=][= CHANGES TO ADVERTISING AT THE B&C =][=

[Brother Tyler]

No, this isn’t about advertisements that appear on the site (see this experiment). What we’re talking about is providing a venue for third party companies and hobby influencers to advertise their products/services here via the Blogs.

 

Our purpose in this is two-fold. Ultimately, it ties in with our mission statement:

 

The Bolter & Chainsword exists to help the members of a global hobby community to better understand, engage in, and enjoy all aspects of the Warhammer 40,000 hobby through constructive discussion and the sharing of hobby-related content.

 

First, this gives the members of our community better visibility of the third-party companies and hobby influencers that produce goods or services that might help them in their understanding and enjoyment of the hobby.

 

Second, by (hopefully) increasing the customer/subscriber base for these companies/influencers, we can help them to remain successful so that they can continue to produce goods or services that help the community. While this site supports the Warhammer 40,000 hobby, which is produced by Games Workshop Ltd, its subsidiaries, and licensees, enjoyment of the hobby isn’t limited to “official” products and we want to ensure that our members have better access to unofficial alternatives. Besides, most of these companies/influencers are hobbyists, too, and we want to help them in continuing to contribute to the hobby.

 

In the past, we’ve allowed third party companies and hobby influencers to advertise via the discussion forums, generally limiting each company/influencer to a single discussion in which they are allowed to post updates. In addition, they are encouraged to include banners and links in their signatures so that they can advertise their company/site anywhere they post on the Bolter & Chainsword; and they can use their About Me page to provide a description and links. This method has been sub-optimal, however, and it is very easy for such a discussion to drop from the first page and lose visibility.

 

We are shifting our advertising to the Blogs, with third-party companies and hobby influencers using the Advertisers category. In this, each advertiser will be allowed to have a single blog and they will be allowed to cross-post within the forums to advertise new products/services. As before, they will also be allowed to advertise via their signatures and About Me pages, and we hope that their blog will also include a category/post with a description of the company and links to relevant websites and social media pages.

 

IMPORTANT

 

First, the advertising blogs are absolutely free, and we do not ask for any benefits for our members (e.g., there’s no need for offering discounts or other incentives). As with other members, advertisers will have full use of the site’s resources and capabilities. The only cost to advertisers is the time they take to post updates.

 

Second, the normal content limitations/requirements of the Bolter & Chainsword, as described in our forum rules, still apply. So while many of these companies produce goods/services about other very interesting games, they won’t be able to post about those games here. Anything that can be used in the Warhammer 40,000 hobby, however, is fair game. Since the Imperium of Mankind spans the galaxy and the worlds of the Imperium cover the entirety of human technological levels and cultures, and since the various xenos races allow for even more variety, just about any terrain is acceptable (as long as the size/scale of the terrain works for any of the various games in the Warhammer 40,000 setting). For example, there are some very cool tabletop miniature wargames with a Feudal Japan setting. While the games themselves and the miniatures wouldn’t be suitable for advertising*, terrain for that game would be perfectly acceptable (assuming it’s the right size for Warhammer 40,000 (28-32mm), Inquisitor (54mm), or Adeptus Titanicus/Aeronautica Imperialis (6mm/7mm – more accurately, about 25% the scale of WH40K) models).

 

* Of course, it would be perfectly acceptable for our hobbyist members to use such miniatures and convert them for use in the Warhammer 40,000 hobby, as described here.

 

So how are we going to go about this?

 

First, we’re going to contact those companies/influencers that already have accounts here and inform them of this adjustment in our advertising policy, asking them to create their blog.

 

Second, members are welcome to identify companies/influencers that might be good picks for advertising here. Said members can either contact these companies/influencers directly (and we’ll provide a template to facilitate), or they can contact us with their suggestion so that we can contact them.

 

Third, we’ll create some generic advertiser blogs for those companies/influencers that do not choose to advertise here. While we haven’t quite worked out exactly how these blogs will look, the intent is to provide categories so that members can peruse the blog to identify companies/influencers that might be of interest to them. And members will be able to suggest companies/influencers to add to this blog.

[Brother Tyler]

The more I have thought about this, the more I'm inclined to change one thing about the above...

 

Instead of Blogs, we'll probably use Clubs.

 

There are several reasons for this, starting with the fact that each member is only allowed to create 1 blog. In order to use the Blogs for this, the advertiser would need an account to start their blog (not a bad thing) or the admins would have to create a blog for each advertiser, either changing the permissions so that admins can have multiple blogs (I'm not keen on that - I reckon the same rules should apply to everyone) or requiring the admins to create a dummy account for each advertiser. The latter might become problematic, especially if people mistakenly think that an account is actually run by the person/company that is being advertised (and some people/companies might object to that). We would include provisions for a person/company to take over their pseudo account, but that might be unsatisfactory to some.

 

Clubs, on the other hand, aren't limited. This allows anyone to create a club to advertise a company/influencer. Similarly, anyone can post an update when a company/influencer has a new product/video/whatever. I'm working on some guidelines, as well as a few examples, now.