To Blog or Not To Blog

[Alan]

That is the question!

Are you a blogger? Or do you want to become one?

What do you think of the idea that we could provide blogging and article space for our members to use, right here, on our site? I'd like to kick the idea around and see what the community thinks.

Personally, I like the idea of creating an article repository consisting of good, common sense, simple living oriented subjects, as well as providing a space for members to blog about their frugality, their hobbies and their creative ways of living their values. We have the means to do it here, but do we have the desire?

Let's discuss the pro's and con's and see if we can achieve a consensus!

[Sissy]

I personally would love to know about the people on this site. A blog seems to be a responsibility to me. I have tried twice and just don't seem able to keep it up on a regular basis. Besides, I doubt I could add anything any more helpful than most of the people on here. But that is just me.

I think the idea is pretty neat, tho.


ETA: my vote is yes

[bae]

Perhaps simply a thread discussing "how to become a blogger", and helping people get started with the tools and blog hosting enterprises that are already out there?

And then an index here people could add pointers to their blogs to?

I can imagine some people might be happy blogging, but not hosting their content/effort here, for a variety of reasons.

[Alan]

I can imagine some people might be happy blogging, but not hosting their content/effort here, for a variety of reasons.

That's a valid point, but to play devils advocate, I can also imagine some people may be quite pleased with the opportunity to do so.

[bae]

That's a valid point, but to play devils advocate, I can also imagine some people may be quite pleased with the opportunity to do so.

My particular issues would revolve around data integrity. If I was going to go to the trouble of writing stuff of any substance up, I'd like to know that a random server failure wasn't going to cause loss of my data, or that a random organization change wouldn't result in the data/service no longer being available.

[Alan]

My particular issues would revolve around data integrity. If I was going to go to the trouble of writing stuff of any substance up, I'd like to know that a random server failure wasn't going to cause loss of my data, or that a random organization change wouldn't result in the data/service no longer being available.

Good points! I can tell you that we are currently enjoying hourly backups, although I'm not sure where the backups reside at our hosting site. As for random organizational changes, I don't think that would be a problem. The good folks at NRM have tentatively approved this if that is the community's wish.

[Bastelmutti]

I use Facebook sort of as a mini-blog about some of my crafts and homemade food and household experiments, and I might be interested in doing the same on a blog here. What I would not want to do is blog much about my family or personal life. Would there be a selection process or would this be open to all members?

[Alan]

I use Facebook sort of as a mini-blog about some of my crafts and homemade food and household experiments, and I might be interested in doing the same on a blog here. What I would not want to do is blog much about my family or personal life. Would there be a selection process or would this be open to all members?

I guess that's one of the issues we'd need to work out. I can see it eventually being open to all members, although we may need to tie it to a member status, maybe something along the lines of 'Senior Members', or something similar.

[fidgiegirl]

I would like it, because I know all of you and so you are the built-in audience. I quite took to the "journal" thread idea, but then I kind of backed off because no one else was really doing it, just kind of starting new threads for each new thought.

For me, the issue with a blog is that then to get any readers I have to really build up the content, put the link all over the place, etc. and read tons of other blogs, etc. If it were here, it wouldn't feel like as much pressure. Sometimes I Just want to offer up some thoughts but not start a full-blown thread about it.

As far as the article repository, how would this be the same or different from the NRF Wiki?

[Alan]

As far as the article repository, how would this be the same or different from the NRF Wiki?

It wouldn't. It would just provide the opportunity for a distinctive brand. Articles on the Simple Living Forums as opposed to the same on NRM, although we could also share content if we wanted.

If we did this, we could set up the site as a full featured Content Management System, meaning we could promote articles or blog or forum posts to a front page and allow people to navigate to specific features, blogs, forums or other areas of interest from there.

We could also configure it in such a way that a blog post could generate a thread in an appropriate forum, or simply allow others to comment on the blog. Lots of possibilities.