Note to all bloggers:
Please do not LIKE a posting unless you tell me why you LIKE a posting. Use the comment feature to say why you like it, and please point out any perceived deficiencies in my blog. I will respond to your comments, including a critical response, provided that the criticism is constructive rather than destructive.
A pox on the LIKE feature that Word Press makes available to its readers. Perhaps not all, but certainly many and perhaps most of the readers that click on the LIKE feature are simply inviting the blogger to visit their own blog.
That’s horribly selfish and denotes a character failure on the part of the visitor, that is to say “on the part of the reader who clicks the LIKE feature.” If one likes something someone has said or written or photographed, or a combination of all three features, then tell them why the feature is likeable.
Was it the writing? Was it the composition of the image? Was the posting perfect, or was it perhaps flawed? If one feels that some change is needed, whether correcting, deleting or adding would improve the posting, point it out. Bring the author’s attention to what is considered to be a flaw, whether in composition, spelling, grammar or camera settings. Tell the blogger why you like their posting, even if your liking includes honest and constructive criticism.
If your liking is followed by a but, as in “I like your work, but . . . ,” that would morph your visit to the blog into a teachable moment for the author. Otherwise it is nothing more than an invitation to “Hey, click here to see a really great blog and while you’re there, check out what I have for sale!”
Clicking on the LIKE feature in order to avoid commenting on a posting is tantamount to a drive-by shooting. In some instances the person hit is the wrong target, and that person (assuming that person survives) will always wonder why they became a target, just as the blogger you LIKE will never know why you liked or disliked the post.
And finally, here is my suggestion to Word Press:
Make the LIKE feature a two-part feature, as in LIKE or DO NOT LIKE. If one likes a post, tell why it is likeable and if not, why not. The target should always have the option to reject the response or to accept it and respond to the comment, whether liked or not liked. Most bloggers, if they are true to themselves, will accept and respond to genuine constructive criticism, just as most bloggers will respond to genuine praise.
Remember the joke about the strange animal that ambled onto a family camp-site in a wooded park at dinner time? The unwanted visitor gobbled down the family dinner, picked up a shotgun leaning against a tree, fired one shot, replaced the shotgun and then vanished into the forest. The father asked if anyone knew what kind of animal that was, and one of the children said it was a giant panda bear. The father asked how he knew that, and the child replied, “A panda bear always eats shoots and leaves.”
It’s highly unlikely that one or more of my readers might wonder how that joke is germane to this posting, but I feel compelled to explain it. That panda bear is the shooter in a drive-by shooting and that family, one of many others camped in the park, was the wrong target. They will always wonder why the shooter chose them, just as a blogger will always wonder why a visitor checked
the LIKE feature provided by Word Press.
Got it?
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
The King of Texas 
theuglymoose
March 14, 2012 at 10:21 am
I liked you posting because it had that panda picture. I also noticed some words which looked really pretty. I wonder what they say.
thekingoftexas
March 14, 2012 at 5:36 pm
I reviewed my post and I went to your blog to see if it contained any “really pretty” words that would make me “wonder what they say.” I read many of your postings and encountered no words that escaped my understanding. I compared your writing with mine and found that you have a decent vocabulary—not great but decent and above average, and a vivid imagination. I doubt seriously that you encountered any words on my blog that were beyond your ability to comprehend. Perhaps your comment was an attempt at humor, a simple jest from one blogger to another, and in that vein simple is the operative word.
I won’t embarrass you by commenting on your blog about your invariable misplacement of commas and periods that follow a word or words encapsulated in quotation marks. Commas and periods that follow such a word or words belong in the sentence within the quotation marks, never outside the word or words that are quoted and identified as quotes. Commas and periods should never be placed outside the quotation marks—they belong within the last quotation mark.
Larry
March 14, 2012 at 10:44 am
To further clarify and expand your suggestion to Word Press, you might consider suggesting that they change their name to “Words Press”. They might follow your suggestions by making Word plural, rather than singular. The name would then more accurately describe the content. But then again, they may just click on “Like”.
thekingoftexas
March 14, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Thanks for visiting and thanks for the comment. Changing the word Word in Word Press from the singular to the plural—Words Press—would not “more accurately describe the content.” The change would simply tell the reader that more than one word can be expected, and in that vein simply or simple is the operative word. Incidentally, your comment shows two misplaced periods, the one in Words Press and the one in like. Commas and periods always belong within the quotes, and never outside. I’m sure you are aware of that rule and you probably just forgot it.
Be well,
Mike
Larry
March 14, 2012 at 6:06 pm
LIKE
thekingoftexas
March 15, 2012 at 10:25 am
Why?
Larry
March 15, 2012 at 3:08 pm
Because the bar of my “simple philosophy for a simple life” chart is coming very close to the x axis.
thekingoftexas
March 15, 2012 at 9:01 pm
An excellent response! Please accept a belated Happy Birthday from your favorite maternal uncle. Yep, I have to be your favorite because I am the only one that remains extant.
I’m getting close to the end of my x-axis, but I’m sorta proud of the height of my y-axis. Actually, my flat-line has given a few blips in the recent past, a few burps if you will, comparable to the patient that flat-lines but regains a few peaks to go with the valleys, and even sometimes keeps giving for a considerable length of time—not always, but sometimes. In truth, I have learned the importance of giving, which of course is the opposite of getting. I keep looking over my shoulder and know now that I was the recipient far more often than I gave.
I just read the above and I noticed that it is some somber ****, so I quit—hey, that rhymes!
Be well,
Mike