I'd like to start a blog

[Felon]

So, I've been wanting to start a website where I can ruminate about my campaign and D&D design in general. I know blogs are all-the-rage, and some services exist to offer blogs-in-a-box that allow folks without the time or know-how to do all the web work. Can anyone here make a recommendation?

Thanks.

 

[drothgery]

The biggest are blogspot, MSN Spaces, and LiveJournal; setting something up with any of them is pretty easy, and doesn't require any knowledge of HTML unless you want to do something tricky. Some RPG industry 'names' are on LiveJournal, though I can't recall who at the moment (except for Rodney Thomson of Star Wars Saga fame).

 

[XCorvis]

LJ is part blog with a little bit of social networking. If you've got friends on LJ, it works pretty well. If you just want a straight old blog, Blogger/Blogspot is a good one. Takes about 1 minute to get it up and running if you've already got a gmail account.

Both of those host the blog for you and are free. LJ has additional paid options.

 

[ssampier]

If you prefer a open-sourced type blog (such as WordPress) many Internet hosts have it available as an easy install.

 

[John Crichton]

Or ... you could go with MySpace.

 

[Felon]

Thanks for the links. I'll look around. What I want to do is be able to post a little screed about this or that, and have them archived so that folks wouldn't be limited to seeing the most recent one. Asking too much?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

If you prefer a open-sourced type blog (such as WordPress) many Internet hosts have it available as an easy install.

I'm using WordPress on my own hosted site (www.crystalmarch.com) for tracking campaign stuff, though its been a long time since I updated it. Comment spam is an issue - using one of the hosted deals might be better if you're not technically savvy (or at least willing to dig in and muck around).

 

[XCorvis]

They all keep all your posts, but LJ is not particularly good for going back and seeing previous posts. Wordpress and blogger are better for that. Just be sure you name your posts properly, and use tags to describe them. That makes finding old ones much better.

You might also check out google pages, which is a free website with a simple editor. More complex than blogging, but it also has more options for site layout. http://pages.google.com

Start signing up for some of them and see what they're like. Make a few test posts, then delete them.

 

[Halivar]

I used to use Pivot, but ended up fighting a never-ending war with spammers. I tried various software add-ons like pivot-blacklist (which worked wonderfully for a time), implemented kaptcha's, etc. About six months ago I finally gave up and deleted my blog and replaced it with a static web-page that I edit manually.

Blogs just aren't worth the fight.

 

[The_Gut]

Well, if you want to spend a bit of money and have a toy site to play with, you could register a domain name (I would register at godaddy.com), then get a small site at some place like a small orange. A small orange will host a tiny web site for 25 bucks a year, and you could run wordpress on it. The next size up account will cost you 60 bucks a year, or 50 if you prepay a year.

You don't have to turn on comments you know, and if you don't comment spam isn't a problem. If people want to comment on your posts, then they can link back to them from their blog. If they don't have a blog - oh well. Wordpress also has some plugins to help with comment spam, like Akismet. Its pretty easy to setup and manage. www.gutcup.com/blog is mine, and thats pretty much a stone standard wordpress install.

So, 50 bucks for a year say, will give you a nice little site to play with, and pick up some general internet knowledge.