Blogs..... what do we say?

[Pijlie]

Now we sit around and wait and see how long it takes to make the cut!

Mike Demana

Guess I didn't. Nearly two weeks in and no sign of life. Well, we can't all rise to greatness 

[mikedemana]

^^^ Yeah, so I guess it is not being actively updated. Probably has automatic systems in place to label and sort everything.

Unlucky General - I echo your comments 100%! I agree with what you said. I currently have one miniature wargaming blog and one travel blog. I update the travel one several times a year, and the wargaming one 3-4 times a month. I enjoy reading blog posts because many writers do a great job of injecting their personality into their writing. I honestly feel like I'm talking modeling with them over a beer - or sitting in a living room shooting the breeze. I guess it's because I have always enjoyed reading. Blogs are where my wargaming/modeling hobby meet my love of reading.

Mike Demana

[Codsticker]

Here's an interesting thing...

Over the last few months the most popular post on my blog for views, by far, has been my entry entitled An Imaginations Game: Wars of Stagonian Aggression(link). 73 views in the last 24 hours from Russia. Oddly enough, also may views from Indonesia. My guess is that Russian bots are crawling the intrawebs targeting anything using the words "war", "aggression" or possibly the phrase "war of aggression".

[eilif]

Was looking back at my earlier comments and how things have come in the past couple months as I've been back to blogging a bit more often.   As long as I'm blogging on things that I'm interested in and actively doing I seem to find the blogs extremely useful reference in discussions I have on my online discussions which primarily happen on this site, Dakka, and the OPR and Bedroom Battlefields discord chat.

Not having to reinvent the wheel when a topic you're interested in is quite useful, especially when you can post a little bit and direct folks to the blog for more info and having easily-linkable pictures on a given topic permanently available on the blog.   

Still thinking on it, but blogs may have a particular usefullnes when interacting on the more temporary "conversation" outlets like Discord where what you post is part of a discussion, but essentially disappears from view after a day or two.   Referrending a blog is extremely useful for a discussion where you want to share complete information but don't want to write a full discourse for a post that no one will read after that week.

Lastly, maybe I'm just obsessed with my hobby and my club, but I still find myself frequently -often after pulling up the blog to link something to a discussion- falling down the rabbit hole of clicking on one of the "related" links to another of our posts, and another, and another...   Maybe it's a good thing in that it builds a kind of thankfulness for the group and the experiences we've had.  I probably wouldn't be able to find all this stuff scattered across a decade on various forums, but I can always find it on our blog.

[Norm]

 Agree that bots boost viewing figures 

I had a home brew set of rules that had a title that when mentioned seemed to promote such interest, to the point that I changed their name and went back into previous posts to make sure the changes were wide spread enough to reduce the issue.

General participation with my blog continues to disappoint though. I have just posted up a 5,000 word article and a day later have had 242 views here ….. yet just 3 responses and those 3 responses are from kindly folk who regularly do that. To me, there seems a huge imbalance between effort in versus lack of recognition by an audience that is consuming the content. I would not expect or want to be overrun with response, but a ratio of 3 in 242 is disheartening in anyone’s books. If thoughtful blog content is not going to be visibly appreciated, we are going to be left with a blogosphere of ‘look what I painted last week’ type posts and blogging will have lost its diversity and pulse, we may as well surrender ourselves to bite sized FaceBook entries that are born, fade and die within 24 hours.

[Norm]

Hi, thanks for feedback.

I felt that the Perry rules were quite a hot new thing and that my own enthusiasm to give them a try might be matched by others being keen to want to know more early doors.

I not particularly want sweeties thrown at me, my blog loved or for my ego to be tickled, so I am not looking for thank you’s, but a bigger buzz was my expectation.

I will take the point that perhaps this was the wrong post / too long for a greater part of the audience, but my effort in (5000 word article) and enthusiasm, left me expecting more and that obviously is my mistake, but from my blogger perspective, my time might have been better spent by playing the game a second time for my own enjoyment and perhaps painting another regiment.

It is however helpful to get a dose of reality now and then, even though it means that I am likely to throttle back on future articles ….. perhaps a good thing.

[ithoriel]

Life is brief, blogs are many and, even in retirement, time is short.

Time spent composing and posting a reply is time not spent reading other blogs.

By and large, I would only post something if I felt I had something pertinent to say that hadn't already been said.

"Blessed is the man with nothing to say who cannot be persuaded to say it!" 
Of course, it's not just blogs. There are also Youtube, Twitch and forums such as this, TWW and Pendraken (to name but a few).

[Hummster]

With all the channels like Faceache, Instagram, forums, Twitch, etc as well as blogs it is hard to attract an audience to blogs.

Norm - I would argue to include your blog(s) links in your profile as it is likely to get more interested people visiting.

[Norm]

Thanks, done. Cheers

[Cacique Caribe]

Years back I kept getting asked if I planned on setting up a blog.  I couldn’t back then, what with all the work travel and such.

But I did set up a Flickr account that has become a sporadic record of my sculpting and terrain projects.  Now, because of health reasons, I haven’t done much in either of those two fields of interest, the sculpting and terrain stuff, but I’m keeping my Flickr account up and running.  It helps keep me focused on a goal at least.

Dan

[Captain Darling]

I have two blogs, one I share that records the games my mates and I play fortnightly, we all access that and the other is for my own VSF musings but that’s been very quiet this year due to personal reasons but I will get back to it next year. I find they act as a diary of sorts, I’m not fussed about views and comments though I find comments a boost when I do get some! I say blog away!

[TWD]

Hi, thanks for feedback.

I felt that the Perry rules were quite a hot new thing and that my own enthusiasm to give them a try might be matched by others being keen to want to know more early doors.

I not particularly want sweeties thrown at me, my blog loved or for my ego to be tickled, so I am not looking for thank you’s, but a bigger buzz was my expectation.

I will take the point that perhaps this was the wrong post / too long for a greater part of the audience, but my effort in (5000 word article) and enthusiasm, left me expecting more and that obviously is my mistake, but from my blogger perspective, my time might have been better spent by playing the game a second time for my own enjoyment and perhaps painting another regiment.

It is however helpful to get a dose of reality now and then, even though it means that I am likely to throttle back on future articles ….. perhaps a good thing.

Norm the following may sound critical but isn't intended to be.
I think you're expecting the blog platform to work in a way that it isn't designed for and just doesn't behave.

You *seem* to be looking for a specific sort of engagement - replies/comments and the start of a dialogue. That isn't what blogs exist to do. It isn't what *most* online writing does. You have around 1% of your readers reacting in the way you want them to. I think that's actually pretty good.

Blogs are fundamentally a "transmit" platform - you broadcast your thoughts, opinions, pretty pictures and (in my case) lame jokes.
Readers take that in but they don't *expect* to reply or respond. Any more than they do when reading newspaper articles, or books or watching television. They are essentially expecting to be passive consumers of your thoughts.

Other social media platforms (FB/Twitter etc.) have added a simple feedback loop (the "like" button) that gives the creator a dopamine hit of positive feedback with very little effort on the part of the reader. Blogs don't do this.

The feedback on blogs is reader numbers. Volume tells you you're doing a good job as people keep coming back and reading. 300 views for a niche interest not heavily advertised blog post is, I'd say, pretty good going. Most of my posts (which are nowhere near as well thought out, well written or thoughtful as yours) get nowhere near that number. Though I do get about the same % number of replies - about 1 per 100.

So if it's replies and conversation you want then Blogger is not the platform. Nor, TBH is FB or Insta.
As this thread is demonstrating if you want that kind of interaction the best place is on forums like this one We're on page 7 now, so people are interested in the topic and are discussing.
IMO it's good to have the argument/review/discussion point held on a blog as forums are not great for long form.

So my suggestion would be it ain't broke, there's nothing to fix.
Your blog gets strong visitor numbers and the number of people who want to discuss your thoughts will do so right here.

Take pleasure from the reader and follower numbers on the blog and post links to your thoughts here (and on other forums) and reap the discussion rewards on those platforms.

[Norm]

Thanks, that is helpful.  ‘passive consumers’ is an excellent way to describe the blogging experience and is something that I have long attached negative connotations to, but your pragmatic view of the same does strike a chord. Cheers Norm.

[Cacique Caribe]

Blogging is much closer to journalism than it is to a debate.

Closer to journalism than today’s “journalism”. 

Dan

[tikitang]

I have attempted several blogs, but sooner or later all my ideas disintegrate and my projects collapse, then I feel this compulsive need to delete the blog and pretend it never existed.

After the fourth time this happened, I decided to give up blogging for good.

Despite this rather depressed-sounding post, I've started a new blog at https://the-infernal-crusade.blogspot.com/

Took me AGES to write the first post, though. I'd forgotten how much time I can pour into writing, and how much I obsess over every word and punctuation mark. I think I paint miniatures faster than this! Still, my motivation is pretty high right now, so I have hopes for this one.