Why blog or how is it different from the general run of the mill forum message?

[martinvk]

I see that there is a new top level section called Blogs. Not being the most with-it person, why would one post there instead of here? They look to be threaded messages, just like here. What am I missing?

 

[jayholland]

You are not alone, Martin. Being even more backward than you, I don't even know what 'Blog' means. Can someone please enlighten me

 

[RRSignal]

A "blog", short for web log, is essentially an online diary. The software on which these forums is based, vBulletin, has had this functionality for many years. I was even a member of an extremely-busy site called PhillyBlog which began life with the stated intention of being blog-oriented with a secondary messageboard functionality. Ultimately, everybody preferred the messageboard (forum) format and very few really used the "blog" feature. Nevertheless, the software blog capability proved to be a significant draw and the site sported about 25,000 active, participating users, much if not most who posted regularly.

Even so, it's still an interesting and possibly useful functionality to have. Among other potential uses I can see is a content creator posting the progress of their project in the blog section rather than cluttering up threads with possibly minor updates.

 

[schweitzerdude]

Re: Blogs

RRSignal explained it better than I did and his posting hit the forum seconds before mine, so I deleted my comments. What I would like to do is delete this posting, but can't figure out how to do it.

 

[big_b]

Is the blog going to be monitored by the mods or is it going to replace the old ( off topic ) forum

 

[martinvk]

Well from my reading of the forum messages over the years, this "blogging" seems to have been going on for a long time. Not sure how having a formal blog section is an improvement unless blogs masquerading as normal messages are summarily banished to the blog area. :wave:

 

[RRSignal]

Is the blog going to be monitored by the mods or is it going to replace the old ( off topic ) forum

I guess the Off Topic forum was before my time. I'm sure Auran/N3V is going to monitor the blog section at first, if for no other reason than out of sheer curiosity as to whether it's being used. However, blogs typically are unmonitored unless someone reports a CoC violation. There really isn't much of a reason to do so. IMO they are not a wholesale replacement for an equivalent forum such as Off Topic, since forums tend to promote more discussion than blogs do, and are also much easier to monitor.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Is the essential difference between a blog and a normal forum post that only the creator of the blog can post to it? If so, I can see it would be very nice - you could say what you want without fear of idiots hijacking the thread, steering it off topic etc.

Hey what happened to the 'rolleyes' smiley? We need more sarcasm.

 

[RRSignal]

Yes, although most blogs allow others to post comments, which may or may not be readily viewable. I haven't checked if the new forum does or not, though.

You can think of a regular forum thread being more like a normal conversation, whereas a blog is more like a soapbox.

 

[pcas1986]

I posted much the same question as MartinVK in the Content Creators forum and then spotted this thread. I also noticed that the blog appears to allow attachments which could be useful for folk such as USCHI0815 (Torsten) and his Blender exporter.

Paul

 

[Euphod]

unless someone reports a CoC violation.

What CoC? It seems to be missing. That alone opens a world of opportunites for new posts. No CoC = no restrictions on image sizes, and as far as I can tell they haven't gone with an automatic image resizing system.

Excellent... let the mayhem begin!

 

[Retro00064]

Good point Ed. There is a "Forum Rules" link in the "Posting Permissions" box at the bottom of the page, but the rules at the page that link leads to aren't much, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were automatically generated by the software.

Restoring the toolbar with the Planet Auran, Code of Conduct, Serial Number, Download Station, etc. buttons would be a good idea. Otherwise, so much for instructing newcomers to simply click on the "Serial Number" button at the top of the page to register their Trainz serial number.

Regards,

Zachary.

 

[Euphod]

Restoring the toolbar with the Planet Auran, Code of Conduct, Serial Number, Download Station, etc. buttons would be a good idea.

I agree that may the one single most helpful step they could take to improve the new forums.