User blog:Squazzil/A Blog about Blogs!

Hello fellow Terrarians,

I recently found a blog written by wikia staff member Sannse that I thought I would share with you.

http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Sannse/How_to_Write_the_Perfect_Blog

If you TL;DR it, below is a few key points of the blog:


 * Make sure your blog is related to the directly to the topic of the wikia. If you are writing a post about cats, Glee Wiki is not the right place for it (unless you are writing about cats in Glee!). For Community Central, the ideal is for blogs to be about Wikia, or a specific Wikia community.
 * Work on finding something new to say. Many topics have arguments that come up over and over again. For example, whether there should be a female Doctor in Doctor Who, or whether Han shot first. Regular users will be totally fed up with that topic, so you are unlikely to get a good reception.
 * Check your spelling and grammar! Even if you have written a great blog with interesting content, no one will recognise that if you don't present it well.
 * Aim for around 500 words. This is just a rule of thumb, but it's a good goal to aim for, whether your tendency is to make your blogs too short or too long! This blog is 760 words long. I always have a problem with keeping blogs concise!
 * Try to include images. Sometimes you can't, but it's worth trying to find something that looks good and matches your topic. You can often find good images on Flickr's Creative Commons section or the many, many sites on Wikipedia's list of public domain resources.
 * As with anything on Wikia, it's best to be generally positive. A blog about how you hate Legend of Zelda games and anyone who uses them is not going go down well with the Zelda community (or any other, really). That doesn't mean you can't criticize things related to a community, but do so politely, carefully, and with respect.

Another point that is expressed in this blog article is that blogs are generally more lengthly pieces. A couple of sentences asking for help or advice or for someone to play with is better suited to the forums, while fan stories, player made strategy guides etc. are suited to the blog space.

Blogs can be a great way to spark some community discussions/debates or to offer your gameplay guides to other players. Hopefully the above linked blog can help clarify how to make a great blog and perhaps inspire you guys to write one!