This post is at the request of some members of the judging panel for the recent TWIM Awards for excellence in mental health blogging.
When Pan and I asked the judges to decide which blogs they thought were the best, we didn’t actually give them any criteria as such – judges were left to form their own views as to what makes for a great mental health blog. It’s been suggested that it might be useful for next year’s TWIM Awards to come up with some sort of criteria, and that it might be worthwhile trying to crowdsource the criteria by gaining feedback from readers.
So, with that in mind, what do you think makes for a great mental health blog? What blogs do you like, and why do you like them?
To get the ball rolling, Sectioned, who was one of the TWIM Awards judges, has provided some suggestions for a future set of judging criteria.
- accessiblity – eg a blog written in tiny black text on a vivid green background; or which is hard to navigate your way round would lose points
– writing style – ie nicely written, in paragraphs rather than just pages and pages without punctuation;
– quality of contents – whether the posts were informative (eg rather than just a rant!)
– relevant content to the category (eg a blog ostensibly about autism that spoke primarily about food would lose marks)
– presentation (eg pretty pictures, looks nice)
I’d agree with all of these. I’d also add a further criterion, which is
distinctiveness. Does the blog say things that aren’t necessarily being said elsewhere? A good example of this is
Mental Health Cop, which not only won Blogger NOS at the TWIM Awards, but also the Mark Hanson Award for Digital Media at the Mind Media Awards. Before this blog was started, a lot of people simply didn’t think about the role of the police in mental health issues, and I think Inspector Brown has done a good job not only in educating his colleagues, but also demonstrating that their role is bigger than one might assume.
Writing style is definitely an important one for me.
Chaos and Control, which won the Wildcard Award, and was a runner-up in the Anxiety, Stress or Trauma category, is probably my favourite example of this. Her writing style is quirky, but also very accessible. She draws the reader into the world of Happyville, populated by the likes of Dr Shrinky, Dr Down-to-Earth, Wise Friend and Housematey, adding a magical touch to the realism.
Quality of content can be seen in
Purple Persuasion, who won the Mood Disorders category. Her recent posts include informed, articulate discussions of such topics as whether to tell your work colleagues you have a mental illness, the weight gain effects of psychiatric medications, and what not to say to a friend with a mental illness. Another good example is
The Masked AMHP, who not only won Nursing, Social Work and Professions Allied to Medicine, but has actually picked up a TWIM Award for four consecutive years. This is due to the lucid way in which he describes the often complex nature of Mental Health Act decisions.
I could probably forgive good writing on a badly designed blog more quickly than bad writing on a good design. Even so, it’s true that the look and feel of a blog is very important.
Giant Fossilised Armadillo, winner in the Eating Disorders category, received praise for her use of photography and art. So too did
Aspergers and the Alien, winner in the Autistic Spectrum Disorders category.
So, those are my thoughts and Sectioned’s. What are yours?
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27 January 2013 
Umm… How about at least insisting that an Autistic Spectrum Blog is written by someone on the spectrum? Even if it’s the happy shiny everything-is-alright-really self-delusion of someone with Asperger’s?
It kinda causes a lot of divisions within the autism community when one particular brand of autism is brought to the fore.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/01/autism_neurodiversity_does_facilitated_communication_work_and_who_speaks.single.html
I don’t think we made it an explicit rule that the ASD category is by someone on the spectrum, but as far as I can tell all the bloggers who were shortlisted do appear to be.
Ah, my link broke your blog. Sorry.
This is an all things to all people kinda question; one which I applaud you peeps for approaching with a logical and analytical approach.
We all look for differing things in a blog, be it an academic approach, humour, emotional content or any number of other things. For me, it’s just finding it interesting, no matter the subject, so I suppose that comes under writing style? Like Mental Health Cop, great style & content coupled with learning. Plus so many I love for emotional content or because they just touch my soul.
Again, I don’t envy you peeps, as I’m a right blog addict, spending a good hour a day on WordPress catching up on the blogsphere as well as what’s been going on in Twitterland. a veritable social media junkie. The techno nerd may have re-trained as a nurse, but just can’t escape
So in a nutshell, I have no idea what I just said
Thank you for this post – really interesting debate about what makes a good blog. I’m guessing you are looking for the same criteria that can be used for each blog category? if that’s the case then I think you’ve hit on the key features. I always enjoy a blog if it causes me to (a) learn something I didn’t already know (b) helps me see something in a different way. I wonder if you also might want to think about any key features of a blog which align with the values or purpose of TWOM (perhaps for example illuminates awareness of mental health in a positive way) but maybe that would be overly prescriptive? Probably not especially helping musings. But it is Sunday night…
Thanks for writing the blog post. The reason I think introducing judging criteria would be a good idea is because. hopefully. awards not only passively recognise the best in their field but also aim to lift standards over time. My view is that giving people judging criteria will give them a steer on how to improve. And that will make the best even better!
I have read through this blog post and the one thing that I think is missing in those suggestions in the grey box – accessibility, writing style, quality of contents, relevant contents and presentation – is the human aspect!
I think all of those are good suggestions, but number one for me would have to be that the human aspect comes through. Not sure if that even makes sense. So happy to expand further if necessary.
While those in the grey box are good suggestions, I think those would apply as general guidelines perhaps for what makes a blog readable. Any blog. But this isn’t about any old blog. This is about a mental health blog, and that is something quite distinct. So, yeah, for me, human aspect is something very important.
As I mentioned, not sure if that requires further expansion, but happy to do so.
I quite agree. Humanity is all-important.
I like blogs that tell me about someone’s life, their struggles, their joys and sadnesses. I have always liked autobiography! I like a blog where someone’s own style comes through, where I feel I am getting to know them as a person – and not as someone who is writing an essay.
I like quirky too! That is why LittleFeet’s blog is one of my favourites!