If you frequent WoW blogs, there has been a community that has popped up recently that a lot of WoW bloggers have gotten into. And for good reason. It is generating a decent following, thus providing a community for people to share ideas, get suggestions, and elicit feedback from like-minded individuals.
I won’t deny that some interface improvements to my blog have come from the suggestions of individuals at the site. And I have to admire someone who takes the time to set-up a community for the good of everyone.
But after browsing the forums, trying to reply in threads, participating in suggestions and collaborations, the community doesn’t feel like a community, nor does it seem like it is even headed in that direction.
While I know people have noble intentions, the community has already fallen into a rut. Canned responses, adhering to a single standard, and other unfortunate trends. For example, one visitor made a thread about how he was tired of the gold selling ads that Google Ads was providing him and posed the idea of blog owners creating their own small banners that other blog users can post on their site to perhaps direct their readers to blogs they might find enjoyable.
Instead, he was directed to another thread which wanted everyone to enroll in EntreCard. Great. Another site to sign-up for. The sad portion of this is, the person who suggested using this site already admitted that “the system is largely dominated by “how to make money from blogging” bloggers.”
The community at the site in question has already embraced certain users as the ones to seek suggestions from, ignoring all others regardless of what their advice might be. It’s unfortunate that, as they generate these great ideas for the WoW blogging community, unless you are one of a handful of people, your ideas are not wanted and will purposely be skipped over. And I can almost guarantee that some of the users that are being skipped over are way more knowledgeable about WoW then *most* of these “prized” bloggers.
So I really don’t feel a desire to participate in this “community” any longer. Who knows where the community will go. They will probably be just fine, thrive with their population base, and do whatever it is they do.
It just seems, whether they realized it or not, they would squash creative ideas or individuality in favor of automated systems from third-party sites, and cookie-cutter layouts and ideas.
Ok, this is long winded, and has far to much ‘QQ’ in it, with not enough ‘PewPew’.
In closing, I think Morgan Freeman said it best.
A wise man once said: ‘There are no perfect men in the world; only perfect intentions.’
Hey there, interesting blog post. I’m wondering what incident(s) prompted it. I’ve been watching the forums since they started and I’m not sure I understand what you’re referring to. I’m not arguing, just trying to understand your point a bit better. I think there are some bloggers there with more cache mostly because they have HUGE readership. Popularity has always been more popular than skill. (Remember high school? Promotions at work? Sports endorsements?) So, in that sense, I have no problem with the bigger bloggers being looked up to. In fact, if we’re being honest, there are plenty of “smaller” bloggers hoping to ride their linky coattails to bigger readership. (Everyone has an angle.) But it sounds to me like there was a particular incident (not the EntreCard one, either) that bothered you, which I must’ve missed. For my own part, I’m trying to get what I can from the community and add help where I’m needed. Would be interested in hearing more from your side.
Er… EntreCard gives you full freedom over what ads you opt to show on your blog. So while there are many users who will request permission to post their ads on your blog, you have the final decision on what “makes it through.” TJ’s idea was to have as many of us sign up as possible then have us all swap ad space. The benefit being, of course, that no one has to build a backend for a link exchange — and which would likely only work for a single platform (Blogger or self-hosted WordPress). I’m sorry if you felt like the idea was being “shut down.” I honestly thought that he might find a more exact match for what he was looking for in a group that was already forming.
It’s unfortunate that you feel this way. Entrecard, at it’s basic core, is a simple business card like system. You can drop your business card (a 125 x 125 button about your blog) onto another blogger who uses it and it will display it for about a day.
The beauty of this system is that certain cards can be rejected. Even though Entrecard is largely dominated by bloggers who blog about making money, there is no reason why we the WoW community cannot and should not take advantage of such an automated and convenient system.
From my persepctive GameDame, it seems like too many people are focusing on this comment you made: “smaller” bloggers hoping to ride their linky coattails to bigger readership.
Sure it is nice to see some readers trickle in from other websites because of a link someone else posted. But personally I would rather people come across my blog because of a link related to content rather than a random blogroll. And to me, the general population on the forums right now are people trying to suck up residual readers from blogrolls rather than trying to provide outstanding content.
Obviously I don’t want to apply this to everyone, as blanket statements are not fair to people. For example, Phaelia’s article regarding trinket itemization and a breakdown of their relative effectiveness is incredible and more druids should familiarize themselves with it.
Another example is the Blogcasting Azeroth. Has anyone even stopped to ask what the content of the show is going to be about? So far Galadria is the only person in the respective thread who has even mentioned it. So far it seems most people in support of it are doing so because they want to get their name out, similar to the blogroll and residual readership problem. No one seems concerned about providing quality information, or even bothered to check to see if they have any knowledge about the topics supposedly being discussed.
Perhaps I am being too cynical and pessimistic. But as I browse the forums and topics, I can find 5 forums dedicated to modifying your blog yet only one about actual content in the General forums.
I am a graphic designer/Flash developer/3d Modeler by trade so I can appreciate the desire to create a great looking website. And while I won’t linger on sites that are atrocious to look at or hard to read, any site I routinely visit is because of content. And the community at this point isn’t about that. It still feels like lots of people are about the Internet “lookatme” attitude.
And if I ever manage to establish a reader base outside of real-life friends looking for advice, I hope they come for the content.
These aren’t all my thoughts. But it is all my little mind can think about right now, considering it’s 2 am.
The composition of the forums is more or less my fault. I set up the initial forums and then just added forums as different people requested them. Keep in mind that a few of the “aesthetic” forums are less about aesthetics and more about blog *structure* — the platform-specific forums contain a number of resources for setting up different features like blogrolls, contact pages, etc. I’m not sure if I would lump that in with color selection. =D
On the other hand, the “Chopping Block” forum predominantly gets aesthetic critiques. I think this is due to two reasons: 1) the people doing the critiquing may not be big into the blog’s focus and so may not be interested in reading more than 1 or 2 articles (this is especially true for class-based blogs where the reviewer may be daunted by the specifics of topics she knows nothing about) and 2) there is a much stronger reticience to critique someone’s writing than their style. Style is more or less easily corrected. Writing ability is something that is learned over so much time, it’s hard to tell someone they have poor grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
I know that I myself may have seemed a little overbearing in TCB forum — or maybe the forums in general — I’ve posted a LOT because I wanted to help drum up conversations and hope that my involvement would stimulate others’ involvement as well. I see now that I may have instead come across as overbearing. I’ll make more of an effort to make less of an effort in future. =)
Anyway, I’m glad that you shared your thoughts about this matter since I may not have been aware of the “issue” otherwise. I do hope you’ll give the community a chance, however. It is still taking its baby steps!