{"id":3034,"date":"2009-06-21T17:48:36","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T00:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikoto.wordpress.com\/?p=3034"},"modified":"2009-06-21T17:48:36","modified_gmt":"2009-06-22T00:48:36","slug":"once-in-a-blue-moon-metablogging-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/2009\/06\/once-in-a-blue-moon-metablogging-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Once in a blue moon metablogging thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Recently, I've been running out of random pictures to serve as post headers. I guess I'd better hop on over to some imageboards and scrounge up a few more.<\/p><\/div>\n

Because I don’t often metablog, yet often have random metablogging thoughts floating around in my mind as I wander throughout the aniblogosphere, I’ve decided to collect up all of these broken threads and mash them together into one post.<\/p>\n

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So random thought number one is on team blogging<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Honestly, the only kind of post from a team blog that interests me (and this isn’t to say that it’s the best of the worst – it really does interest me) is when a team collaborates on a single post, be it episodic or editorial. \u00a0Team posts are like two blogs smashed into one – I don’t have to click a link to see another person’s views since they’re on the same page. \u00a0They’re also like the comments section and the post mixed together. \u00a0There’s a healthy debate (well, sometimes) inside the post between two or more people just like a convo inside a comments section.<\/p>\n

But other than that, I’d rather see another blog than more ‘diverse’ posts on the same blog. \u00a0Hey, Say Anime!<\/a> is one of the largest active team blogs out there (in terms of members), but I don’t read it often because… well, there’s just too many posts. \u00a0It’s like taking my post output (which is arguably a shitload, considering I usually don’t do half<\/a>–assed<\/a> posts<\/a>) and shoving it through a 10x multiplier machine – ten semi-active\/active mainly-episodic blogs smashed up into one enormous monster of a blog.<\/p>\n

When a team blog gets to be more than three or four members large, it’s hard to remember who’s who (and who said what about which anime), especially if the members don’t have their own blogs (as in, OH!<\/a> had members whose dispositions were already well known from their own blogs, and those who didn’t have their own blogs\/had inactive blogs found room to develop their own blogging personalities). \u00a0On the other hand, a blog like Epic Win<\/a>, which has only two authors, almost forces you to see the authors’ different (or similar) personalities, since both 0rion (apparently, zeros look like “o”s) and Guff appear in most posts together.<\/p>\n

tl;dr team blogs need less people and\/or more team posts<\/p>\n

P.S.: Of course, I’m too new to aniblogging to know any other team blogs all that well (yukan, for one), and this is all based on my own experiences.<\/p>\n

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Random thought number two is on post output<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Naturally, a blog (leaving out news blogs like SanCon and ANN) that thrusts out ten posts a day isn’t very attractive, no matter how awesome each post may be.<\/p>\n

“Mikotoism” has an average of 1.52 posts\/day, which is a lot for a solo blogger. \u00a0Damn it, that’s why my e-peen is still so small!<\/span> I got bored of writing this post here yesterday and left it as a draft. \u00a0Since I totally forgot what I was going to say, let’s just end this point right here.<\/p>\n

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…but you don’t have to show them to everybody else!<\/p>\n

My third random thought is on figure blogs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I just don’t understand these. \u00a0I find absolutely no enjoyment in looking at pictures of plastic pantsu, or at posts with so many jpegs that my less-than-awesome computer threatens to explode.<\/p>\n

I think that one purpose of a blog is to strike up a conversation\/debate. \u00a0Though there may be some kind of fun in posting random shit that none of your readers care about, posting about something that receives insightful comments is ultimately one goal of a blogger. \u00a0Receiving comments like “cool,” “I wish I had that,” and “awsumz!11one” aren’t exactly what I’m talking about here… and that kind of comments is usually what I see on many figure blogs.<\/p>\n

The fatal flaw of figure blogs is that they can’t connect to readers very well (and thus, the redundant and pointless comments). \u00a0An episodic post relates to readers because… well, the episode has just come out, and people can read an episodic, understand what the blogger is talking about, and make an intelligent reply. \u00a0Editorials are equally… conversation-able, if not more so, as they aren’t limited by anime viewers’ short attention spans. \u00a0Yet posts on figures lack this ability to prompt comments. \u00a0Readers either have or don’t have the figure. \u00a0Those who do can go in-depth into how intricate the figure is… or whatever people talk about regarding figures. \u00a0Those who don’t… well, the most they can do is express their desire for the figure and\/or talk about something else that’s not directly related to the specific figure.<\/p>\n

My comment<\/a> on 7’s recent AnimeNEXT loot post (which is pretty much akin to a figure post in its ability to attract intelligent conversation) displays both of these. \u00a0“That sword is damn awesome” is equivalent to “awsum pantsu lolo” and “NOT ENOUGH LOOT” is equivalent to a discussion on something that’s not directly related to the specific loot.<\/p>\n

tl;dr figure blogs suck because they’re not interesting enough for the reader<\/p>\n

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I could not find a relevant picture.<\/p><\/div>\n

Random thought #4 pertains to blog names<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I myself have a very awesome blog with a very shitty blog name. \u00a0Although Mikoto Misaka is indeed the goddess of anime and you probably can’t persuade me otherwise unless you get down to the semantics of the word “goddess,” Mikotoism<\/em> is quite the crappy title for a blog. \u00a0A blog title is by nature a very hard thing to decide on<\/a>, unless you’ve an incredible urge to name your blog something and\/or the great Haruhi in the sky has shown you the way to true blog success.<\/p>\n

Among the 150 or so blogs that I randomly check every so often (and the hundreds more that I somehow get to, bookmark, and forget about for the next two months until some person links to one of them), there are only a few whose blog titles I truly respect, envy, and would turn gay for<\/span>: Epic Win, wat u say, Low on Hit Points, some others, and some of those that are totally in Japanese and would seem pretty cool if only I knew what they sounded like\/meant\/lolwut.<\/p>\n

Since there’s no real argument or anything to this specific point, I’m just going to dump out my thoughts on blog titles.<\/p>\n