Blogging

[quote=Jebus McAzn]SO I'M BACK FROM VACATION Surprise, surprise, Jebus doesn't live in a box browsing MOBAFire all day. :P I went to Montreal and I had a great time and did CLASSY FRENCH THINGS but that's a topic for a later time. During my vacation I didn't have much time to post, although I did manage to update Skarner and handle a few reports - many of you may have noticed that I've been more or less absent from the forums and the Facebook group, however. While in Montreal I got this idea. [h1]Let's open a blog section.[/h1] I used to be a member of the TCGPlayer forums (huge Yugioh nerd a few years ago) and they had a great blogging system. I was a featured blogger there and I got paid a little bit, which was nice (BUT TOTALLY NOT THE POINT OF THIS THREAD). If anyone's actually interested, [url=http://forum.tcgplayer.com/blog.php?165025-Jebus-McAzn/page3]here's a link to my old work.[/url] (boy I'm going to regret posting that) Anyway, the blogging system on that site basically was a place for members to talk about aspects of the game. Some blogs would be about how to improve your play, or tips and tricks you can use. Others would be about new decks or cards that came out - likewise, we could do this on new game modes, champions, patches, et cetera. Think about Elementz's "Meta Talks" and patch reviews. On this site, it would give us the OPTION to basically render "general guides" obsolete and move them to blogs, but this would probably be unnecessary because the "scoring" function of the guides is very helpful. More importantly, it's a place for people to post their thoughts on the game. For example, every week, I could have a blog about ways to improve your jungling, covering different tricks every week. Another user might have a section about how to be a better AP carry. Alternatively, someone could just post a blog about the recent patch notes and what this means for the community. I know that we have a forum and that that kind of discussion can happen there as well. Yet TCGPlayer is a forum too and at its peak, was much, much busier than MOBAFire forums ever were. The blogging system, most importantly, allows established users to put out [u]reliable[/u] evaluations of the metagame, certain champions, playstyle, and just general discussion in an easily accessible place. Let's say I decide to make a blog every two weeks where I discuss first impressions of a new champion and how I think he/she/it should be built, similar to Colbycheeze's video guides on new champs. Perhaps during the weeks in between, I would have a "re-evaluation" after the champ has been out for a week already. People would learn to expect MY BLOGS on new champs and this would effectively give them another source OTHER than the guides to get info on new champions. The advantage of this is that score has no role whatsoever in these blogs. If users find a good blog writer, they will stick to that blog and it will start to hold as much prominence as a featured guide on Solomid, because they KNOW that writer is good and can expect good material. In general, I think that having a blog section would be nothing but helpful to the site. If anyone has any criticism, objections, or helpful advice, just post it below, as always.[/quote]

[quote=Scrax]Matt actually asked me a while ago if that would be a good idea. I think it stopped because I was the only one currently doing any blogging at the time. Inc Matt going crazy over the idea, lol[/quote]

[quote=wRAthoFVuLK]I'd blog about... uh... something?[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf]Would these blogs be from only vets/mods/admins? Or would members over X posts/ reps be able to participate in this as well? I'm also guessing comments would be active on these as well as per solomid blogs.[/quote]

[quote=Jebus McAzn][quote=Lugignaf] Would these blogs be from only vets/mods/admins? Or would members over X posts/ reps be able to participate in this as well? I'm also guessing comments would be active on these as well as per solomid blogs. [/quote] I would suppose that anyone could blog, but moderation would probably be required in order to stop people from just spamming "hey look at my guide". Perhaps there could be a "featured blog" function implemented as well where guides from recurring users are displayed somewhere on the front page?[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf]That's pretty good. The "LOOKIT MY GUIDE!!!11!one" might still be an issue if you guys can't find some way to moderate it. Pre-approving the blogs would take a lot of time but it would be effective.[/quote]