Blogs - You don't need a hack to host blogs

[TbChampions]

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... ?????

[NWN]

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.

[Cap'n Steve]

Originally Posted by TbChampions

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

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

[PennylessZ28]

Originally Posted by Cyricx

Wow Brinnie, that's a pretty rude response...

Fasherman is on to a possibility. You could even use vbadvanced cmps to give them the home page with it pulling latest threads from only that forum, they can customize the blocks this way and that, could tie into a gallery section for their pictures, let them create a style for their homepage look etc.

The possibility is there for this to be a very feasible option Brinnie.. sometimes you just gotta pull your head out of...

.. Nope I'm not gonna say it. :surprised:

On a side note, Fasher - I think the reason people are lookin for hacks to tie them in, is most have already created their blogs and don't want to "recreate" them. It would work well for people just starting blogs, but those that already have one going don't want to waste what they've already got going.

Already been done.

[lordnex]

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

[Yorixz]

Originally Posted by libertate

Hmmm... This might come very handy!

Thank you for the suggestion FASherman!

How about "microblogs" (or micro-blog, or mblog, or ?blog)? Microblogs are short lived blogs that people abandon, or have a preset life length. For example a vacation trip blog (ends once the vacation is over), or a surgery blog, or a sporting season blog, contest blog etc.

Excellent!

Now for the next piece to get this to the next level...

How about.. some sort of a "request blog" form which would allow queueing of requests for "blog space" from users, with all the appropriate fields filled in.

Then the admins, super-mods, etc can just say yes/no through a single click and the forum is created, rights set, user notified, etc!

THAT would be awesome! Any takers? I'll even throw a crisp 10 after this one, and a bag of apples.

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.

[tgreer]

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.

[Kran]

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.

[lazytown]

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