Blogs as an ideal method for publishing RPG related stuff

[haiiro]

Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see how a BLOG is any different from a personal homepage. You could publish your stories with a personal website just as easily as a blog.

I've read a few blogs, but I haven't really found a difference from blogging in 1990's--write a webpage and update it frequently.

If you're using something like LiveJournal, then the architecture is already there -- you just post, categorize, and move on. With an actual site, you'd have to do slightly more than just plug in the info you wanted (not much more, but still). To me, that and not having to pay for hosting seem like the principle differences between the two.

 

[synecdoche]

I've used blogs a bit for projects like my short-lived "world building journal" but mainly as a way to receive feedback from the online community, and to generate ideas, and so on.

If I were to do such a thing for a campaign resource page, I'd need a host that allows me to sort posts by category-- for example, by writing a post, and signifying that "This post belongs in 'CHARACTERS' or 'SITES'" or whatever.

Anybody know of any free hosts that allow this? Ideally the posts would be displayed on the site in chronological format, but I could click on "Sites" and then go to that section.

Even better would be one that allows the sub-sections to be sorted by title, but I might be asking too much then.

I am sure movabletype can do this, but I am not competent enough to program this all.

 

[reason]

I've used blogs a bit for projects like my short-lived "world building journal" but mainly as a way to receive feedback from the online community, and to generate ideas, and so on.

If I were to do such a thing for a campaign resource page, I'd need a host that allows me to sort posts by category-- for example, by writing a post, and signifying that "This post belongs in 'CHARACTERS' or 'SITES'" or whatever.

Anybody know of any free hosts that allow this? Ideally the posts would be displayed on the site in chronological format, but I could click on "Sites" and then go to that section.

Even better would be one that allows the sub-sections to be sorted by title, but I might be asking too much then.

I am sure movabletype can do this, but I am not competent enough to program this all.

Yes, MT does it - that's basically how I'm working Principia Infecta. There are plenty of alternatives to actually coding it yourself though. Typepad (http://www.typepad.com) is the hosted MT service, but I don't know if they yet support subcategories/subsections within top level categories. Worth investigating, though.

As someone else mentioned, LiveJournal is an option (not sure if they do hierarchical subcategories either...)

Reason

 

[IronWolf]

Maybe it's just me, but I fail to see how a BLOG is any different from a personal homepage. You could publish your stories with a personal website just as easily as a blog.

I think the biggest difference is ease of use for a blog. Simply type your thoughts in, click submit and boom! your blog is updated, no links to fix or add and no files to upload. Just type, click submit and you're done.

A personal homepage can allow one to post their running thoughts, just a little more work involved as opposed to the click of a button and you are done.

 

[synecdoche]

Yes, MT does it - that's basically how I'm working Principia Infecta. There are plenty of alternatives to actually coding it yourself though. Typepad (http://www.typepad.com) is the hosted MT service, but I don't know if they yet support subcategories/subsections within top level categories. Worth investigating, though.

As someone else mentioned, LiveJournal is an option (not sure if they do hierarchical subcategories either...)

Reason

I have a LiveJournal and unfortunately it doesn't do the hierarchical subcategories. Typepad would be great, but is not in my budget at the moment. I already have my own domain and such (though it expires soon and I don't think I'll be renewing it), and hosting there would be ideal, but, yeah, I am awful when it comes to doing programming and such.

I'll keep looking, I guess.

 

[reason]

I think the biggest difference is ease of use for a blog. Simply type your thoughts in, click submit and boom! your blog is updated, no links to fix or add and no files to upload. Just type, click submit and you're done.

A personal homepage can allow one to post their running thoughts, just a little more work involved as opposed to the click of a button and you are done.

More than just a little - there's no way I could find the time to build Principia Infecta without something like MovableType, and I'm a technologist who has written content management systems in the past. The whole underlying rationale of blog software is that it makes this process of self-publishing cheap in terms of overall resources. I can't be the only person out there with a bunch of ideas that I never had the time to publish until now. The click-boom effect is greatly underestimated by many folks...

That's not even thinking about the mutual reinforcement and community effect of RSS, trackback style linking, comments, etc, etc, not that I go in for half of that

Reason

 

[HellHound]

I've finally started using my blog for exactly this - not to publish, but just to put material up as I work on it, refine it, and so on. Because a lot of my (gaming) friends have me on their friends list @ livejournal, I get some feedback and, to be quite honest, blogging is becoming a strong marketing tool, so I'm hoping to build some hype for my work this way also.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'm using a LiveJournal Community for my worldbuilding efforts. While Urbis has its own website - which remains the main focus, since it is easier to read and to structure - I use the community to comment on the process of worldbuilding - the "Designer's Notes", if you so will - as well as notify other people about updates.

I'm also hoping to use it as a general "discussion board" for the setting - anyone can post there, even people who have no LiveJournal account - but so far only few people have used this feature.

(So don't be shy! )

 

[Mystery Man]

I have a LiveJournal and unfortunately it doesn't do the hierarchical subcategories. Typepad would be great, but is not in my budget at the moment. I already have my own domain and such (though it expires soon and I don't think I'll be renewing it), and hosting there would be ideal, but, yeah, I am awful when it comes to doing programming and such.

I'll keep looking, I guess.

One really nice feature with Typepad is the stats and trackbacks page. I can see how many hits per day and where they're from. I average about 50-50 with hits from my sig links, and searches on the web. It's funny sometimes to see what people put in their web searches and how it lead them to me.

And yes reason, moveable type rocks!