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Squidoo has changed the way its Angels operate again. Now that there are more categories and sub-categories for lenses, Angels look after a particular sub-category – mine is Growing Plants. It’s a subject in which I’m interested so I enjoy looking at these pages and have given out blessings on several. I’m pleased to say that so far I haven’t come across any lenses violating the site’s Terms of Service.

I’m really happy that my page called My Father – In Memoriam has received a Purple Star. I am so pleased because it’s such a personal and emotional subject. I’ve also had several pages blessed, including one of my earliest lenses – Dartmoor, Devon. The lensmaster and angel MakingaMark is the one who blessed it and also put a link to it on her own page called The Best of the UK.

On October 5th I gave my last Squidoo Angel blessing to Of Mood and Mind Surreal Original Paintings.

From September 1st to October 5th I blessed 180 lenses and some days it took literally hours to find just five I thought were exceptionally good – take a look at the full list of blessings.

In Squidoo’s forum there is a controversy about how Angels find lenses to bless. Should they consider those for which lensmasters ask a blessing? Should they look at lists of new lenses or use a search for different subjects? Does it matter how Angels find blessworthy lenses as long as the quality is high enough?

Personally, I don’t think it matters and the whole controversy is a storm in a teacup.

I did look at links to lenses posted in the old Angels’ forum but I never expected too much from them – usuallly quite rightly although occasionally I got a pleasant surprise but a page that truly deserved a blessing. I also looked at lenses posted in the forum or on Facebook. Mostly, though, I looked at lenses made by my fans and their fans. Then I would search by broad subject areas like ‘modernism’ or ’surrealism’ or ‘Italy’. It’s quite amazing the huge variety of topics that fall within these categories. With ‘modernism’ and ’surrealism’ I expected to get lenses about art but I got many others too including history and philosophy. Even putting ‘Italy’ into Squidoo’s search engine brought a huge variety: travel in Italy, Rome, Naples, Italian food, recipes, art, glass, and much more.

What happened to my own writing and Squidoo Lenses during my Angel period? Not a lot – I made one new page: Glazed Lemon and Almond Tart and that took several days when I should have done it in just a few hours. It was a recipe so nothing that involved a huge amount of work. As for existing lenses, many of them are in urgent need of updating because I didn’t do a few each day which is my normal routine.

In spite of this, I enjoyed being an Angel. I loved the pleasure and encouragement many people got from a blessing and I would do it again but not yet. I think I’d better get my own Squidoo work up to date with a few more new pages produced first.

Every morning since the beginning of September I’ve trawled through lenses on Squidoo looking for ones to bless. I have to bless a minimum of five a day. Some days it’s fairly easy and quick to find them, other days it can take hours and involve looking at an enormous number of pages.

If I wanted, I could do it very fast by looking at lenses made by Giants and Giant 100 Clubbers, particularly the best known ones. I don’t want to do that, though. I want to find pages from aspiring lensmasters because they often don’t get enough attention. When I was new to Squidoo, getting a blessing for a lens gave me encouragement and made me want to write more lenses. I want to pass that on to other newbies to the network.

So what’s the problem?

So many people don’t read the basic instructions or the Terms of Service (or if they do, they take no notice), and they don’t bother to look at lenses made by established lensmasters to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve seen pages with well written content and some relevant pictures but they’re a mess. Sometimes it’s just one giant wall of text with no effort made to split it into separate modules.  Sometimes the concept of paragraphs seems to have passed by the writer. Who is going to try to read that?

Other times writers haven’t changed the default titles of modules. It ain’t rocket science! If a module is called ‘New Introduction’ or ‘New Guestbook’ then you need to change it because it won’t be new once you’ve used it , will it? Titles should also be changed because they are an opportunity to use keywords for your subject so help to get the lens listed by Google.

Does any of this matter when it comes to giving an Angel Blessing? Yes, it does in my opinion. A blessing should only be given to outstanding lenses, not ones that are OK or ‘not bad’ but the ones that are truly memorable. I can still remember many of the lenses I blessed when I first became an Angel a year ago.

In between those two are pages about calligraphy, patchwork quilting, dogs, flowers, music, autism, recipes and just about everything else you can imagine.

You can see the complete list on Angel in Disguise.

I’ve also got a reputation for being blunt in my critiques of people’s lenses. I won’t say something like “You’ve made a good effort but…” when I look at a lens and think it’s terrible without any redeeming features. I cannot bring myself to utter false praise. One reason is that it calls into question my own judgment. People reading it will assume I really think it is a good effort when it’s plainly not. The other reason is that I don’t think false praise helps the person improve.

I always try to offer advice on how to improve the page and the writing when needed. I don’t just say, “It’s rubbish.”

Now I’m an Angel, I have to be more cautious in my approach although I still won’t give false praise to a hopeless piece of work. The reason for my caution is because, as an Angel, I have the reputation of all Angels to consider.

Even when I don’t bless a lens, I sometimes write privately to the lensmaster (when they have contact enabled) to make suggestions for improvement that would make the lens eligible for a blessing or at least 4 or 5 stars.

Helping new Squids is the part of Squidoo that I have always enjoyed the most. I’ve got great pleasure from seeing some lensmasters do a reasonable to good first lens and then go on to become great lensmasters. Some of them are now Giants. It’s great to spot talent early and see that person go on to meet or even exceed your expectations.

If you want to know what I look for when I’m deciding whether to bless a lens, take a look at my Angel in Disguise.