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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

I'm Glad I'm Not An Eve Blogger Right Now

"Multiple, independent blogs calling themselves a community and using blogrolls and blog rings is really old fashioned. This once-popular method of trying to create a community of individual blogs seems so old-fashioned now, and I believe its' time is over."


Right now I'm glad I'm just someone who writes a lot about EVE Online and not an actual EVE blogger.  Maybe that standing will allow me to hide from the upcoming wars over those who wish to control the traffic and the hits so many pursue.

The current fight is over the status of evebloggers.com.  The popular aggregator of EVE blogs is down, according to some, because Marc Scaurus, acting at the behest of The Mittani, wishes to drive traffic to TheMittani.com.  Marc has posted that he has six people willing to take over the site, although I don't know how many of them were aware that the blog feed would break when Google finally killed Google Reader.  Well, I guess some people will believe anything as long as anti-Goon hatred is added to the mix.

I think the big issue is that Marc wants to hand both the reigns of evebloggers.com and the EVE Blog Pack to someone with a proven history of sticking with the blogging community.  Alexia Morgan, someone who wishes to become a leader, if not THE leader, doesn't like those conditions.  And I don't blame Alexia, because those conditions excluded Alexia from taking over those duties.

I did a quick background check of Alexia.  That name is associated with a blog, Punishment, that was very active from 4 January 2009 to 10 January 2010, went dark for 17 months until the last six posts were made between 19 May 2011 - 10 September 2011.  Alexia then took another year break from blogging before creating a new blog, Touring New Eden, in November 2012.

In November, Alexia came up with the idea that the EVE blogosphere needed to change.
"Back in.... gee, I don't know - a long time ago! I created www.evebloggers.com to bring together all the Eve Online bloggers under a common banner, so the Eve Online Bloggers Portal came into existence. It successfully aggregated blog posts by all active Eve Online bloggers, as well as podcasts, YouTube videos, and even related images on Flickr.

"It was so successful that it's still recognised today as a leading method of keeping up to date with Eve Online blogs.


"But that was SO 'last decade'.

"Eve blogging is changing, and that's been very obvious to me. It needs to change, it needs to evolve with these changing times we're living in."
Alexia's vision is to create a community site to host all the "blogs".
"All 'blogs', however, will be subdomains of the main community site, to promote the community. Once it's well established, I will probably allow integration of custom domains to be integrated into the community site, so that members can have www.mydomain.com while still using the communitysite.net features as their backend. But that will be a feature enabled down the road.

"It's a community site, and so it's going to have a very active presence which is likely to require various levels of support. There will be issues with new memberships, with profile and blog setups, or with various site functionality. All issues will need to be resolved in a timely manner. There will need to be moderators of the forums, even administrators of the site to help out with support issues."
And of course, Alexia thought about resistance from bloggers.
"I know there's going to be quite a few current bloggers who are so ingrained into being independent that they're not going to support this with their involvement, but I have to ask - if you really want a community that's going to take us into the next few years, why wouldn't you get involved in helping to build it?

"I can't do it alone, and I don't want to. I can't build a community by myself - that's not what a community is about. I need prominent Eve bloggers - all of them! - to get involved, to move away from their old-fashioned, independent blogs and set up a presence for themselves in this new community site."
The idea didn't get a lot of reaction and seemed to die at the end of November, and with it Alexia's posting.

Well, Alexia has the site up and running.  I don't have to worry about this because, since I'm not an EVE blogger, I couldn't participant even if I wanted to.  Which I don't.  I think anyone joining it for the purposes of blogging is making a poor long term decision.  The Eve blogosphere has seen hosting sites before go out of business overnight with no warning.  But I linked it anyway because I can always be wrong.  Besides, since I have no dog in this fight, I can just grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy the show.

15 comments:

  1. *puts Nosy Gamer into "Eve Blogs" list*

    Yep, Eve blogger ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did the same. Poor thing. He's like, "What are all this Eve Blogger swag?!?"

      Delete
  2. Community is not a solid expression. In the case of eve blogging community it is somewhat fluid. You don't have to create a community, there already is one.

    Maybe it doesn't work that close together as it could but the idea behind all this independent blogs is to have exactly what it is, independent sources of information.

    The idea to collect the blogs under one domain is good, but it isn't mandatory. Important is that a seeking reader has a source for where to find other blogs.

    For that purpose Evebloggers.com worked just fine. It could have used a lot improvement but it served its purpose. Maybe it will continue in some way. Or something new emerges. Everything will come and go over time.

    The positive side effect is that there are many inactive blogs on evebloggers.com and they will be gone too.
    Those active, will remain and somehow the bloggin community will stay in touch through various methods. Interesting to observe anyway.

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  3. Y'know, I'm thinkin' you're one o' them In'e'pen'ents.... your coat is kinda a brownish color... =]

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  4. *riverini* looks at BLOGspot.com domain... :)

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  5. I'm not an Eve blogger either.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think I agree with you Nosy. As much as I respect Alexia/Alan's previous efforts and EVEbloggers.com became an institution, I can see little difference between what he's trying to achieve with this new initiative and what he fears Marc is trying to do by "driving traffic to TheMittani.com".

    Gathering all the EVE blogs under one single "community" defeats the point as far as I'm concerned. I'm completely behind any initiative that encourages independent writers and helps to build their craft. Having collaborative "magazine" platforms like EN24 & TMC is a great thing for bloggers to aspire to if they want to.

    But trying to subvert a free and independent collection of grassroots bloggers into generating traffic for a single site is *not* the same as supporting the natural growth and cross-pollination of the community.

    It's an indistinct line, but an important one to consider.

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  7. If you look in the link that Alexia first propose this community site that there is a comment from me.

    I asked if we all put our blogs onto their site what happens if they go dark again? It never got an answer :(

    No one here can predict the future. There is every chance Alexia will quit again. Then what happens? This is not a slight against them, it applies to all of us. Anyone who says they 100% that they will still be here in 6 months is deluded. Nobody knows what thier situation will be then.

    So what happens then?

    Still awaiting the answer.

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    Replies
    1. He said that you will be able to archive your stuff and that you own it and people will own their work. O take that to mean the general idea is you can recover and move not.

      He did tell Cheradenine at Diaries of a Space Noon that he'd be irrelevant if he didn't move onto this community. I did not care for that reaction.

      As much as If like to be part of thus community I refuse to be owned by anyone, in game or out, especially in regards to my words. I write because O need to and enjoy it, not to play the.meta become anyone's tool or mouth piece or wear anyone's leash.

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    2. Indeed. I was wary of centralisation anyway but my rebellious soul couldn't take the threat of "join or die". (Tur, my coat is most definitely brown).

      That said, I've got time for Alexias writing and it's nothing personal.

      I like the blogging community as a sprawling web with a few light hubs. Not entirely sure what TMC has to do with it. Blogging is more about character and continuity than the more news based slant of TMC surely? Can't see the connection there.

      Delete
  8. Yes, but if.....

    - They have sextuplets
    - Thier freighter gets ganked
    - They get a new high profile promotion
    - They rage quit
    - They just get board of Eve
    - Or a thousand other reasons

    You will have to move your blog AGAIN.

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  9. You've been added to eveblogs.net. Congratulations :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. every one loved the game and if that game are available online then every one access it when ever they wants so that online gaming is really good....More Info

    ReplyDelete