It took 4 pages but someone finally asked what I've been wondering...

If a person's in a FORUM, why would he need a BLOG to spill his guts when he already has the FORUM at his disposal?

I honestly don't understand the appeal of blogs... ?????

Just get a Blog script make a HTML page & you have a blog for users quests ect to post on. It's not that hard. And the appeal of blogs is many sites allow anyone to post a blog without signing up to your forums to make one rant or rave.

I think it makes people feel important that they have an entire section dedicated to them.

Already been done.

What about the VB Journal? Isn't that a type of blog? Perhaps not as customizable but i think I'm with Bofo on my lack of blogging experience :D

I'm still hoping someone will do like you just suggested; wouldn't need to be big at all but having it automatisated is just a way better than having to make everything yourself; especially if you have a big forum that's a way too much work.

I've thought about using the forum system for blogs, similar to what has been suggested. However, I don't want the blogs to be "part of" the forum system. I don't want a "Blog" forum.

In fact, I'm looking to incorporate an "Opinion & Analysis" section of my site. I would have specific "Staff Writers". They would offer analysis and opinion on specific topics related to the site. There would be an index for this section, and it would work like a blog: the analysis, with a link to comments.

I could simply use a stand-alone blog system, like WordPress, except I do want some integration with the forum:

1) I want posting and display managed by vBulletin. A new blog entry or comment should work just like "New Thread" or "Quick Reply".

2) Staff Writers should be able to "assign" a blog to a certain Category. Thus, when users are looking at a Category, they will see the standard index of forums, plus, underneath, titles and short excerpts of the latest blogs "associated" with that forum category.

So in essence, a forum per Staff Writer would work, however, I think I'd have to modify it drastically. I wouldn't want these blog forums to display in the forum index... I think I'd have to set up some separate SQL tables to associate certain blog entries with certain forum categories... modify the templates... a lot of work. That's why I've searched for a "plugin", it would save me doing this work.

Brinne basically covered it but whatever. A blog is basically where 1 person for lack of a better term +++++s all the attention, where as a forum everyone is trying to get attention.

I like the idea, but there are a couple of problems. For one, administration on giving users permissions when they decide they want a blog. For this to be feasible, there would have to be an addon that automatically creates the forums for users (within the blog section) and gives the proper permissions. The other problem is the format. Don't blogs usually go on one page? Using the forum system, I would assume each entry would have to be a separate thread (to allow comments after each).

-vissa