Reflections on your survey feedback

I recently published a survey for readers of my blog to complete. Thank you to all who did it! I sort of felt like I was asking questions just to get other people to confirm my own thoughts about my blog, but I read each and every response, and I’ve decided to write about the feedback in detail.

Positive feedback

Most feedback was positive. I am really touched by those of you who said that I should keep doing what I’m doing, that I’m your favourite blogger, that you’ve been following me for years, or that you love everything I write. I wish I could thank you all personally, but I did make the survey responses anonymous so that you would feel comfortable being honest.

I think I almost cried when I read someone’s comment, ‘Never go away, please :)’. And the fact that a lot of you, though not subscribed to my blog, have it bookmarked, or your computer remembers it, made me really happy too. It’s crazy to see that over the years, my blog grew with the more tutorials and graphics that I added, and my writing style and my life changed, but even after taking them away, people still continue to read my blog. It seems that all the topics I have explored on my blog are liked by at least one person.

Thank you guys. 💖

Less positive feedback

I won’t say ‘negative’, but there were a few very honest comments about dislikes.

On my attitude (it’s not as bad as it sounds)

Someone said that they stopped interacting with my blog many years ago because I was rude to them.

I’m now 24. I was once an angsty, rude teenager, and I know that in my time I was rude and often pretentious, and I did judge people and I was not nice to everyone. To whomever that was, I’m really sorry that I behaved that way towards you, and I’m sorry to anyone else I might have been bitchy to in those website reviews I used to write; for starting arguments; for criticising your grammar or way of writing in the comments of my blog posts.

While we all have some kind of reputation, I also thank the many people who have not judged me.

On my relationships and personal life

Someone mentioned that I get mushy over Nick (though the same person said they are happy that I am happy), while another person said I don’t blog about my dates as much as I did in my previous relationships. :(

I’ll be honest.

It’s been a tough past two years. The end of my previous relationship, and the beginning of my current relationship – not to mention the problems I had in between – were extremely hard to document in words. But I wanted to write about it eventually, because – like one of you mentioned – I stay true to my blog.

I also experienced harsh discrimination with a company I used to work for, and right now, it still doesn’t feel a hundred percent right to publish the post I have written about my experience (even though I have done no naming-and-shaming).

I spent a lot of time trying to write my feelings in a way that felt right. I was also not comfortable with writing about my feelings because of friends and family who might read my blog, and because I wasn’t ready.

Nick and I have had a lot of dates, and we do see each other every day, but the past two years have also been extremely busy, where I finished my masters degree in 2013 and started working long hours. Also, amusingly, I didn’t want to write about all the dates because I was worried I would sound mushy. I suppose those posts translated into those occasional posts about love.

On my professional life

My blog has become a bit more ‘professional’, as some of you noticed.

Someone said they missed my personal posts. I do too.

I don’t want to head too far in the direction of ‘professional blogger’, and I will make sure of that. Although, as I get older and spend a lot of my weekdays working, I hope you can all understand that I have my dream job working as a web developer for a company I love. I truly enjoy it, and a lot of my posts will be related to work because that is what I love doing. :)

I did consider having a separate professional blog but I love this space too much! And from experience, having separate blogs for different topics has not worked for me.

Questions and suggestions

The LZRGUN Manifesto

Someone asked about the LZRGUN Manifesto [page no longer exists). Hardly anyone visits that page, so I’m happy that someone asked about it.

LZRGUN is actually my car plate and I already wrote about it briefly a year ago, in December 2014’s A Day in the Life post. I don’t think the Manifesto will be on its own page anymore, I am thinking of rewriting it in more detail in a future post.

The same person also wanted to see it referenced more in posts. I think that is why I started the Live simply series. ;)

Old tutorials and themes

A lot of you miss the tutorials. I’m not sure if you all noticed, but about 85% of my old ones from 2009 are at tuts.by.georgie.nu. I guess that was not obvious since I only linked to it on my 404 page in case someone tried to visit a tutorial by way of an old URL. 😜 (Or by Holly plugging it so many times – thanks girl!) Sorry about that. I was thinking of moving them back here but I’m not sure.

Someone mentioned my free WordPress themes I used to make. I don’t really have time for that anymore – two years ago I did plan to make a new set of simpler and more customisable themes but I never made that a priority. I wanted to, but I’m sorry that I don’t care enough about it to do it. My old ones are available to download, but I won’t be updating them.

Blog design

There were a few suggestions about the colour and design of my blog. I will be making some changes to the design this month. But unfortunately for those of you who hate it, I’ve chosen the colour teal for my ‘branding’, so the colour won’t change any time soon, haha.

Conclusion

I am not changing anything on my blog to try to please everyone, but I appreciated the feedback. It was interesting seeing that people who had zero interest in fashion, web development or any interviews were interested in reading more posts about my life. And those who did not like mundane life posts or poetry really liked my fashion posts and interviews. There was no clear divide.

I’ll be shifting some of these segments around and focussing a bit less on them, but I’ll be revealing more details later. I’m still here to stay – that’s the number one thing! I just want to reiterate the above notes on my personal life – I know I have written about my depression and other feelings in the past but sometimes writing about that kind of stuff is difficult.

Thank you again to everyone who did the survey, you really helped. You can still take the survey if you like, but I’ll be closing it eventually. :D