So, I have been playing with wordpress...

[Green1]

Decided before the holiday to throw up a blog. Topics are DnD topics, but I plan on veering off that subject a bit in some articles. Early beta, I now. I do know I have a bit still to learn about wordpress.

I never want to be "that guy" who throws up creative work no one wants to see cramming it down people's throats for some special snowflake primadonna points, but BU saw it and said I should link it on forums for advice.

One of the issues I am having is time management issues with some of these projects I do. It has been real concerning to me. I get a bit of time, basically binge work, then just get incredibly busy. Then, it gets put to the side. But, a blog should be just as easy as forum posts? No?

Anyways, I have 2 articles up and a third that is almost done. That one will be up probably this afternoon or tonight. But, tell me. Anyone done blogs? Anyone have any advice as to make it better or how they get the time to feed it?

https://frugaldm.wordpress.com/

[Buster's Uncle]

One reason I suggested doing a project thread here -besides promoting the blog, because every bit counts but this is a crap promotional venue- is that you can toss off (pun intended) a paragraph or two here and see if discussion doesn't give you enough ideas and do enough to crystalize you thinking to make expanding into an article easy.

-I have more, but I want to turn that Kentucky woman into Sister Miram's sister and post, first...

[ColdWizard]

As someone that doesn't follow blogs, the interesting blogs that I've stumbled across do not update regularly so I would visit sporadically, then not at all, culminating with forgetting about the blog entirely. I had a "wait... wasn't there some blog I was interested in before...?" moment after reading your post (it has a gap from April to late August, I lost interest probably in June). I suggest regular updates may help in maintaining an audience. Thus you may want to consider having a 'stockpile' of previously written material to put up when you're otherwise occupied.

On an aesthetic note, I tend to get eyestrain when reading anything other than dark text on light background and found your text to be a little light.

[Buster's Uncle]

I didn't put him up to saying that, Green...

[Unorthodox]

I've done a blog with varying success.  My updates last year/this year have been sporradic, and I need to find some automagic dohickies to cross with facebook. 

The thing that jumped out at me on yours is navigation.  Yeah, 2 posts now is not bad, but once you get more, that thing might be a bear to navigate. 

Not using categories, no sidebar, no page seperation. 

You're also going to want some plugins and widgets to filter the crap that will start pouring in.  I'll have to dig into mine to get specifics. 

[Unorthodox]

Akismet is the plugin I'm using that blocks 99% of the spam automagically. 

A heavily modified Atahualpa is the theme I'm running.  That theme is EXTREMELY customizable, and free.  Unfortunately, mine's an old version that can't be updated to the newer versions.  The newer versions are automagically phone friendly.  One of these days I'll overhaul the dern thing, but my patience for that has been limited. 

[Buster's Uncle]

And of course, content and consistency uber allies.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay; 1.) Siglink the blog.  It's possible that no one will ever click on it, but that's not the real point.  It's 2523 copies of your URL for the search engines to find.  Do same at every forum in the entire innerwebs you've ever posted - that's more copies at different sites = better than just more copies.  Better yet, if some of them aren't gaming forums.  When you post at a blog that requires an email to do so, there always seems to be an optional website field; use it - better than just another forum, because URL in maximally diverse sorts of sites.  You want that GoogleYahoo!Bing love.

Find out if the blog has any sort of keyword function.  Use it if you've got it, same reason.


-We didn't build this place entirely on content and hard work.  There was some modest SEO action, or it would have been two years longer before I logged in again at the Frog Pond and put 36,000+ copies of our URL out there at a stroke...  Spread your URL as far and wide and much as inhumanly possible.  Keyword and hashtag the living heck outta articles and promotions of articles on social media.  -That means spread the word on stupid Facebook, for one thing.  All this crap really, really works...

[Green1]

I will play with the themes a bit.

The point about how people view blogs is right.

The way I have always read blogs is though a forum sig, googling some topic then saying this is cool yet forgetting the blog, or of course just stumbling on one.

Plugins? I would think if it was hosted at wordpress, it would come with anti-spam tools. Well, I guess we know what "assume" means. lol.  I am all about free speech, but spam is not speech. I had enormous issues with spammers on an earlier project, but that was a wiki and I was not the one with root on that to add the addons. I don't want those issues.

Since I am not really too serious, I am just going to take my time and put up when the mood hits me. The object of this is mostly to get used to putting out some content with my current stressful work, family, and other obligations.

I saw the draft of the article I wrote, but not happy with it. The subject was one of the most dreaded PC character concepts to be in a game with: The Kender. If you are not familiar, it is a Dragon Lance race like halfilngs or hobbits. They are kleptomaniacs that steal from thier own party. But of course, it is "borrowing" to them and are "deeply offended" if you call them a thief. Back when the DL novels were a bit hotter, a lot of problem players gravitated to it and messed up a lot of games with bad behavior.

But after looking at the topic, I think it is a lot more nuanced than that. It is about the culture a table, or community ALLOWS to let games and communities of small friends break up because "this is just like that way" and letting stereotypes have more priority than the big rules which is keeping down drama, giving everyone responsibility for not being a [feminine washing]. Not any character concept in particular.

Thanks.

[Buster's Uncle]

So, on writing.

You write like you're tipsy when you're in good loquacious form, thus the teasing, but you have talent.  You tend to have some really valuable, deep insights in there among the insane conspiracy speculation and complete misunderstanding of what I said that you're replying to.  And you write with a lot of mastery of tone and mood - and with energy.  Honestly, there's no harm in composing first drafts blotto (it don't make for good copy, but job one is to write something and if demon liquor defeats the blank page staring at you, then booze up and riot) as long as you'll go back and do a sober pass to make it make sense and less inherently offensive.


I was in college for a very long time before finally choosing a major and graduating, I usually lived in the dorm, and I was an early computer adapter back in high school - this was the 80's.  I don't know how I would have made it through without a primitive word processor and a printer.  Now, this meant that d00dz on the floor would ask if they could use my system to type something, and I ended up doing a lot of informal composition tutoring, 'cause most college students can't write three consecutive paragraphs without getting stuck.

Luckily for them, not only can I write, not only do I enjoy teaching for some reason - I had a writing professor my first year of community college who taught me -finally- why the incompetents in high school taught us how to format outlines and insisted we turn in outlines with our papers.  (He didn't explain; he just made us turn in outlines BEFORE writing the papers.  Did anyone ever write the outline first in high school besides Mylochka?)  I frankly didn't need an outline to write from for years before Mr. Carrenen, but it turned out that the copy-generating phase DID go a lot faster with that beside me while I composed. [shrugs]  First and last time I wrote from an outline, and those people aren't competent to be 'teaching' English at high school level.

So Chad, for example, a freshman, reasonably sharp and not a total illiterate would type a paragraph or two, turn to me and ask "What now?"  [wince]  as sufficiently inexperienced writers do.  I started making him write outlines and WRITE FROM them.  None of that [poop]about meticulous formatting like those dumb [complaints or disagreeable women]in High School -they weren't very good teachers- I'd have him start jotting ideas down that went with whatever his topic, then do some cursory organizing and start writing.  He did a paragraph or two, said "What do I say now?" and I said "What's next on the list?"  Turns out that solved that problem.


In your case, I'd recommend terse rough-and-ready outlines for a different purpose; organizing your thoughts.  You, you ramble when you get on a verbose jag, and it can be hard to follow.  Lotta ideas, tending to jump around with weak transitions.  So type up a list of everything you want to say in an article about Kender and their bad habits and little slingshot weapons and how it all ties together with gaming culture (that last is good; you have a lot to say on gaming cultures of diverse kinds, and are worth reading on that) and then highlight lines/mnemonic phrases (all it usually takes) and move them around into a sensible order.  You're at a second draft stage on that one, but you still need to organize it, and it's pretty certain you'll come up with good ideas not included so far...

Do a little prep work on the thought-organizing, and I think you'll have no trouble with faster, better composition.

[Unorthodox]

Plugins? I would think if it was hosted at wordpress, it would come with anti-spam tools. Well, I guess we know what "assume" means. lol.  I am all about free speech, but spam is not speech. I had enormous issues with spammers on an earlier project, but that was a wiki and I was not the one with root on that to add the addons. I don't want those issues.

[/quote]

Mine is self-hosted and just using Wordpress to build, so I don't know what the WP mothership offers for things hosted there.  I get about 50 comments a day that all pretty much say the same nonsense and contain a link back to whatever the person is throwing out into the world, as BU says, spreading their own link as wide as possible.  Akismet moves virtually all of them automagically to the spam folder hell, and learns from the ones I have to kill manually. 

http://akismet.com/

[Buster's Uncle]

(I only comment on blogs when I have something to say about the subject, and spreading the URL is just a might-as-well since I'm posting thing.  I never land in the spam folder.)

[Green1]

I agree. Two passes. One tipsy, one sober. Sometimes (err.. a lot of times)  I will make simple mistakes.


Uno - Yeah, whoring out links without adding insight seems to be like the guys and gals at a poetry club pretending to share their [poopy] poetry but only really wanting to push their own [poopy] poetry. It kind of defeats the purpose of comments. But, oh well.

[Unorthodox]

Sample of the crap I get:

I do love the way you have framed this particular problem and it does supply me some fodder for consideration. However, through what precisely I have experienced, I really trust when other opinions pack on that men and women continue to be on issue and don’t start on a tirade regarding the news of the day. All the same, thank you for this excellent point and though I do not necessarily agree with it in totality, I value the point of view.

Comment on my tutorial link page.  Really?  I'm glad my link on how to make skulls is some comment on social issues?

And their names always link to somewhere selling something. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Consider posting what you already have on the Kender so we can rip it to shreds.    We're not really the audience anyway, but everyone here has D&Ded at least a little, I bet, and I think we would be helpful.