No(t too much) offense, but this post is terrible. Your blog has potential — it targets an underserved group on The Hill — but posts like this will kill it.

This is just a really, really dumb idea.

It’s not that I’m not interested in sights in the area. Instead, it’s that this “feature” is an even less interesting knock-off of similar posts on other area blogs, most obviously and most frequently Prince of Petworth. However, unlike those, which are at least subjectively interesting because they’re less structured and have been ongoing for some time, this bit is forced and hackneyed. If you’re going to copy other blogs’ content, at least pick the good parts and do it well.

I appreciate that you’re defending your own by complimenting another contributor to this blog, but if you’re trying to build credibility with new readership, I can tell you from at least this reader’s perspective that this “feature” is weak and uninteresting to the point that it detracts from the rest of your content. With a blog, your only currency is the quality of your content, and with this, your trading value is dropping fast.

To be clear, it’s not commentary; it’s criticism. As a potentially loyal reader (I have been reading your blog since the 2nd day of posts), this is the first post that gave me a clear target to voice this criticism.

I don’t mean to be a troll, and I expect to contribute in less “harsh” ways with comments going forward. However, this post is a clear example of a common mistake made by a young blog: copying what works (sort of) for another, more established blog. In this case, this is a poor copy of a common feature on other area blogs, most notably Prince of Petworth. The difference is that those have an active readership that quickly responds, and the commentary drives site traffic. There, the content of this sort of post doesn’t matter because there is an established readership that will comment on anything, already drawn there by a history of more valuable content.

This site, however, has no such active readership nor the traffic to allow you to get away with such weak content. The only people (other than me) who are commenting on this are you, the contributors. (Notice that no one else has chimed in that they like this.) That should be a tip-off that this post is not working.

If you want “features” that drive traffic, then you need to focus on creating good content. Once you have that and the traffic that follows it, then you can use gimmicks like this to nudge that traffic upward a little with repeated views of these commentary threads. Until then, posts like this hurt this blog because you’re spending time on them instead of on features that are worthwhile. For a counter example, the “5 Questions” feature that someone posted a week or so ago is good content. The other, sporadic posts have also generally been good content. A post like this is filler, and I commented to (hopefully) convince you to put a stop to this sort of thing straight away because it hurts your blog. I would like you to succeed because I live on the Hill, and you acting as a content provider that keeps all of the goings-on in one place has value for me (and, I assume, is the value that you hope drives people to your site). If you would like to play “Stoop Stump” with one another, then you should probably just take that to e-mail.

I think that the point I’ve made here is as clear as it is going to get, so I’ll leave you with that. I don’t wish to be a constant naysayer, and I hope that you take this for what it is: constructive criticism from a concerned reader that would like this blog to succeed.

Here’s my two cents. You know what they say re imitation and flattery. But Silence has a bit of a point re the challenge of engaging folks when you are still building traffic.

Me? I really like the idea of *seeing* the stoops of the Hill. Not so fond of the idea of *guessing* where they are, since I’m not about to be successful. I don’t care for the similar feature one of the blogs (Washingtonian? DCist?) does with “guess where the tiny architectural detail in the photo is from” either!

Good luck on your growing pains. Am happy to have you in the reader.

I always find the “what is that new business going up?” type of posts to be most usefull. For example, does anyone know the staus of Joe Englert’s purchase of that snack shop on the corner of Penn and Potomac Ave?

Kate(s) — I realized that was a mistake, but I didn’t post to correct it (and I know that other readers made the same mistake). However, my greater point stands, and the harshness of the criticism was intentional. I wanted my point to be very clear. This feature (and any like it) as it currently exists is bad, and it detracts from the blog. To that end, my delivery was not unfair at all — it was meant to be effective, not gentle.

I made my point harshly to draw attention to it and (hopefully) to convince the contributors to focus their energies on content that will drive traffic in the hopes that this site can become successful. However harsh, I believe that my comments were reasoned and thoughtful. I did not criticize the poster or the blog, only this type of post. Doing such a thing is a common mistake that new blogs make, and it is a symptom of a common misconception, that you can write without a devoted readership the same as you can with one. That is not true. What drives traffic in an established blog can weigh down and drive people away from a new one. The focus should be on strong content, not gimmicky knock-offs of another blog’s ideas.

I have a selfish interest in this blog succeeding because I would like to be able to get information on my neighborhood without cobbling it together from the other city blogs. So, I wanted to make my point loud and clear, and, based on the number of responses, I think that I might have done just that. I hope that the end result of this harshness is a better product. In that case, I expect that I will not have to be similarly harsh going forward.