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Monday 5 May 2014

A to Z reflections


April saw me participating in the A to Z challenge
 http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

This was a fabulously interesting challenge in which each day except Sundays was given a letter of the alphabet to connect the daily content to. The purpose was to have people visiting blogs they might not otherwise have been to,increase blog traffic, make new friends, gather new followers for our own content and to explore the networking possibilities.  I found myself reading some awesome content on various blogs.

There were a few difficulties involved. Finding good content to share that matched the letter of the day. Some people wrote to a theme which seemed to be helpful. I had a wide vague theme of writing and writing is what I did. I shared some of my art, my poetry, my reading and reviews and some of my thoughts on various subjects and had some terrific feedback from people who took the time to take a look and respond.

I had difficulties with wordpress so had to unfollow anyone I followed using that platform. That wasn't an A to Z problem. 
I found people who moderated their contents AND used a 'captcha' made it very difficult for me. I found 'captcha' hard to decipher and irritating so generally if there were double protective measures like that I didn't visit again. I think if someone is that paranoid about their safety they should stay out of public challenges. I didn't know I had the 'captcha' this switched on and quickly removed it when I found out.
 I tried to leave a comment on some blogs that gave no option for comments, they only wanted followers and I am not interested in hard sell. I like to come back, think about it, make up my mind in my own time and I wont be pressured into linking, buying or signing up for anything without a good reason. If I go to a party, I would like to say hello to a lot of people but I am not going to visit any of them next day when we have just met so trying to force me to sign up to a blog feels like being coerced into coming back whether I want to or not.

The good things were that I met(virtually) a lot of very interesting people. I visited blogs I would never have known of before. I read some astoundingly good blogs on  hundreds of different subjects. I had the awesome pleasure of learning more about my world and the beautiful people and cultures that make it so fantastic. I gained some new followers interested in what I have to write about. I linked to some and followed some terrific blogs that add value to my life.
Writing every day in a way which I knew was going to be read by others made me more aware of my quality of content. I wanted to be sure that while I was writing my blog first for myself it also had to be worthy of the people who came to visit and that was an important adjustment to have.

Overall I felt the A to Z challenge was an excellent activity to add to the many others I was doing during April. Thank you to the organisers of it I will be back next year for sure. :)

12 comments:

  1. Couldn't agree with you more on joining something to leave a comment, the captcha's...both to me are like inviting someone to your house and when the ring door bell....not bothering to answer. ERRRRRRRRRRRRR. Thanks for the visit and thoughtful comment. I am your newest follower. I don't consider myself a writer, but...happy to cheer you on.

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    1. welcome to my blog Sandy :) Pleased to have you here.

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  2. I found the visiting and commenting very time consuming also. I did enjoy some of the new blogs I found and enjoyed being found by new people. The capcha has got to be the worst. I was innundated with spam during the challenge and had to disable comments for my old posts, which fixed the problem.

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    1. I had to be pretty disciplined to make it through visiting, chatting, commenting and writing my own blog content. I am relaxing a bit now that it is over but will crank up the action again in a few days. :)

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  3. Congratulations on completing the challenge :) And yes! Definitely captcha and no comments only follow were a big no no during the challenge!

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    1. Thank you :) At least we have learned something from those irritants.

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  4. This is a much more well thought out Reflections post than mine LOL. Did you really come across blogs without the ability to comment? What's that all about? I really don't like that AT ALL. And I hear you on the "captcha" thing. Hate it. Can't ever read it. Always get it wrong.
    Thanks for visiting my blog!
    ~Katie
    TheCyborgMom
    Visual Proof

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    1. There were quite a few blogs I could not comment on. I tried to visit ten a day and probably came across two each time. I either had to sign up or I had to do the various styles of captcha and wait for the comment to be moderated and approved, sometimes all three and sometimes there was nothing. It was so difficult to find things on some blogs. Next year will be interesting to see if that changes.

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  5. Hi Cecilia .. I had not thought those blogs were just trying to get followers - a possibility ... I know on occasions I couldn't follow - Google bombed me out .. but I think that happens on occasions ...

    Captcha is a pain .. but the organisers highlight 'switch it off' ... and I actually mention it .. if I come across someone in the challenge with it still on ...

    Glad you enjoyed yourself though .. it's fun meeting new people etc .. cheers Hilary

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    1. thanks for visiting Hilary. I will be sure to sign up next year.

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  6. I think I got quite lucky this year and didn't really come across any CAPCHAs but it is frustrating when you write a nice comment and then can't get it to post because of the illegible word you've got to decipher.

    Sounds like you had a really good challenge, though. Congratulations on finishing. :-)

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  7. Hello there.
    Congratulations on completing the challenge! Thanks for sharing. I'm just stopping by briefly as I drive around on the 2014 A-Z Road Trip…don't forget to wave when you see me go by! (lol)

    Entrepreneurial Goddess

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Thank you for taking the time to read my chatter and look at my pictures. I hope you found something to brighten your day. <3