Determining my S.Q.

My SQ is my "Shamus Quotient". How do I derive my Shamus Quotient? By simply assessing how my blog stands up to Shamus's list of commonalities amongst the blogs he reads. Since he's linked me a few times lately and commented here, I hope I fall at least into the "somewhat approved" category, even though my knowledge of anime is pretty much limited to the films of Hayao Miyazaki (whose work I utterly adore).

Anyhow, here are his seven commonalities. (I call them "commonalities" because I assume he doesn't sit with a checklist and strike blogs from his reading list if they fail to meet them all. But maybe he does. Hmmmmm!)

1. Informal, conversational style.

I think I'm more conversation than not, although I do tend to in my writing employ longer sentences than I do when I'm speaking, since when I read stuff myself I find that I take particular delight in a long sentence that is artfully crafted. Yeah, like that.

But then, I do use words like "yeah", "meh", and "dumb-ass" quite a lot, and those are definitely conversational words. So I'll mark myself down for this one.

2. I like people who use their real names more than those who use pseudonyms, and I like pseudonyms better than pure anonymity.

Hmmmm. Do I count as being pseudonymous still? I just realized that my real name isn't on the blog itself, but it is very easy to find via my various links under the "Your Humble Narrator" section of the sidebar. I'm not militant about my use of "Jaquandor" as a Net identity anymore, and nowadays, other bloggers seem about as likely to refer to me as "Kelly" as they are as "Jaquandor" or "Jaq". Since my real name is no mystery at all, I'll just mark myself down as meeting this one as well.

(Thus far nobody's referred to me as "that weirdo in overalls", but I figure that's gotta come sooner or later.)

3. No ads.

Check. No ads here, with the exception of the links to my own tip jar and the link to my eBay auctions, none of which I even have going at the moment. (I'll be getting back into that sometime soon, though.) I've occasionally considered signing up for Google Ads or BlogAds, but I don't want a third column on my blog, and I've given a lot of thought to the order in which stuff appears in my sidebar, and I wouldn't want to supplant any of that for some ads. If I ever make money from blogging, I'd like it to be because someone somewhere decided to contract me out for either a pro-blogging gig or for an article or two, not because of advertising here in my own space.

So, worry not, steadfast readers: Byzantium's Shores will remain ad-free (unless, of course, the Blogger people decide to force ads upon me, in which case I would probably ditch them and move the blog elsewhere).

4. I prefer dark lettering on light backgrounds.

My color scheme isn't exactly black-letters-on-white-background, but it still satisfies the criterion, I think.

5. I prefer to read what adults have to say, and I’m not talking about age here.

I'm torn here. Given certain subjects, I either write like a wisen'd adult (the saga of Little Quinn), or like a twelve-year-old fanboy (Star Wars). I'll give myself half a point here.

6. I like one-author blogs better than group blogs, but only because I like to know who I’m reading.

I've never even used a guest-poster for my hiatuses. Check.

Shamus also wishes that group blogs would put an icon denoting the poster at the top of posts. I haven't seen this either, but I have seen group blogs that put the poster's name at the top of the posts, like Making Light, About Last Night, and the Dead Parrots Society.


7. I like some info about the author.

Check, unless he means direct info right on the main page. One will, however, learn enough about me to know where I'm coming from by perusing the stuff under "Your Humble Narrator" in the sidebar.

So, my SQ turns out to be 6.5. Huzzah!