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I am a bit in disagreement. Answer the question briefly, but if you go into articulate detail in your blog, keep the link there too. I mean, if say, I spent a day drafting an article on my blog, its my work. I wan't it to stick together with my other articles, becuase that too is my work. Posting it on dakka isn't my webspace, so I can't run away with it either and make my entire blog here....

That being said, a straight link to a blog is annoying. The question should be answered, along with a tag line of go to X for more information.

The other thing to consider is you are likning your content to a more solid identity, and advertising your own skill/services to others in your area--assuming of course content is relevant and not simply a wall of whining.

Byte wrote:

NAVARRO wrote:WOW, never imagined that people had such distorted negative views on blogs and who runs them... before I go any further into dropping my crapy opinions about blogs, religion, bars, vanity fairs and how the universe will crumble to the blogs I will post here a link:

I just got into blogs 10 days ago and I posted this yesterday on dakka... please do let me know if you consider my post on dakka offending...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/377728.page

Don't be shy and shoot away your justice please.. because my next post here will not be gunshy...

At least your post had some content and not just a link.

Yeah I agree. A bit of text, some photos, its like a teaser trailer. Depending on how much you plan to put updates on dakka, I might prefer to see it in just plain old painting and modeling. I mean your work is great Navarro but are you going to be putting up a blog of your work, or an advertisement to a blog of your work?

Personal to me "P&M blogs" is for people putting blogs on Dakka, not directions to finding a blog. "Painting and modeling tutorials" is for posting actual l tutorials, not directions to finding a tutorials.

At the end of the day it's a fine line though.

Incidentally, you can read about my feelings on this in my blog

But yeah, posting with just blogs is incredibly annoying.

You know what really grinds my gears..... TROLLS WHO TROLL OTHER TROLLS

Hulksmash wrote:Battle Reports are about the only thing I think this is ok for. That's because of the work for the uploading of the pictures and such. P&M is different since you want it to be ongoing it's actually better to post on here. However on any other subject I'd say blog links aren't appropriate.

IMHO Anyone who uses this site (or any other site) so that they can direct an audience is to their own site in this simple fashion is just plain wrong. I am now starting to get offended by those whom I feel that they are piggybacking off years of others people's work so that they can get exposure. To me this is being lazy.

IF you want to do it right, you post the article in question on a site and then reference your site, blog or otherwise. The article in question does not have to be complete, but it does need to have a start for the article, the bulk of the article, and an ending to the article.

In that way it helps promote the site in question and your own.

^^^^^

This.

exactly my point.

Portugal Jones wrote:Yeah, I agree. I wrote an article about it here.

Am i the only one that noticed this and laughed?

As far as the topic i would have to agree with the majority. I understand you want everyone to read your blog, but by just posting a link on a forum makes you look lazy to most people and it's going to have the opposite effect that you want.

I agree with this competely "Come read it on my blog"
Yes I am going to your blog! It has so much interesting content? What would it contain oh wait its a virus. F
Don't believe me last time I got onto dakkadakka i went into a link then all of sudden my computer says "ERROR ERROR SPYWARE DETECTED SHUTINGDOWN!"
D:
But that happened like 5 months ago and that was a spammer..... I hate bots....
So much.

IF you have to make a blog please do not share it with dakknauts they will intentionally troll you till you rage quit your own blog site. Blogging is reserved for teenagers.

I think we should have blogs on DakkaDakka that link from the forums to the DakkaDakka blogs.

WarOne wrote:I think we should have blogs on DakkaDakka that link from the forums to the DakkaDakka blogs.

lol. I see what you did there.

So here is my view on this and it disturbs me a bit the way some of the posters here portray bloggers in general...

So instead of picking up the posts and quote them one by one that would be annoying I will just post my experience and view and how it diverges from the people pissed with blog links.

1- Many do seem to think that people who post a blog link are fishing for hits? Well I'm sure there are plenty who do that but hell there's a big substantial part of the blog communities and networks that are dedicated to the hobby in a altruistic way... many blogs are not even handled by one person alone but by a team of administrators ( much like dakka ) and many blogs out there do more in therms of galvanizing a community around the wargaming hobby than you can possibly imagine... Addressing blog owners has someone who is only looking for self promotion is like looking at dakka and say its only a self promotion tool for its administrators, and that my friends is as far from the whole picture as it can get.

2- The comparison that blogs are like pulpits and bloggers are preachers is way way WAY offline... Forgetting the unnecessary religious connotations introduced there... A blog is like a post on a forum because the blog is created inside a huge blog network and much like dakka members are not preachers spewing the gospel neither are bloggers... the followers are just like a user that decides to follow a topic more closely on dakka... I have seen individual blogs with more interaction than some forums.

3- The idea that people are annoying you because they haven't posted the "FULL ARTICLE" is kind of ridiculous to be honest... I can understand people wanting a better description to were the link goes but the way I see it if anyone takes the time to create a tutorial hobby related and posts a link to share with anyone the first think that comes to my mind is thank you sir for taking the time to share your works and not your a self promoting fella.

There is more to talk about but I don't want to bore you with a wall of txt and prefer to end it with my personal reply since I just started a blog...

I have a site for several years now and I hang out on forums, my site traffic is ok but even if it wasn't I don't care a single tiny bit about that, its not that what moves me, what pushes me is to try to inspire and help someone on this great hobby... why? because I was inspired by many anonymous folks and never had the chance to say thank you...
Neither the site structure ( its to heavy to update a site with minor wips and projects that are unfinished and even when they are finished its hard to keep up with updates) and neither the Forum structure ( very limited editing software and your posts are dispersed and lost in a couple weeks time) are the best option for someone like me that ATM is tight with free time.

On a blog I can update save things, take time editing, upload old projects without anyone calling me necromancer etc, its a middle ground software between the forum and site structure and to me its the best way to upload all my crap ( finished and unfinished, new and old ) in just one place very very fast... On the road its the best place to have your stuffs in one place.

As for the question of what I'm I promoting dakka or my blog? Heck my blog is just a tool I use to upload ALL my stuff and dakka a place were I only post some project teasers more directed to a selective audience... so I'm just trying to promote the hobby in general?

FOr example I just made a 15mm bunker, I know the core of people here are 28mm fans so I put a little image of the bunker and say its 15mm and if your into 15mm you maybe want to go extra mile and check the blog tut of how I built it...

Sorry for wall of text but what annoys me most is people looking down to someone who took the stupid amount of time ( you only know when you actually do one tut) to make a tutorial and just because its hiperlinked the guy gets to be a self promoting preacher with a shady agenda...

Sites, forums and blogs are Internet tools that you can use to spread the hobby I say use them and stop being so annoyed with which platform is used.

NAVARRO wrote:So here is my view on this and it disturbs me a bit the way some of the posters here portray bloggers in general...

So instead of picking up the posts and quote them one by one that would be annoying I will just post my experience and view and how it diverges from the people pissed with blog links.

1- Many do seem to think that people who post a blog link are fishing for hits? Well I'm sure there are plenty who do that but hell there's a big substantial part of the blog communities and networks that are dedicated to the hobby in a altruistic way... many blogs are not even handled by one person alone but by a team of administrators ( much like dakka ) and many blogs out there do more in therms of galvanizing a community around the wargaming hobby than you can possibly imagine... Addressing blog owners has someone who is only looking for self promotion is like looking at dakka and say its only a self promotion tool for its administrators, and that my friends is as far from the whole picture as it can get.

2- The comparison that blogs are like pulpits and bloggers are preachers is way way WAY offline... Forgetting the unnecessary religious connotations introduced there... A blog is like a post on a forum because the blog is created inside a huge blog network and much like dakka members are not preachers spewing the gospel neither are bloggers... the followers are just like a user that decides to follow a topic more closely on dakka... I have seen individual blogs with more interaction than some forums.

3- The idea that people are annoying you because they haven't posted the "FULL ARTICLE" is kind of ridiculous to be honest... I can understand people wanting a better description to were the link goes but the way I see it if anyone takes the time to create a tutorial hobby related and posts a link to share with anyone the first think that comes to my mind is thank you sir for taking the time to share your works and not your a self promoting fella.

There is more to talk about but I don't want to bore you with a wall of txt and prefer to end it with my personal reply since I just started a blog...

I have a site for several years now and I hang out on forums, my site traffic is ok but even if it wasn't I don't care a single tiny bit about that, its not that what moves me, what pushes me is to try to inspire and help someone on this great hobby... why? because I was inspired by many anonymous folks and never had the chance to say thank you...
Neither the site structure ( its to heavy to update a site with minor wips and projects that are unfinished and even when they are finished its hard to keep up with updates) and neither the Forum structure ( very limited editing software and your posts are dispersed and lost in a couple weeks time) are the best option for someone like me that ATM is tight with free time.

On a blog I can update save things, take time editing, upload old projects without anyone calling me necromancer etc, its a middle ground software between the forum and site structure and to me its the best way to upload all my crap ( finished and unfinished, new and old ) in just one place very very fast... On the road its the best place to have your stuffs in one place.

As for the question of what I'm I promoting dakka or my blog? Heck my blog is just a tool I use to upload ALL my stuff and dakka a place were I only post some project teasers more directed to a selective audience... so I'm just trying to promote the hobby in general?

FOr example I just made a 15mm bunker, I know the core of people here are 28mm fans so I put a little image of the bunker and say its 15mm and if your into 15mm you maybe want to go extra mile and check the blog tut of how I built it...

Sorry for wall of text but what annoys me most is people looking down to someone who took the stupid amount of time ( you only know when you actually do one tut) to make a tutorial and just because its hiperlinked the guy gets to be a self promoting preacher with a shady agenda...

Sites, forums and blogs are Internet tools that you can use to spread the hobby I say use them and stop being so annoyed with which platform is used.

Asherian Command wrote:

IF you have to make a blog please do not share it with dakknauts they will intentionally troll you till you rage quit your own blog site. Blogging is reserved for teenagers.

I wonder how many brain cells did you wasted by posting while drunk

As for the @byte

Facepalm is the bomb mate it says so much sometimes, to bad that it was not the case here...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bangbangboom wrote:
Personal to me "P&M blogs" is for people putting blogs on Dakka, not directions to finding a blog.

Why cant both be linked? That was my main idea... to create a blog with all the stuff uploaded and edited in one place and keep up a smaller version of it on the 3 forums I like the most. But hey since I see mods here and some members that I do like to hear opinions kind of stressed I can simply just let the blog die on dakka.

That leads me to a question... would you guys prefer no posts with no links?

Never imagined people would be so resistant to links sharing etc, in the days of social networks, forums, blogs, sites, twits etc its all a big agglomeration of links sharing and whats important its the content and not the platform that publishes something...

Why cant both be linked? That was my main idea... to create a blog with all the stuff uploaded and edited in one place and keep up a smaller version of it on the 3 forums I like the most.

I think that would be perfectly acceptable. To me this comment covers all of my concerns as well as contributing something to those main sites as well.

Blogging has it's place. It is an information tool to express an opinion/comment/idea to the masses in your own way. I've been pondering myself to place a site up for my articles on creating terrain and stripping models, because I believe that they are becoming a lost art in itself.

But I also have been pondering to just place the articles up here on Dakka and then make a site later to archive the articles. I'm not sure of this as well.

If I do make articles for two sites, one site will have a lean format and the other will have a full version.

Navarro- your stuff is awesome, though... for example, the buglands link in your sig (and the blog, too). That's like... a world of conversions. Or something. Well worth the click and it's unique what you're doing with the modelling and with the look of the website.

However, in many cases I really agree with the below:

Redbeard wrote:Yes, it's very annoying.

I think there's a distinct difference between a forum and a blog, and it's essentially the difference between a bar and pulpit.

The blogger is all about himself (or herself). It's "this is what I believe" and I shall preach to my followers (actual term). Any responses or rebuttals are at the whim of the blogger, and only the blogger is able to decide what the sermon shall be about. Some take email requests, but many do not.

The forum is like the local bar. The bartender (owner/moderator) can set rules and kick out the unruly, but other than that, we're all equals and we're conversing among ourselves. Topics can take detours as conversations are wont to do, and you're more likely to actually make a friend than you are at church.

Going into a bar to announce your latest sermon is rarely welcome. To paraphrase what others have said, if I wanted to hear a sermon, I'd go to church. I came to a bar because I value discussion on equal footing.

If someone is going to post something that is going to inspire debate, I would never comment on a blog... because of all that Redbeard describes. If they link to it on Dakka, generally I'm just going to reply in the thread on Dakka...

Personally I can't stand anyone who puts links instead of content as a thread of it's own. Would it really kill you to add 1 pic of what you are linking to so that I know if I care enough to click your link?

It pisses me off because I take the time to post my pics and tutorials the proper way. Wanna know something? I can copy and paste it onto the 5 other Warhammer forums I visit. So don't act like copying from your blog to a forum is some difficult task.

If you want to be part of the Dakka community, play within the gates of that community, don't put up signs for us to go somewhere else.

aerethan wrote:Personally I can't stand anyone who puts links instead of content as a thread of it's own. Would it really kill you to add 1 pic of what you are linking to so that I know if I care enough to click your link?

It pisses me off because I take the time to post my pics and tutorials the proper way. Wanna know something? I can copy and paste it onto the 5 other Warhammer forums I visit. So don't act like copying from your blog to a forum is some difficult task.

If you want to be part of the Dakka community, play within the gates of that community, don't put up signs for us to go somewhere else.

to you and all of the above:
cool. Now how did you find the dakka community? by a link someone posted? cool. then shut up. If it wasn't for the links TO dakka, I wouldn't have found it.... It goes both ways. And then as images go: not every hosting service lets you host images and embed them on another site, hence some links.....

poda_t wrote:cool. Now how did you find the dakka community? by a link someone posted?.

Nope.

poda_t wrote: cool. then shut up.

That seems uneccessary.

_________________________________________________________________

Unless the link is to something that can't be put in "forum" context like a video or something, I fully agree with the OP.

poda_t wrote:

aerethan wrote:Personally I can't stand anyone who puts links instead of content as a thread of it's own. Would it really kill you to add 1 pic of what you are linking to so that I know if I care enough to click your link?

It pisses me off because I take the time to post my pics and tutorials the proper way. Wanna know something? I can copy and paste it onto the 5 other Warhammer forums I visit. So don't act like copying from your blog to a forum is some difficult task.

If you want to be part of the Dakka community, play within the gates of that community, don't put up signs for us to go somewhere else.

to you and all of the above:
cool. Now how did you find the dakka community? by a link someone posted? cool. then shut up. If it wasn't for the links TO dakka, I wouldn't have found it.... It goes both ways. And then as images go: not every hosting service lets you host images and embed them on another site, hence some links.....

Word of mouth on other forums, not a link. So no, you are wrong. I shant shut up. And how hard is it to just fething use photobucket like every other decent person so that you can properly fething post pics.

The internet is not hard, there is no learning curve, get off the short bus.

I concur, it was un-nnecessary, but I just snapped. I am not going back to edit for the sake of thread continuity....

Dakkadakka is not THE community. If I contribute something on one forum, I feel cheap if I just copy-paste the same thing back and forth across multiple fora. If the topic has already been discussed to death, most people will just post a link. Whats the difference to posting a descriptionless link to my blog--which I don't have--and someone posting a decriptionless link to another thread on dakkadakka?

And you can sit and rant that people are stupid, but you cant change them. If they want to use one service or another, then thats what they do. I can actually one-up you. Why can't the posters in threads just host the fething images directly on dakka-dakka, so that all of their work is linked to their profile and relevant threads?

I can sit here and rant at how stupid everyone else is and rage at them but its not going to stop it from happening. It has the same utility as raging at GW from here.

Ouze wrote:Ok, this really grinds my gears - people who:

1.) Post a "tutorial" which consists solely of a link to their blog, or a PDF on their blog, or what have you, OR

2.) Make a posting which is simply a link to their blog ("yeah, I agree, I wrote an article about it here")

Man, if I wanted to read peoples blogs, I'd be reading peoples blogs. I want to read Dakka Dakka. If you want to shill for your blog, then at least repost the entire article\tutorial here, and include a link at the bottom saying I have more stuff like this on my blog - don't send me somewhere else in the hopes it was worth going, and then I can come back here to read the subsequent comments.

This bug anyone else here?

Your attitude here bugs me.

So you think I should spend the best part of a working week putting together a fully-formatted PDF tutorial, and then spend further time adjusting it to fit whatever forum so a lazy ingrate doesn't have to click on a link to read it? In terms of sheer time in laying it out, most of the tutorials I've done have taken about 7 or 8 hours to put together the PDF, not including photo setup time, or actual working. I'm not gonna do that repeatedly.

A lot of the better tutorials you'll read are by folks who are running commission businesses or are otherwise 'busy' with modelling work. If we put the tradeoff that we want a bit of traffic going through our site, so you get a well written article, so be it. A proportion of that traffic turns into business for folks like me (and the other artists who work through my site), which means we get to carry on working on models as professionals and that we can occasionally produce a bloody nice article for the masses. It's no worse than any modelling magazine having an advert in it. Be thankful we don't make you click through a dozen semi-pornographic popups, or require your email address so we can sell it to the spammers. Screw it, we're not actually obliged to attempt to teach you anything at all.

For the sake of argument and to some extent deliberate provocation, here is a link to the tutorials on my blog:
http://blog.winterdyne.co.uk/search/label/Tutorial

See winter I dont think most would have a problem with you posting a small teaser or intro with a link like the pred. One on your site. Most of us are talking about people just posting links with no other content as a response to a comment or thread.

I'm slightly annoyed by it by generally just ignore those posts. If it had worthwhile content then perhaps the post would include a preview of the information it claims the link goes to. If the info is good I'll go to the blog and see if it has any other decent articles. Other than that it's the equivalent of those crappy fliers people put on windscreens, a waste of everyone's time but the person who placed it more.

poda_t wrote:cool. Now how did you find the dakka community? by a link someone posted?

Ze Google, it works quite well sometimes. I was getting back into the game and decided there's probably a forum somewhere for it. Looking around at the few Google suggested this seemed the most decent. The others, well "derp" can be a decent description in this case.

Foda_Bett wrote:The thing I hate more than the blog links is people who put their pictures in spoiler tags, or people who take youtube videos of their models instead of pics.

All 3 of these this will make me back out of a thread.

Yes.

@RiTides glad you liked site and blog... I can understand that like you said " in some cases" there are bad blogs or bad hyperlink practices but its unfair and inaccurate to label the blogshpere like Redbeard did... to be honest its a really ugly distorted view on blogs in general.

As for commenting on blogs I have a opinion on that... Im going to be brutally honest here, I personally don't search for comments or hits or to self promoting myself, you see I do get many mails on my mailbox from people who see my sites and make me dozens of questions concerning modeling, and I try to reply to all of them... with a blog that has all my projects and tuts I can just direct them to explore it. This tool will save me considerable time both editing and help out people faster and better... Thats a big part why I joined the blog.

@winterdyne first nice blog there... You touched several pertinent points... Its really mind blowing the time it takes to put a tut up... for example the time I spent doing the bunker tut I would probably be able to built 2 bunkers ... and I can understand the trade off traffic/ biz / tuts and I respect that but theres also plenty of blogs that are completely altruistic that spend money with no return just for the sake of a community... So I applaud anyone who takes time to publish its secrets under a tutorial but I applaud, take my hat and do a happy dance when someone does that from its pockets just because he believes in a better hobby. And the blogs is full of those also and both do deserve the respect from the community.
So yes the OP stance does bug me too because he is willing to feel annoyed by a link and its forgetting what it took to create the content in it. Mind also its free content with no adds or porn so its really a low priority all the complaining towards the linkage.

winterdyne wrote:Your attitude here bugs me.

So you think I should spend the best part of a working week putting together a fully-formatted PDF tutorial, and then spend further time adjusting it to fit whatever forum so a lazy ingrate doesn't have to click on a link to read it? In terms of sheer time in laying it out, most of the tutorials I've done have taken about 7 or 8 hours to put together the PDF, not including photo setup time, or actual working. I'm not gonna do that repeatedly.

Before we go any further: it should be pointed out, this wasn't even directed at you. I read your excellent tutorial you wrote on waterslide decals from December. It was exactly the kind of content I'd like to see on Dakka. A model, even, of how to properly post a tutorial that makes you want to go to the blog. Indeed, I then went to your blog to see the rest of your stuff way back when you posted it, because the content you posted made me want to see it. My initial post here was really directed at the people whose "contribution" is literally just a link with nothing else. So I imagine your arguments are philosophical, rather then practical.

I get that bloggers will be pretty defensive about the fact they spend a lot of time working on their blogs. I know how long web development can take because I've done it for many years. However, you appear to be arguing that they then have the right to refuse to fully participate here other then with the link it takes to troll for pageviews, as a good effort takes more time then you care to bother with. Personally, if you spend 7 or 8 hours on a PDF, i'd think the 4 or 5 minutes it takes, at most, to upload 2 or 3 pictures to the gallery to put in your post and follow up with a link is a no-brainer. It would appear I'm not alone in wanting at least a preview of what blogger-link-droppers have to offer, and the feeling that they are actually interested in participating in this community, and not farming it like a crop for adsense revenue or commission sales or opportunites to twitbook or facetag or whatever the hell button spaghetti is popular to festoon blogs with these days.

winterdyne wrote:A lot of the better tutorials you'll read are by folks who are running commission businesses or are otherwise 'busy' with modelling work. If we put the tradeoff that we want a bit of traffic going through our site, so you get a well written article, so be it. A proportion of that traffic turns into business for folks like me (and the other artists who work through my site), which means we get to carry on working on models as professionals

Man, I don't care about any of that when I come on Dakka Dakka. I come to see the stuff people post on Dakka Dakka, not be redirected to potentially help support someone I don't know and likely don't care about's equivalent of a paper route. To put it a different way, if I go into Costco, I'd prefer that a guy from Target doesn't walk up to me in that shampoo aisle and tell me about what awesome shampoo the sell over at Target. Even if it's awesome shampoo, I came to Costco to buy stuff. The shampoo being an analogy for my attention, I guess.

winterdyne wrote:Screw it, we're not actually obliged to attempt to teach you anything at all.

Of course. You surely aren't. But, if the link-dropping-only-bloggers want to take the time to do so, they should at least try and make the minimal effort - minimal - to add some content here, on the site I actually came to visit, that would indicate whether or not I'll even care about what they posted. Because, as the vast majority of the last 2 pages shows, if they aren't doing so, they're wasting a lot of effort on something people generally are skipping over anyway.

I feel that if someone does a wonderful battle report it is ok to have a link to a blog site or even having a endorsement in your sig is fine, but dont start a thread and the only thing in it is a link to your blog.

I think the horse is dead...

I like twitbook.

Byte wrote:I think the horse is dead...

but watch, if i kick it, it still moves *punt* see? it moved! its still alive! *punt, punt punt*