This site needs blogs!

Well, I know this is considered a writing club...but I guess it can also be looked at as forum. I mean, after all, it does have all the features that a forum would have. I am apart of many active and very large communities online and I was just thinking, that this site would be cool if there was a blog section of some sort...where different members can have their own blogs. A lot of sites have this feature and it's organized by the first letter of your username, A blogs, B blogs, C blogs...and so forth. It would also attract more people...I've seen it happen. Maybe it should be taken into consideration.

Hey I have no idea what a blog is...but cool idea!

I've been looking into doing something like that; since I have unlimited subdomains with my new provider, every user could have:
[username].youngwriterssociety.com

I'm not sure how feasible it is at this time though. Even without adding the subdomain thing, giving everyone their own blog would require a lot of time and effort to get it running. But it is on my list of things to add in the future.

i dont quite understand what a blog is...

I think blogs could, if done correctly, be a good idea.

Blog is short for Weblog.

Definition -

A weblog, Web log or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage. Such a Web site would typically be accessible to any Internet user. The term "blog" came into common use as a way of avoiding confusion with the term server log.

Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs and corporations, and from one occasional author to having large communities of writers. Some are maintained by single authors, while others have multiple authors. Many weblogs enable visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive. The totality of weblogs or blog-related websites is usually called the blogosphere.

The format of weblogs varies, from simple bullet lists of hyperlinks, to article summaries with user-provided comments and ratings. Individual weblog entries are almost always date and time-stamped, with the newest post at the top of the page. Because links are so important to weblogs, most blogs have a way of archiving older entries and generating a static address for individual entries; this static link is referred to as a permalink. The latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries, are offered in weblogs in the RSS or Atom XML-format, to be read with a feed reader.

A weblog is often run through a content management system or CMS.


(Or other words, an online diary sort of thing. You think they could of just put that, but no)

I have my blog at LiveJournal, currently. You can get a blog at specific blog-sites, or at sites like this one, or you can buy your own domain and make it a blog and a blog only.

The majority of people who have blogs get them at sites like LiveJournal, DeadJournal, Xanga, Blogspot, or the like. I personally don't think I would use a blog provided here - except maybe as a 'mirror' for my LJ.

(A mirror would just be like a copy of something I've already written elsewhere.)

So yeah. Interesting idea, but you may want to research how popular it would be if/when you decide to go through with it.

I HATE Xanga! The best place for a blog is http://teenopendiary.com !!! I also hate http://myspace.com . But Teen Open Diary (TOD) is the best of them all. They also have Open Diary-- http://opendiary.com ...but there's a lot of old people on there like sixty-five and stuff who talk about their gardens and grandkids...

I have a livejournal and xanga. But I would really like a blog on here.. that'd be cool.

I have a livejournal, a xanga, a myownjournal, and a diaryland. Diaryland is my favorite cause it was my first (the link is in my signature). I've been there since October 2003 (though not the current account, that was my old one; csympathy).

http://livejournal.com/~burntmoon
http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=tessitore16

And, of course, there's much more. I have several d-land accounts... one that's devoted to writing (http://deewrite.diaryland.com), one for a character development, where I write as my character (http://kaida-.diaryland.com), and one that's very... sexual. And you don't get that link. I briefly had a NANOWRIMO diary (http://dreamer-dee.diaryland.com), but I stopped writing in that one after realizing I was never going to get my goal...

And that's probably more then you wanted to know...

But I'm cool with what I got. Nyah...

I've been looking into adding personal webpages, and it actually is possible. It would be your own customizable webpage, and you could keep a journal on it, highlight works of yours, or do whatever you want with it. However, it also costs money... lots of money. So it won't be added anytime soon.

Nate Said:

I've been looking into adding personal webpages, and it actually is possible. It would be your own customizable webpage, and you could keep a journal on it, highlight works of yours, or do whatever you want with it. However, it also costs money... lots of money. So it won't be added anytime soon.

Yeah, I totally understand. However, before you advance to that, you could always start out with something like that of http://christianguitar.org/forums . They didn't do anything special--just labeled one section, "Journals" and then they have them organized by that letter of the alphabet.
I don't think it would cost anything extra to do this, I mean, just to get it started to see how it works instead of investing in something you haven't tried yet.

C'mon, Nate! Aren't we worth the money?

Kidding.

Yeah, I need to update my journals..

http://www.xanga.com/Crysi
http://www.livejournal.com/~dr4g0n_3y35

Worth the money!? Pah!

What CarsandGuitars suggested is possible; that is a journals only forum. There is a mod out there that does that, but no one is able to leave comments on what you write. But if enough people want it, I'll put it in.

I think it's a cool idea.

*threatens everyone to set her dragons on them if they don't say they want the journal forum*

*Then realizes she hasn't built up the infamy of her dragons yet *

Good news! I found a program that will allow members to create their own blog through YWS!

The program is actually really good, especially since it costs nothing, and highly configurable (more so than a lot of other blog programs out there). There are a couple downsides to it:

1. It doesn't require any knowledge of html, but it certainly helps since the user interface for it is very clunky and definitely designed by an engineer.

2. It won't be linked to a simple address like http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/[username]. Instead, it'll be something like forum/blog.php?user=2&&blog=387 so your blog would really only be viewable by members of YWS.

Those two downsides, though, are quite small things and I think that I will go ahead and install the blog program. However, I'm going to hold off on installing it until Saturday or Sunday since I want to give people time to get used to the new look.

Anyhow, what does everyone think? To blog or not to blog?