What motivates you to continue to update your blog? (Blog owners only)

[Brother Tyler]

Please reply in this discussion only if you either have your own B&C blog or you have your own external blog (and if the latter, please include a link to it).

 

This is a transcript of the replies to the title question that we received from various members in the PM. This transcript is provided for continuing discussion and background, especially as additional members join the club and participate in the effort to improve the Blogs feature.

 

@Mr Farson

2. The motivation is to have a lasting way to showcase progress I make. A think a blog allows me to take more time between posts than a thread.

 

@firestorm40k

2. I have a painting log for my army project, but there's stuff I think are better suited to the related blog, such as 'fluff' or narrative posts, battle reports, or just posting about overall hobby process and how ideas develop. I'll continue to use my blog for that side of my hobby journey with my army. 

 

@Bouargh

I am stubborn and I like the idea of getting a traceability of my contributions I can browse. It has in my opinion more sense to use a blog for stuff that needs a series of updates like a progress view of a project over one year. It is also great for posting opinion, like at shrink, or rants, without pretending geenrating noise; buzz or harvesting answers. Yet...

 

@ZeroWolf

2. This is a hard one as its external factors that impact me updating my blog, my last post was at some point last year for example when my painting time became severely limited. I'm slowly getting it back though and aim to revive the blog in due course.

 

@W.A.Rorie

2-My motivation is that if I do not update my blog I feel I am slacking in the hobby. Also sometimes posts do not fit in sections like life issues and talking about certain things hobby adjacent and easier to say in the blog. 

 

@apologist

2 – Enthusiasm for the project.

 

@drakheart

2. When I have something I wish to share with the community

 

@Xenith

Admittedly I haven't updated my blog in a while. I have paint logs in the relevant sections (BA, WIP, Heresy) that I update with photos more regularly. The blog I have mainly started using for battle reports and general musings, however in the last year I have barely played 40k.

 

@zulu.tango

• I enjoy having an avenue to track various hobby projects and put down my thoughts/process in a place I can review at future dates. It being public gives me some accountability in the process and is more fun to maintain than a hobby journal no one will see

@Mike Zulu

When I have free time and satisfied with what I have to present.

 

As more members begin to use blogs and join this club, it will be interesting to see their answers to the question in the topic title.

Edited February 2 by Brother Tyler
Added a late PM response

[Ioldanach]

Keeping in mind that my current blog efforts so far have been focused around consolidating all of my old projects, my feedback may be a little skewed here.

 

I have to admit that my hobby time is hit or miss and all of my projects have stalled because of other non-hobby commitments. Despite that, I really would like to bring my hobby projects - mostly DIYs - to life on the tabletop. If nothing else, I'd like to have a kill team for each of my DIYs eventually. Since I'm revisiting projects that stretch back for years, finding the original discussions required some searching. It wasn't difficult to find each of the old discussions, but it wasn't as easy as I would have liked. I recall seeing some members using their names as tags at one point. At first I thought it was kind of arrogant - I wondered why they thought I would want to read about them. I clicked on a few of them on a whim once, however, and I came to the conclusion that they were using their names as tags as a way to find their posts (and I mentally apologized for my initial ill thoughts about them ). Even though I came to see the value in the practice of using one's name as a tag, I never pulled the trigger on doing that to my own topics. Once I found the blogs, I realized I didn't need to do that - I could just consolidate the projects into the blogs. I doubt that everyone else will want to do that, but some members might (and I highly recommend it). Now all I have to do to find my various projects is open my blog and everything is there, no matter how old (and unfinished ). This keeps me from forgetting things, maintaining visibility of my projects. I've also taken a little time to look at other members' blogs and I'm blown away. I have found them to be inspiring in many ways and I hope to achieve similar levels of craftsmanship (if only I could get some models painted!). I think that the blogs have really given the community a great feature for sharing their hobby efforts - almost like everyone having their own mini-website about the hobby without the pain of having to create and maintain (and pay for) an actual website.

Edited February 1 by Ioldanach

[Brother Tyler]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

On the tags issue, I recall wondering about it when I saw it, too. I asked a couple of members (several mods did this) and they explained why they were doing it. In retrospect, it was a brilliant solution to a problem.

 

Unfortunately, member names as tags won't work when we update to V5 (which is still in testing, so I have no idea when the update will happen). Tags will no longer be a free text option, but will instead be predefined by the site (the staff have begun discussing this issue, though we haven't moved to formal planning yet). No, this will not be some optional setting that we can undo. Fortunately, the blogs, as you've identified, provide the perfect solution.