RMweb Gold big jim Posted February 17, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 17, 2023 I only use mobile devices to get into RMWeb and I’ve just got the tabs on my devices set to ‘big Jim’s new content’ or ‘new content’ I don’t even know about ‘blogs’ until I saw a photo from @LMSfan72 network rail test train 3D print blog on the home page and stumbled upon them, even now I know it’s there I don’t visit that sub section at all apart from LMSfans blog when new posts are added To me the main part of the forum is a blog anyway, certainly my down by the tracks is my own personal blog 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
westerner Posted February 19, 2023 Share Posted February 19, 2023 What's a blog??????????????????????????????????????????? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted February 19, 2023 Share Posted February 19, 2023 1 hour ago, westerner said: What's a blog??????????????????????????????????????????? It's like a post, but apparently not everyone will read it. 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AY Mod Posted February 19, 2023 Moderators Share Posted February 19, 2023 2 hours ago, westerner said: What's a blog??????????????????????????????????????????? Here's one you may like Alan: 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenser Posted February 19, 2023 Share Posted February 19, 2023 On 17/02/2023 at 11:38, Michael Hodgson said: The concensus seems to be blog off. As someone who's put a fair amount of work into two blogs on here over about 15 years , this thread is definitely making me feel welcome... Not only do most posters seem to feel that the effort has been a complete waste of my time, there is a distinct implication that the content resulting from that effort is an unwelcome waste of their time. Since the question has arisen, two or three technical measures might help the blogs section. Firstly the popup advert is obliterating the centre top of the Blogs page , meaning that the most recent entries are crushed up on either side of it, making them very poorly visible. The same issue afflicts the "front page" of individual blogs - the most recent entries suffer in the same way. It is not possible to close this popup to restore easy legibility Secondly, at present one individual is effectively spamming the blogs. The edit facility resets the date of the posting to "now" when posting the edited entry unless you take the trouble to record the original date and backdate the post to it's original . Someone who shall be nameless is using this as a trick to repeatedly bump his existing blog posts to the top of the page - there are about 8 of them - thus hogging the limelight and pushing other bloggers who are posting new content out of his way. I have some sympathy with the posters who are restoring photos to posts and end up "posting immediately". Restoring the original date is a bit of a pain, and they are attempting to repair their content. But the deliberate bumping is gaming the system Thirdly , although I laboriously added links to a sorted list of postings in the sidebar, it seems the facility to make these a hyperlink had vanished last time I looked and tried to add a new entry, and it seemed like the prior hyperlinks had been stripped out . This also seems to be a recent change, and it doesn't help things either 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 7 minutes ago, Ravenser said: As someone who's put a fair amount of work into two blogs on here over about 15 years , this thread is definitely making me feel welcome... Not only do most posters seem to feel that the effort has been a complete waste of my time, there is a distinct implication that the content resulting from that effort is an unwelcome waste of their time. i wouldn’t say it’s a waste of everyone’s time, personally I just didn’t know the sub forum existed so have probably missed some quite good content over the years i do find ‘blogs’ a bit impersonal at times with the lack of interaction that a forum thread has but I can see the plus’ in that it also stops the likes of thread drift happening 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold SouthernRegionSteam Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 I'll admit, I've been a bit stunned by the animosity shown here towards blogs and had to step away and come back to it today through fear of saying something I regret! I do respect though that it's 'horses for courses' for most people. Blogs have always been the lesser-known part, but I am surprised that people haven't found the blog section at all; especially now that it turns up in VNC etc. Though, to be fair, I haven't started to use RMweb on mobile until the past week, so perhaps it's a little awkward if that's your main access point. What puzzles me most is that some people find it harder to locate things in a blog than in a topic! I suppose it depends if use has been made of the sidebar, and to what degree it has been organised and labelled. If you use the sidebar to categorise entries and try to give them meaningful names, I can't see how it would be harder to find something than in a topic. In fact, I feel the opposite way in that I'm frequently struggling to find content in layout topics because there's so much guff inbetween, and no chance of an index (when I had a layout topic many years ago, I built up an index on the first post of the topic, but it was a nightmare to keep up, and not convenient in the slightest - hence why I moved to blogs!). I'm not saying I don't like a bit of banter (I actually do!), but for layout topics where you just want to see the content, it can become a bit of a chore to keep scrolling and clicking until you find the next bit. I've said it elsewhere (though I think it was in the Gold area), that Blogs hit the spot for me because it allows you to decide exactly how you want to display your content, you can add header images, create a sidebar index, categorise content, and it keeps the comments separate (yet still part of) each entry. With the latter, it also means that because the comments have their own pagination, you can click to view previous/later comments and still have the main content of the entry above to refer back to. Like I said, 'horses for courses'! 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Holliday Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 13 hours ago, Ravenser said: Secondly, at present one individual is effectively spamming the blogs. The edit facility resets the date of the posting to "now" when posting the edited entry unless you take the trouble to record the original date and backdate the post to it's original . Someone who shall be nameless is using this as a trick to repeatedly bump his existing blog posts to the top of the page - there are about 8 of them - thus hogging the limelight and pushing other bloggers who are posting new content out of his way. I'm not sure that the probable culprit is actually aiming for world domination. I can't see how this is pushing other bloggers out of their way. I suspect that they are not sure how a blog works (I don't) and think that editing is the way to do it. This is counter-productive as each "new" entry appears identical at first sight to previous ones, and I would think that most readers will just ignore it completely, even if the latest entry might actually be interesting. I believe a bit of guidance and education from the RMweb team would help to resolve some of these issues. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold C126 Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 I assume also the culprit is unsure how the mechanism works, but when I have read a few of the entries, it is pleasant to be reminded of the 'youthful enthusiasm' of simply buying a new loco, etc. We were all young beginners once. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Clive Mortimore Posted February 20, 2023 Author RMweb Premium Share Posted February 20, 2023 As the OP of this thread I have read the contribution that people have made. I notice I am not alone and most people seem to have the same problem as me in finding them not as easy to follow as a thread appears to be. I did take the time over the weekend to look at a few blogs and I saw some lovely modelling. So thank you to those who do share their work via a blog. May be it is something this old bloke needs to learn how to get the best out of them. 4 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacathedrale Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 They are quite different and shine most when they are curated well as a content-management-system, like Mikkel's, rather than a stream-of-consciousness series of updates like one might see on a thread. 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold C126 Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 Just wanted to thank @Clive Mortimore for drawing to our notice the way blogs are not getting the attention they deserve. I had no idea. Perhaps 'blog authors can propose ways to make their writings more 'spectacular', and a way can be found of listing them in a more appealing method than simple chronological order. Perhaps allocating one's blog into a heading, but these to be chosen from an 'authority file' of 'Subject Headings'? This sounds like more work for Administrators, alas. My 'thinking cap' is on... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 (edited) For me it is the fact that any update to a blog entry leads to it springing back to the top of the new content and I see the same old titles and then find myself ignoring blogs in general. Every once in a while one of the better ones pop up and I take an interest, but my mind seems to ignore blogs in general as too often it is just an edit to an old blog popping up. I think the official term is known as bumping, perhaps @AY Mod is able to tweak something in the backend to stop the edits rising like cream which suppress the new blog entries. Edited February 20, 2023 by woodenhead slight grammatical change, I don't want new blog entries suppressed 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold SouthernRegionSteam Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 5 minutes ago, woodenhead said: For me it is the fact that any update to a blog entry leads to it springing back to the show of the new content and I see the same old titles and then find myself ignoring blogs in general. I might be wrong, but I think it may depend if the user actively enables 'immediately' instead of leaving it as the default edit option, which is the original date that the blog entry was published: Presumably, people see 'immediately' and think 'Oh, I must have to press that for it to update'? Again though, I'm not 100% sure on whether that's how it works. Any ideas @AY Mod? I don't want to try it unnecessarily! Blogs naturally appear in VNC when new comments are posted, which is entirely fair as that is the same of course for layout topics. For me, I view blog entries as "one and done" curated posts - in that you spend hours/days writing them up, and then you publish them as a finished piece, rather than coming back to add updates. Though again, I suspect that not everyone deals with them that way and it is entirely down to user preference! 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AY Mod Posted February 20, 2023 Moderators Share Posted February 20, 2023 6 minutes ago, SouthernRegionSteam said: Any ideas @AY Mod? I don't want to try it unnecessarily! Have a play Jamie and see what happens. As an experiment I've just built a short carousel showcasing some blogs on a very discriminatory basis 😀 which shows in the r/h column of the VNC - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/discover/1323/ (I don't think it'll show if a user has saved their own Activity Feed as a default). 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 @SouthernRegionSteam how you describe your blog entries sounds very much how I would expect a blog to operate, a more measured approach to posting than the interactive quick fire style of general content posting. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Dave John Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 20, 2023 I enjoy reading both threads and blogs, particularly those in which the writer is describing the way in which they actually made something. As a writer of two blogs I shall explain why I prefer the format over a thread. If I buy a non fiction book then I expect it to be divided into chapters and I expect the chapter headings to describe the content of the chapter. I have tried to write my blog in the same fashion. This I think is useful from both the point of view of the reader and the writer, particularly with regard to finding information from some time ago. When I write a blog I prepare using a text editor and then copy it across to rmweb. Once the blog is published I create a folder with the name of the blog and the text, photos and video go into that folder which is then stored locally in a folder full of blogs. I therefore have a correctly archived set of blogs, which has proved invaluable for the restoration of lost pictures. The whole thing may be of interest to others but it also provides me with a record of my modelling activity should I need to refer back for any reason. Following the loss of photos there have been some issues with dating material, causing the spam effect described above. The solution is simple. When I edit a blog to restore photos I go down to the bottom of the page. There is a box labelled "publish now" which is ticked by default. Untick it and hover over the box to the left of it; a calendar pops up which allows the editor to go back and republish on the original publishing date thus preserving the chronological order of the blog. I hope that clears the air a bit and to an extent encourages RMweb to allow writes to create either blogs or threads to suit their personal style. 6 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold C126 Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 As another excuse to apologise again for my restored entries a while ago dominating, I never made a note of the original publication dates, so, to my fury, have lost the 'history' of my model's construction. If only I had known... The best I could do was number the entries, and even this did not make them display in order. Sorry again. I fear it is going to happen again when I restore lost images to my albums. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold sjp23480 Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 I think the blogs are excellent, I particularly enjoyed the Brambles Boatyard series really interesting and effective. I suspect the challenge with getting "into" to the blogs, v's the forums, is that the content is less dynamic and moves a little slower. There is something gratifying about fast moving content that stimulates the eye/brain to keep returning for updates. We are lucky that RMWeb is such a dynamic environment that there is so much new material to review. Other, less dynamic forums are less engaging. I like the carousel @AY Mod built to showcase recent posts, this will help raise their profile, but fundamentally the blogs are not better or worse than anything else on RMWeb - just different. They have a different purpose to the forums - which I suspect we might be overusing in some cases? Steve 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 So I've just had a look at Bramble's Boatyard - it happened to be the first one I saw on Andy's new blog spinner. Immediately what I like is that the OP's text is at the top and each development is a new page, so I can follow the progress/idea development without having to go through everyone else's comments if I don't want to. Whereas in general content, you get a posting by the OP then several pages of chaff(which I contribute to, guilty as charged) before the OP posts the next update and so it goes on. It then becomes hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff. And it does feel very different, more like a bubbling stream than a river of commentary. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold SouthernRegionSteam Posted February 20, 2023 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 20, 2023 (edited) 29 minutes ago, AY Mod said: As an experiment I've just built a short carousel showcasing some blogs on a very discriminatory basis 😀 which shows in the r/h column of the VNC Although I might be a bit biased, I think it's a very positive step; and will showcase those blogs that use the format in a way that shows it at its best. (Though I dunno about that 'Bramble's Boatyard' blog...) 😂 28 minutes ago, Dave John said: The solution is simple. When I edit a blog to restore photos I go down to the bottom of the page. There is a box labelled "publish now" which is ticked by default. Untick it and hover over the box to the left of it; a calendar pops up which allows the editor to go back and republish on the original publishing date thus preserving the chronological order of the blog. As I expected then - that saves me from experimenting! Although for me, as shown in my screenshot above, the 'publish now' is 'immediately', and isn't ticked by default? 19 minutes ago, sjp23480 said: I particularly enjoyed the Brambles Boatyard series really interesting and effective. That's very kind of you! I am very glad that the hard work is appreciated, and most of all, that you're enjoying it and finding it interesting! 19 minutes ago, sjp23480 said: fundamentally the blogs are not better or worse than anything else on RMWeb - just different I think that's an excellent summary! 8 minutes ago, woodenhead said: Immediately what I like is that the OP's text is at the top and each development is a new page, so I can follow the progress/idea development without having to go through everyone else's comments if I don't want to. Another who is too kind, thank you. I think this is where the strength of the blog format lies, so long as you take the time to set it all up correctly, and approach it in a certain way. You may note that at times, the comments will automatically encourage me to generate new ideas. Whilst these are obviously explored a little in the comments, I then do my best to refer to them in the next blog post so that people who don't read the comments don't get thoroughly lost! Everyone's different, but I'm really glad that people are beginning to explore the blogs as a result of this thread as there is some fantastic content by many in there which deserves to be seen. Edited February 20, 2023 by SouthernRegionSteam Forgot the closing ')' 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenser Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 1 hour ago, SouthernRegionSteam said: I might be wrong, but I think it may depend if the user actively enables 'immediately' instead of leaving it as the default edit option, which is the original date that the blog entry was published: Presumably, people see 'immediately' and think 'Oh, I must have to press that for it to update'? Again though, I'm not 100% sure on whether that's how it works. Any ideas @AY Mod? I don't want to try it unnecessarily! Blogs naturally appear in VNC when new comments are posted, which is entirely fair as that is the same of course for layout topics. For me, I view blog entries as "one and done" curated posts - in that you spend hours/days writing them up, and then you publish them as a finished piece, rather than coming back to add updates. Though again, I suspect that not everyone deals with them that way and it is entirely down to user preference! As far as I can see , Publish Immediately is the default, and you have to laboriously check the original post date and manually restore it to avoid the issue I am having to go back and restore photos - as others are doing - but that's not something you can do for a whole blog in one hit. Hence the issue crops up 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenser Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 55 minutes ago, C126 said: As another excuse to apologise again for my restored entries a while ago dominating, I never made a note of the original publication dates, so, to my fury, have lost the 'history' of my model's construction. If only I had known... The best I could do was number the entries, and even this did not make them display in order. Sorry again. I fear it is going to happen again when I restore lost images to my albums. All you can do is open your blog in s second window, find the original post, and note the date , then manually set publish date on the revised edited entry before hiotting thev button to Publish. As I said, a bit laborious 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacathedrale Posted February 20, 2023 Share Posted February 20, 2023 10 minutes ago, Ravenser said: All you can do is open your blog in s second window, find the original post, and note the date , then manually set publish date on the revised edited entry before hiotting thev button to Publish. As I said, a bit laborious As author one of the two or three blogs I read, I listen to your opinion. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium MJI Posted February 21, 2023 RMweb Premium Share Posted February 21, 2023 Prefer forum threads, easier to read, the blogs are not easy to navigate Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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