Deprecating Blog Titles

First, let me say that I am very guilty of what I am about to write about.

With that out of the way, let's press forward.

I have long wondered why many people title their blogs in a self-deprecating manner. I have informally studied the titles of blogs and have seen a very sad trend. Of the blogs that my friends operate, many of them are titled in a self-deprecating fashion. Consider these:
"Diversionary thoughts of graduate research, pondered instead of pursuing legitimate thoughts of graduate research..."
"the unequivocally undeniable rantings of a ..."

However, I think that the problem is wider. I looked through a list of all the Microsoft Blog titles. Superficially, these are supposed to be professional weblogs that are hosted by Microsoft for their employees. They are meant to provide information to the community about the inner workings of Microsoft and their products. However, a significant number of the blogs were titled in a self-deprecating manner! If you were the administrator of such a site, would you want your employees portraying themselves in a less-than-favorable light?

Note that I am not saying the administrators should censor things written in these blogs that may be bad for the company. Rather, I am suggesting that Microsoft would want blog readers to believe their employers aren't idiots.

Do you think that when people choose the titles of their blogs they are trying to lower their reader's expectations? Would a new blogger prefer to have their readers expect little and be pleasantly surprised? I think that it is definitely harder to title the blog self-importantly and try to live up to those expectations post after post!

I think that a nice middle ground would be to title the blog factually. If you are going to write about compilers, title it something like "Compiler Blog". If you are going to write about pop culture, title it "Culture Clash". Or, if you are going to write about me, title it "Boring!"

See, I did it again!