Blog
Guild
Archives
Contact

Mark Johnson's occasional & opinionated podcast about family strategy boardgames

Friday, May 14, 2010

Should I start a BGG guild?

The flurry of good comments & discussion following the recent podcast about boardgame theming was split between those posted right here on the website, and others on a Boardgamegeek thread. Though that's fine, it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to facilitate them more on one location than the other. And though I'd really prefer to have the comments archived here, with the podcast itself, I recognize that BGG offers some advantages. It's easier to include links and other boardgame information through BGG's forum posting interface, easier to subscribe to the comments, and there's an interactive user community over there while this is a blog (more geared toward one-way communication).

If there's going to be some good discussions relating to BGTG over on BGG, then maybe it makes sense to finally create a guild for the podcast. I'd resisted that initially because I didn't see the point, but I'm starting to cave. What do you think? I guess there's no downside. My usual "announcement" posts for new episodes would continue to exist outside of the guild, in BGG's podcast forum which sometimes makes it onto the BGG front page due to new-ness or activity. These are the posts that will probably generate the most interesting discussion, and those I can crosslink to the blog. (I'm sometimes doing this already.) I'm not sure what, if anything, would then go into the guild

-Mark

7 Comments:

Blogger Iain said...

I'd just keep this blog. It's better to concentrate all the discussion in as few places as possible.

2:08 PM  
Blogger Chris B said...

I agree as well, had the 'poll' been on your blog post, then we would have had that discussion on your blog entry. Well at least some of them would have.

2:52 PM  
Blogger Mark Johnson said...

But that's just it--I can't put a poll over here like I can on BGG. (Actually, I'm sure it's possible to put up a poll here, but I don't know how to do it. BGG makes it so easy.)

3:04 PM  
Blogger Iain said...

First entry when I googled for: poll blogger.

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42077

3:11 PM  
Blogger Mark Johnson said...

Case in point: I don't have the Layout tab that is shown on that help page. Because I'm hosting the website somewhere besides Google's own webspace? Who knows? Besides, that would post a poll for the blog itself, not one for the particular episode.

I think the reality is that there will continue to be comments about the episodes both here on the blog, and in forum replies on BGG. As long as I crosslink between them, that should work fine.

I'm still not sure about the value of a guild, though.

3:17 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Honestly, my experience is that I have too many places to post stuff and I miss some of them. I'm considering slimming down - not expanding. I think my Twitter feed/Facebook page (which are connected) and the Guild will probably be it.

10:15 PM  
Blogger Justus said...

I think if you want extended back and forth, then the guild would be the best spot, though like others I do find it conceptually inelegant. But since most (all?) of your audience are BGG addicts, it seems to makes sense to go there, I'd definitely catch the announcements and discussions much earlier if I was subscribed to a guild.

5:18 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home