Blogging in (the end of) 2018

[dampfpanzerwagon]

I also use Blogger, but mainly because I'm lazy and could not be bothered to look around for an alternative.

I find it OK - but I have been using it for over ten years - so I am used to it.

Tony
http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

[Arlequín]

I've found Google/Blogger quite adequate for my photo storage needs and I wish I'd gone with it all along. The Photobucket Event was somewhat disruptive for my blog, but others were totally destroyed by it.

Blogger, unlike Wordpress, is ad free, unless you add them of course. My pet hate is having an article disrupted by ads and I give up reading them if it gets too much. No wargamer is going to fund his hobby through ads, so adsense et al do nothing for your blog!

Whatever happened to your blog? Is it coming back? Or at least will the articles you wrote about the late 15th century be available somewhere again?

Long story short; photobucket and a few other factors. Yes it will all return, but under a different account name and I've currently lost my mojo. The articles are safe, but will face some revision before re-posting. The wip is here; https://arlwars.blogspot.com but don't expect much (anything even) from it right now.

Your interest is appreciated though. 

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I agree with Arlequin, ads are annoying (and sometimes scarily inappropriate).

I am not sure what Chargedog uses, but I think he has a tip jar.

As Arlequin says, no one is going to fund their hobby with a blog.

[tomrommel1]

I have a blog for nearly 3 years now. I started it first just to have a visual scrap book for myself. To be able to see the progress over time with my projects. It is nice to have the occasional comment on my postings but that is not my primary aim. I use the blog to be able to post pictures elsewhere as others said before. By the way I use wordpress and quite like it , easy to use.

[Arlequín]

A friend of mine also swears by Wordpress and as someone new to blogging found it more intuitive. I've always used Blogger and I'm used to its arcane rituals and which gods have to be appeased before trying something clever. 

I also blog for me, so while comments and questions are very nice and encouraging, life would go on without them. I've seen one or two people get quite upset about an apparent lack of interest in the form of adoring comments; fragile egos and the Internet really don't mix.

[commissarmoody]

I currently use Blogger myself. Only complaints are the surge in Advertising comments from India and Indonesia trying to sale me boner pills. 

Which I quickly report. block and delate.

[Arlequín]

I was going to be snarky and say we get the adverts we deserve, but I stopped getting 'hundreds of Russian girls are dying to meet you' ones around a year ago and now I feel old.

[Jabba]

I only started blogging one and a half years ago after it was suggested I should by a couple of people on this forum. I use Blogger as it's what some of the blogs I followed used and It seemed easy to use, it also provides photo storage which I can link to when posting in forums.

I mainly use my blog to track my projects or for reports of games I have played, where possible including OOBs or scenario notes. I also try to pass on useful information where I can.

Comments have varied from 0 to a high of 15 but are usually more than just the "great" or "well done" type. I tend to comment back on the blogs I follow mainly if I think the comment adds something, unless its one of my regular commentors then we tend to comment on each other's posts most of the time. My highest page view is currently 2497 and that was for a "How to" topic.

I have read some bilingual blogs but not so many non English ones, although as they say "a picture saves a thousand words" so I will still peruse a blog in a foreign language and comment if appropriate. The main reason for not reading foreign language blogs is google translate doesn't work on my works computer, and I tend to read during my lunch break.

All in all I say blog away, my first port of call for hobby reading is my Blogs I Follow list then Forums.

[Charlie_]

Your interest is appreciated though. 

I'm particularly interested in your articles on the war of Burgundian succession, as I plan to game that same conflict. My current project is 'generic late 15th century' with made-up heraldry, supposed to be 'private wars' somewhere in the Holy Roman Empire. Though the plan is to adapt it to other conflicts, the first being the aforementioned Burgundian succession. All my generic troops will be re-aligned to Burgundy / Hapsburg just though the use of flags, and there will be new units painted up for the French. So I'll be definitely wanting to re-read your articles when the time comes! Glad to know the blog will return someday.

[grant]

I used to use a Wordpress blog, but gave it up.
I have to say I strongly dislike social media and abhor Facebook.
For a blog to catch my attention it has to have nice bite-sized text coupled with outstanding photos or content.

[vexillia]

Whatever platform you decide on please don't start every post with "So ...". 

[sleep when Im lead]

I have been blogging for about six years now. The system still seems to work for me. I seem to get a lot of hits but I am never quite sure if they are all legit. There are plenty of real bloggers out there. When it comes to hobby stuff I rarely stray onto social media. Much of it seems very commercial and, whilst I have tried that out recently, I don't think it's for me.

Although my blog is in English, I do get a fair amount of international readership. Google translates most stuff easily and you can always d a dual language blog. Blogger may have a limited life but then most things do. Sooner or later they all fall out of favour and something else will come along.

If you are looking to generate a lot of traffic you have to know a bit about SEO and spend a lot of time in forums and on other people's blogs. I see some names everywhere I look. But who has that much time? Well not me.

At the end of the day, almost all blogs are vanity projects (my own included). It gives me something to do and a hook into the hobby. I am not planning on stopping any time and most of the blogs I see are still going strong.

[Wyrmalla]

I threw up a blog on Wordpress as a mirror to my threads here. Just as over the years I've had so many of them, and if you're anything like myself you don't visit every sub board on this forum, so I suppose it helps to cross pollinate readers. ...Not that I've posted much on it other than modern miniatures lately.

With Wordpress I can't speak for the user's experience, as I have an ad blocker, however I haven't seen much in the way of them being required other than if you turn them on yourself. However, they could be all over the place and I just don't see them.

Wordpress is "fine". On the version I use (cheapest) the formatting is a complete arse when it comes to setting fonts within the post itself - rather than going out of it and changing the font on a separate customisation page, copy/pasting the text with font from another source, or editing the html. It may be different on the more expensive versions, or there could be an addon, but using the base site that element's terrible.

You also can't just copy/ paste whole posts from say this forum directly into Wordpress if there's images. Wordpress handily generates the html for a lot of things, so if you drag and drop an image onto the page its automatically formatted to appear. However this then means that if your source text has images then it breaks Wordpress and doesn't generate every - meaning you need to strip the images out first, then add them back in. Not too much work, but annoying that the site doesn't account for this.

The basic set of analytics are so so. They try and update in real time, however you're better off looking at them a day later, as they can be a bit weird at times (100 unique users, 5 total views...). Still, they're much more indicative than sites like Facebook for knowing how much traffic you're actually seeing.

Saying that, its not a site for comments. Folks just don't want to sign up onto yet another platform. I keep it there for ease, but its never going to take over from Lead Adventure or Facebook as a place to post content. I can't mirror what's been said before regarding comments. Rather its the depth of discussion seems to be decreasing as we're in the Facebook generation of just giving things a "like" then going off to look at other content, and that's something I see on all the sites I've posted on oddly.

Which is to say that if you're posting content online, do it for yourself. If you're hoping to be a conversation starter, that doesn't seem to be where the internet is these days outside of certain groups. I dunno, maybe everyone's migrated to Discord or something.

[petercooman123]

I have been thinking about starting a blog myself. Last year and this year as well, i recorded all my painting on the pendraken forum.

it's an easy way to keep track of my painting challenges.

2017: http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,15356.165.html
2018: http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,16948.0.html

the 2017 one only really starts at pg 12, the rest of the pictures is lost to the photobucket mishap.

maybe i'll give it a try for the next year!

[fusilierdan]

To the OP I'd say go ahead and blog. Decide what's the priority preserving the language or getting lot's of readers. A bilingual blog may achieve both goals. I find blogs have more substance and are easier to search for old posts than most social media. I follow about 100. Some are inactive, some have a post a few times a year, and others are 3-4 times a month.

I prefer blogs over facebook but it is difficult to read all the great blogs out there.