What should go into blog post

[Q_x]

We had still a little bit concept discussion between me and snowdrop. I thought it is community-wide problem, so you maybe should know and want discuss it wider.

Subject is what should make a blog post for our official blog.
I'm aware of the fact that there are at least three blogs going on around the project: one on wtactics.org, one that pennomi takes care of that is about cardscape, and third that is knockoff of what goes to twitter, facebook, identica and all this mess via ping.fm broadcaster.

My proposal would be, as long as this is devs place rather than players, to make blog posts about small and not that important things: minor upgrades, alpha tests, important notifications, small scale tutorials, like "how to prepare before playtesting", some text upon how we see our community, small step-by-step overview of project philosophy or game mechanics, our desires, plans, reasons for choices we have made, purposes, stories, whatever comes to writer's mind.

Snowdrop seems to approach the problem differently, by making big posts that are covering major stuff only.

I'll let him explain for himself, but let me make clearer hot the project can benefit from small posts rather than big ones:

1. We will get more readers, interested with minor ideas that drive our project, and maybe more people writing about us.
2. We will keep people focused on our project
3. We will explain more things to curious people, maybe someone will be attracted not by big posts presenting things like whole cardscape, but by a particular solution, like by the way how combat looks here, and why.
4. Writing good short posts is easier than writing interesting long ones. It is even more important for non-native speakers, who rather read less and figure out more than the other way.
5. It will, hopefully, raise morale and keep more people interested and feeling close with the project.

I'm pretty much not busy by the project itself (I have hectic real work week just starting, but this is another story), I can write short stuff, at least a part of. I'm not good at mechanics and lackey-related mess (lack of experience), but I can give my best in writing about other things.

What do you think guys? What is your approach, snowdrop, in detail, and what are the benefits of it?

[snowdrop]

so you maybe should know and want discuss it wider....Subject is what should make a blog post for our official blog.

Yups. Great post Q_x, agree on all. Should have been done by me ages ago.

I'm aware of the fact that there are at least three blogs going on around the project: one on wtactics.org, one that pennomi takes care of that is about cardscape, and third that is knockoff of what goes to twitter, facebook, identica and all this mess via ping.fm broadcaster.

Just a clarification:

1. There is the official blog (wtactics.org). On that every dev is welcome to make posts, preferably longer than shorter, on whatever relates to our project in some relevant way. If you lack an account and feel you have something to write about, contact me, and I will heal your pain.

2. Then there is pennomis dev blog of CS. That's probably on ice right now as I believe ravenchild is doing the CS re-write, but it might wake up later on if pennomi gets his geist back, passes exams & gets gf's blessing

3. Lastly there's Ping.fm. There we have one single account. All devs should have access to it and write a microblog (> 140 chars) whenever they do something related to the project, no matter what it is. This is for short stuff and could be whatever, not as important reads as the blog, but very important to show activity, keep track of what's going on, and gain a following.

My proposal would be, as long as this is devs place rather than players,

Once game is released there might be a reason to have two blogs - one official and with more player related stuff, and one thats centers only on dev. I guess it would depend on how much activity there would be in both/one of them before we take the decision.

But yeah, for now blog is stricly about dev and should remain so until we have an official release, which won't be this year (not all factions anyway, but hopefully we will have playable gaians + stable rules)

Snowdrop seems to approach the problem differently, by making big posts that are covering major stuff only.

I'll let him explain for himself, but let me make clearer hot the project can benefit from small posts rather than big ones:

My explanation is that we should keep all non-blog posts (meaning: all material that is super short) off the blog. I also believe we should have well worked posts so that blog keeps some level of quality. I am however sure that can be done even if posting there more often and about more topics, which I fully agree on as Q_x suggests.

4. Writing good short posts is easier than writing interesting long ones. It is even more important for non-native speakers, who rather read less and figure out more than the other way.

Well, yeah, but there doesn't have to be a conflict: "Short" posts can be intersting as well. I mean, if you don't think it's interesting, then it's a sure sign of "don't post it".

Let's think quality and purpose, not quantity as a goal in itself.


Btw, Q_x forgot to mention there is also a great page he wrote up that already has some good stuff in it by his hand:

http://chaosrealm.net/wtactics/wiki/ind ... post_ideas

[snowdrop]

Yay Qx, you've been a busy bee in the wiki... great stuff.

I got the urge & idea the other day when I was watching the Merfolk Oracle: I think I would like to write up a post about the ORCs approach to nudity & sexualization this coming week. I will however wait until we have the merfolk oracle complete and all before it gets written/published.