any product, blogs should have a selling point.

3. Thou shalt strive to stay running. – Nothing is more frustrating than putting up content that grabs people’s attention, and then hosting it on a server that goes belly-up the first hour after it makes it to Digg. Be prepared for heavy traffic and have a strategy, like backing up to an alternate URL, or making a static page on the fly.

4. Thou hast no cause to seek quarrel. – There’s a thin line between engaging in a healthy debate with other bloggers, and being a flaming idiot. Sure, there’s bloggers out there I disagree with. I say so. There’s bloggers out there whom I find worth making fun of. And when I do, I make sure that it’s “fun” and not “mean”. A “blogwar” that goes only for two posts may make the audience enjoy it over popcorn, but longer than that and you’re losing readers.

5. Thou shalt think out of the box. – Sometimes, it’s good to post a really wild, out-there idea that won’t get a lot of acceptance. The best debates are always attached to the most controversial posts. After all, I have comments on this site for a reason, and the biggest reward I have is reading what some of my visitors think. In addition, radical ideas are worth throwing out there. Nine out of ten will be bunk, and then the tenth one comes along and we have a revolution.

6. Thou shalt not write for Digg. – Linkbait is nice every now and then, but a steady diet of it is like trying to live on just candy. I’d rather the links come to me organically. If it gets popular, it gets popular, but I’ve learned over time that trying to predict what the audience will swarm on next and trying to write that is just a waste of everybody’s time.

7. Thou shalt admit when thou hast error’d. – Everybody’s human. I usually try to admit when I’m wrong, and allow people to disagree with me. I try not to take it personally. Really, the mantra is, “Every time you admit a mistake and correct yourself, you’ve improved just a little bit.” I’m shooting for the A-list here. but I’m not there yet, so I know I have some improvement yet to make.

8. Thy blog is thy living room. – I try to keep a nice page for guests to feel comfortable. I have to look at it as much as anybody else, so I make it comfortable for me, too. And I apologize to readers who have come here in the past to find some annoying ad had a bug that was making it intrusive. I jump on these problems and try to fix them as soon as I can.

9. Thou shalt not take thyself too seriously. – yeah, I tell personal acquaintances, I blog. Doesn’t everybody? While I have passionate opinions and personal pet peeves, I post more to release them than to dwell on them. And always, I try to keep a sense of humor about myself. If I’m not well-received this week, it’s not the end of the world.

10. Thou shalt enjoy it to the fullest. – I can look back on a broad post archive, and all the little dramas and funny moments along the way, and enjoy the sense of accomplishment. And getting a beer from a reader is also a great reward. yes, I assure you, I enjoy those the most!

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