The Rules For My Blog

As some of you may already know, I have been running my site for a very long time. I started out when I was in my early teenage years and here, I am a couple years short of turning thirty. Blogging and writing has become a very large part of my life and I adore doing it. However, over the years I have learnt things about the online space and that made me adopt rules for my own site.

Because of that, I thought that today I would share with you some of the rules for my blog. Things that I expect and other things that I will not tolerate on my site. The reason for doing this is to share that this is my site, and I will police it how I see fit. I also encourage other to do the same.

 

 

My site is a space to be open and kind.

The first rule for my blog is that this is a place to be open. If you have visited my site before, you will know that I talk about all topics here. Whether it be family life, work, mental health and so much more, I speak about it all. No matter what the subject, I want it to be handled in a calm and kind way. I understand that some people instantly go to being negative by instinct, but my site is not that place to do that.

 

Consistency will always occur.

This is very much a rule that I abide by and that is consistency. Because of my OCD, I have firm plans and I like to stick to them. One of them is around consistency and ensuring that I show up on my site on a regular basis. It can be hard and over the years there have been times where I have struggled, but I have always gone there in the end. Whether it is consistency in posting, commenting, replying, etc. Everything has a plan and I make sure that I stick to it at all times. For me, it makes me love it so much more!

 

Challenging conversations are accepted in a respectful manner.

One thing that I have always loved is that we are able to have challenging conversations here on my site. I like to talk about topical news and that means that sometimes we can get heated in the comments. I am always happy for those discussions and debates to be here on my site. However, I have firm rules about keeping it respectful. I never want to supress people or stop a conversation due to my own views, but there is a line that cannot be crossed. On my site, it is my job to make sure that others in the conversation feel comfortable and safe on my site.

 

Always act with integrity.

Within the blogging space, it can be difficult to act with integrity and some brands done make it easy. For example, back in the day I used to get PR from Charlotte Tilbury. Back then, I would pinch myself because I couldn’t believe that one of my favourite brands noticed me and added me to their list. However, I received a product that I didn’t vibe with and to be honest, it was terrible. I wrote an honest review and instantly I received an email asking me to remove or amend then post and then I was struck from their PR list. It makes it hard to want to do the right thing. But I pride myself on always doing the right thing!

 

To try to push myself.

I never want to be complacent with my site and what I create. I always want to push myself, learn more and do more. This is much more of a rule for me rather than anybody else. I don’t want my site just to be something that ticks over, I want to improve it, grow it and reach amazing heights. Not necessarily with this site, but in my freelance business, however the two are very closely linked.  If I am ever feeling too comfortable, I need to think about what I can do to push myself a little bit further.

 

Zero tolerance for hate.

The final thing that I am going to mention in the rules for my blog is quite possibly one of the most important. That is that my site has zero tolerance for hate of any kind. Whether it is sexist, racist, homophobic or anything else. If you cannot be accepting, you cannot be on my page. A number of years ago, I developed a lovely relationship with a follower blogger who was of Nigerian descent. Every time she commented on one of my posts, somebody would comment leaving quite possibly the most disgusting comments that I had ever seen. I deleted comments, blocked them and even tracked them down personally and wrote to their employer about their behaviour.

 

As always, I hope that you guys enjoyed this blog post and learning about the rules for my blog. They are all simple things that you would hope would be abided by without mention. However, over the years I have seen things that go against these things, whether it be on my own site or by other creators in the space. I think that these things really help to tie me into my own core values and create a space and site that I am proud to run. Following this, I would love to hear from you guys. Do you have any rules for your site? How do you police your site and the content/comment on there? What do you think about the rules for my blog?