[flavoral]

I posted about 6 Blogs so far, and I had mixed feelings about it.

It's a nice feature where you can directly find Interesting Topics to read about, but I also noticed a couple of problems which I will be listed below:

Some if not most are probably already known, but here we go just in case.

• No notification nor PM to know if my Blog has been accepted or rejected.
  For the first few Blogs, I had to actively check the Blogs.php page to see if my Blog was approved or rejected. For one Blog I didn't even realize it was approved till some user randomly linked it in the convo. I didn't even get a PM from Stanley for the 100-1000 bytes Blog Bonus you get.
  
  


• No Notifications when someone replies to your Blog.
  The same thing, I never got a notification that someone commented on any of my Blogs. I have to frequently check all the Blogs every couple of days to see if someone commented on them.
  
  


• Infinite scroll down due to all Blogs being listed on the side rather than only an X number of recent Blogs.
  
  


• Blogs Profile.
  Not a problem, but more of an important feature that needs to be done imo. Similar to a Vendor/Marketplace Profile, it will be easier if when we click on a user's profile from a Blog, it redirects to a dedicated page with all Blogs written by that profile.
  
  


• No search option.
  If I want to go back and search for a specific blog, there's no feature to search for a keyword, I will have to go check every single Blogs page till i find it.
  
  


• Can't Reactions/Quick Love/Like Blogs
  It would nice to be able to QuickLove or have different reactions to choose from to react to a certain blog.
  
  


• Not being able to edit a Blog.
  You can't edit a blog once submitted, which makes it hard to update a blog with certain information that is outdated or something. It would be nice to be able to at least edit a Blog, and submit the edit for approval.
  
  

Bleh

[Xerotic]

You can already easily view blogs for a certain member.



Just filter to show them on their profile.

[flavoral]

You can already easily view blogs for a certain member.



Just filter to show them on their profile.

Would've been nicer if it was within the Blogs page, but that works too. There goes one problem.

[Zero]

Is it only me or whenever I view a blog the profile pictures of my notifications are broken?


flavoral For the blog edit option I would also add comment edit.
Sometimes users make small mistakes and should be able to edit.

[Xerotic]

- Width for the blog section should be the same as threads instead of being squashed. Blog posts look claustrophobic. Make the content area wider.

You must hate sites like Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and generally every single other site on the Internet... because blogs are wider still than all of them. HF just happens to have an exceptionally wide view (threads especially) compared to almost every site on the web.

[Omniscient]

Blog system under review for some improvements.

[Utility]

• Blogs should allowed post editing
  


• You should be allowed to just post them whenever with no moderation on acceptance
  


• The Blog award should be changed to something to highlight blogs not ones that are just accepted, as you can just whip together a quick guide on something mundane and have an approved blog easily
  


• Blogs should have more accessibility to the newer members and those that may not even know it's a feature.  From my suggestions post a few people didn't even know it was a feature.
  


• I believe the way you handle "comments" should be elaborated more.  As it stands it's just a little sub section below the blog, encourage people to engage in discussion, rate and reply to other blogs with their own.  Have a feature to reply to a blog with another blog.  In hindsight you're just making another section for the forum by creating a sub forum but having the community first in regards to blogs is more important than the blogs themselves.  If a person is offering valid advice through blogs free or maybe someone is just posting their thoughts and they have a good idea on something and the OP doesn't know it there should be something to highlight these things and maybe have an award to supplement that.
  

[Omniscient]

Blogs should allowed post editing

No. I want the Blogs to have higher standards. It's also why we require moderation.

Blogs should have more accessibility to the newer members and those that may not even know it's a feature.

That's still in the works.

[Xerotic]

Would've been nicer if it was within the Blogs page, but that works too. There goes one problem.

The functionality has always existed BTW... but I don't think it's linked anywhere.

https://hackforums.net/blog.php?action=u...id=3459543 Those are your blogs
https://hackforums.net/blog.php?action=u...id=2774521 Those are James

Do those links work for you? They shouldn't be permissioned blocked at all.

[flavoral]

The functionality has always existed BTW... but I don't think it's linked anywhere.

https://hackforums.net/blog.php?action=u...id=3459543 Those are your blogs
https://hackforums.net/blog.php?action=u...id=2774521 Those are James

Do those links work for you? They shouldn't be permissioned blocked at all.

Yep, both work fine for me.

Screenshot of James page: Spoiler (Click to View)
Screenshot of my page: Spoiler (Click to View)


Maybe we can have it as a button at the top right of each blog?

[flavoral]

I think it would go well with a bit of information about the author at the top of the sidebar on each blog

the only place I can see that happen is having an "author profile card" section above the "Recent Blogs" in the sidebar.

[flavoral]

Yes, that is likely the problem. I just haven't implemented my strategy for new members to earn the bytes needed just yet. I also think if choosing between a 6-month/perm l33t with crypto or 2500 bytes for 30/60 days, they are just choosing to do the longer term with crypto.

Quoting you here as it's a suggestion related to this thread too.

Why not try offer 30/60 days L33T upgrades for writing X number of Approved Blogs?

Personally, other than the award, the 100-1000 Bytes rewards aren't really a incentive to post Blogs specifically for me tbh, but it might actually be a good incentive for new members.
They get to share and add value to the forum by posting Blogs which helps the forum, and in return, they get the chance to earn a "free" temp upgrade by being a contributor.

[Omniscient]

Quoting you here as it's a suggestion related to this thread too.

Why not try offer 30/60 days L33T upgrades for writing X number of Approved Blogs?

Personally, other than the award, the 100-1000 Bytes rewards aren't really a incentive to post Blogs specifically for me tbh, but it might actually be a good incentive for new members.
They get to share and add value to the forum by posting Blogs which helps the forum, and in return, they get the chance to earn a "free" temp upgrade by being a contributor.

Potentially. But it's just another thing to confuse new members with. And I just don't see it being a real draw for a new member to create a blog post which may or may not get approved.

[flavoral]

Potentially. But it's just another thing to confuse new members with. And I just don't see it being a real draw for a new member to create a blog post which may or may not get approved.

It's just another option for them that they can use. Blogs system is there, so why not just remind new users that "Hey, we have Blogs, and if you're interested in sharing good content, you might be able to earn Bytes or even an upgrade".

I don't know the % rate of rejected Blogs and if the rejected ones are just LQ Blogs/Copy Pasted content, or if there are other factors to rejecting a Blog. However, the way I see it is, if the user is submitting spam/LQ content, then they would've most likely posted LQ replies on general thread and they get a warning or a Ban. This is more to push the ones who might be interested in sharing good content, and earn something in return.

Posting Guides or Tutorials as normal don't generally get many replies sadly compared to Lounge/Casual Discussion thread, which for a new potential HQ user could be demotivating as they will be like "why should i bother posting a guide which nobody will bother reading while i could just shitpost in lounge", but if they post blogs they're at least getting something back to keep them around and hopefully stay to be a long term active member.

The thing I hope to at least get improved in Blogs (which idk if it was added since i posted this thread) is receiving a Notification or PM if my Blog get rejected with a possible reason, it could even be canned reasons like "Low Quality", "Not Blog Worthy", "Too short", "Copy pasted", etc...

[Omniscient]

My issue is that the blog system has to undergo a redesign first.